This was an emotionally taxing weekend to say the least, for everyone involved in the RPI-Union weekend, coaches, players, and fans alike. That should extend as well to the referees involved and, by extension, the league itself.
These games should have been a marquee event for the ECAC the likes of which haven't been seen in some time. It is one thing for two nationally ranked teams to play each other - that happens every weekend in some other leagues, and occasionally in the ECAC as well. In the ECAC, however, that is practically always confined to a single game. This time, it was an entire weekend, played home-and-home, between a pair of teams who are developing a rivalry that is becoming just as intense as some of the storied rivalries around the oldest league in the nation.
But as is quickly becoming the norm - if it hadn't already been the norm for years - the referees ended up taking center stage, especially on Friday night, and it's a shame.
First, the obvious. The call on Friday night against C.J. Lee was ridiculous, and the video seems to show just how ridiculous it was. The reaction displayed by Seth Appert after the game was abnormal for anyone who's seen him weather a tough loss. He was angry, and the video really did make it a justifiable anger. Naturally, the league has not, and will not, commented on the egregious error.
I want to believe that the referees on Saturday night got the call right because O'Grady scored before the green light came on and they knew it. I fear they may have gotten it right for the wrong reasons. Video shows that Bob St. Lawrence and Eric Ernst got the call right. Marty O'Grady clearly put the puck into the net before the green light came on behind Keith Kincaid. But they should have had the means to double-check that without having to confer with each other and with their linesmen to essentially do a "best guess."
What concerns me the most, however, is the possibility that St. Lawrence and Ernst may have considered the ramifications of disallowing O'Grady's goal. There was already an atmosphere of anger at the Field House even before the game started thanks to the disallowed goal from Friday night. That only ratcheted up in the first period when an apparent goal by Scott Halpern was waved off because the net was off its moorings. Upon video review, the goal doesn't appear to move at all, though the puck did go in off a skate - that of Union's Nolan Julseth-White.
The disallowed Halpern goal definitely made the mood even worse in the Field House. Union's official Twitter feed, live tweeting the game, felt the palpable anger was sufficent to comment on: "RPI fans boo lustily - appears some resentment about last night still lingers." That was a bit of an understatement. Given the two previously disallowed goals and the fever pitch that any late power play, down by one, in a heated rivalry game that's also a special night (Black Saturday) is going to engender, to disallow O'Grady's goal, fairly or not, would have created a dangerous situation inside Houston Field House. That shouldn't have been part of the decision making process, but it's hard to see how it might not have been on the minds of the men making the decision. And it's not entirely fair to St. Lawrence and Ernst - even though they missed the call earlier in the game, they were put in a bad situation by poor decisions by the previous night's crew.
That would be the wrong reason for awarding a goal, even if it may be a prudent reason. But what if it was 0.3 seconds later when the puck had crossed the line, and they had the public safety consideration lurking in the back of their mind? Then they're getting the call wrong for the wrong reason. That's putting the referees in a no-win situation. But again, they were put in that position by the poor actions of others.
The results of this weekend should speed the league's inevitable mandate to have video replay technology at each arena in the ECAC for each game. All RPI needs, really, to have things solid, are cameras over each net. RPI TV already does a fantastic job of getting great angles on their replays - their coverage definitively showed that the Halpern goal should have counted, and that O'Grady's goal was scored before the light came on. The only potenital improvement might be a reverse-angle camera, but I don't know if they've got the equipment or manpower for that. They do a great job with what they've got.
So replay is the first step. The second step is that we're still dealing with referees that are so concerned with not being the ones who decide the games that they're the ones who decide the games. Many of them try to cover for past mistakes by making more calls - the "makeup" calls and the "even-up" calls. RPI ran into this at Harvard, when Daniel Moriarty was whistled late for a hook that took away a scoring chance, and then when the ensuing power play failed, the referees needed any excuse they could find to put Harvard on the power play. In the end it was Chase Polacek being whistled for a phantom interference call that Seth Appert, not usually one to argue penalties after the game, took issue with. But it was always going to happen, whether RPI scored on the Moriarty power play or not. We had a power play, so they had to have one, too. It wasn't a question of whether RPI was going to commit an egregious penalty, the referees would find something that was close enough. It happens all the time.
These "makeup" and "even-up" calls compound previous mistakes made by the referees. Nobody's perfect, but assuming that the referees are unbiased (and they almost certainly are), bad calls are going to go both ways, even at the highest levels. When referees decide to try and pay back the team that got screwed, it only gets worse.
If Paul Stewart wants to do his job right as supervisor of officials, he can start enforcing a league standard of what gets called and what doesn't. There's been a rash lately of RPI fans at the Field House complaining every time an Engineer player hits the ice, looking for a penalty. But it's hard to blame them, because there are referees out there who are making bad calls constantly. Some teams are adjusting their style of play to take advantage, and it's bad for the integrity of the game.
I'm the first person to defend the honor of the referee. They have a tough job - their goal is to skate off the ice after 60 or more minutes and have nobody jawing at them, nobody booing them, and nobody angry at them. The best thing they can hope for is to get a warm handshake from both coaches and a silent departure, because fans don't cheer referees, they only boo them. You've really got to love the game in order to be a referee. But there does come a point where there's got to be a basic level of competence on display, no matter who is on the ice. If you want answers, they're not going to come from the individual referees. It's going to come from Albany.
Sunday, November 14, 2010
Payback's A
A short commentary on tonight's game.
And then, of course... Marty O'Grady ties the game with 0.2 seconds remaining (video replay does in fact show that the puck is in the net before the green light comes on), but as heroic as his goal was, there was one man who rose above.
Nick Bailen: 1 goal, 2 assists - 4-8-12 on the year, one point off the team lead... as a defenseman.
And then, of course... Marty O'Grady ties the game with 0.2 seconds remaining (video replay does in fact show that the puck is in the net before the green light comes on), but as heroic as his goal was, there was one man who rose above.
Nick Bailen: 1 goal, 2 assists - 4-8-12 on the year, one point off the team lead... as a defenseman.
Friday, November 12, 2010
It's War
It's only November. It's only the second week of the league season.
But if you think this is going to be anything but a playoff atmosphere this weekend in Schenectady and Troy... you're kidding yourselves. The RPI-Union pairing was roundly mocked by RPI fans for 15 years when referred to as a "rivalry" by Union fans, and rightly so. There's no "rivalry" between a hammer and a nail. But in the last several years, Union has finally improved to the point of being a worthy opponent. That happened to coincide with the decline of the RPI program during the last decade. But now both teams are on the rise. Both are nationally ranked this weekend. The "rivalry" finally fits.
And, objectively, the rivalry with Union is probably bigger right now than the traditional rivalry with Clarkson, and it's for the same reason: RPI and Clarkson have not played together on a high level in some time.
We saw how evenly matched these teams are two weeks ago in Lake Placid - and like that confrontation, choosing winners is a fool's errand (and choosing a split the easy back door).
Who's gonna run this town tonight? Let's take this bull by the horns. Pump it up.
But if you think this is going to be anything but a playoff atmosphere this weekend in Schenectady and Troy... you're kidding yourselves. The RPI-Union pairing was roundly mocked by RPI fans for 15 years when referred to as a "rivalry" by Union fans, and rightly so. There's no "rivalry" between a hammer and a nail. But in the last several years, Union has finally improved to the point of being a worthy opponent. That happened to coincide with the decline of the RPI program during the last decade. But now both teams are on the rise. Both are nationally ranked this weekend. The "rivalry" finally fits.
And, objectively, the rivalry with Union is probably bigger right now than the traditional rivalry with Clarkson, and it's for the same reason: RPI and Clarkson have not played together on a high level in some time.
We saw how evenly matched these teams are two weeks ago in Lake Placid - and like that confrontation, choosing winners is a fool's errand (and choosing a split the easy back door).
Who's gonna run this town tonight? Let's take this bull by the horns. Pump it up.
Thursday, November 11, 2010
The Formula
We're in year nine of the ECAC's current playoff structure. Yes, time flies when you're having fun... unless you're RPI, and you haven't been having much fun in the last eight years at all. It's a crappy truth - in the last eight years, 12 different teams have reached the ECAC semifinals (including Vermont), and the Engineers were never one of them. Even Union made it to Albany last year (finally, they were the only ones other than RPI that hadn't been before the last year at the Times Union Center).
Additionally, the Engineers are one of only two teams out of the 13 that has never earned the first-round bye as one of the top four teams in the league. Quinnipiac is the only other one, and they've had three fewer opportunities.
So how does one get the bye? Let's take a look at the last eight seasons and find out just how many points a team needs to be in the running. The median and mode "magic number" is 25 points, with the mean coming in at 25.875, which we round up to 26. In five of the eight seasons, 25 points has been enough to earn a bye. The mean is somewhat skewed by outlier results in 2004 and 2005 - teams needed 28 and 29 points respectively in those years thanks to a lack of parity between the top and bottom of the league. That outlier ultimately cost the Engineers in 2004, the only season in which they reached 25 points in the last eight. They had 27 points that year to tie for 4th with Dartmouth, losing the tiebreaker (Dartmouth, of course, earned the bye with only 27 points, but it took 28 points to earn the bye straight up without going to a tiebreak).
So generally, we should expect that 25 points is, more than likely, going to be enough to earn the free pass through the first round. The trick is reaching that level.
Given that one would normally expect a team to play better at home, we should expect the Engineers to earn more points on average in a home weekend than on the road.
1) Average three points in every home weekend (5 x 3 = 15)
2) Average two points in every road weekend (5 x 2 = 10, 15+10 = 25)
3) Points scored against the travel partner are gravy - that is, they give some leeway with the hard and fast 3/2 scheme.
Let's apply this to last season.
Last Season (Needed points): Points gained (Cumulative difference)
Yale/Brown (3): 4 (+1)
at Clarkson/St. Lawrence (2) : 2 (+1)
Cornell/Colgate (3): 0 (-2)
Union (0): 0 (-2)
at Quinnipiac/Princeton (2): 4 (0)
at Union (0): 0 (0)
Dartmouth/Harvard (3): 3 (0)
at Brown/Yale (2): 2 (0)
St. Lawrence/Clarkson (3): 3 (0)
at Harvard/Dartmouth (2): 2 (0)
Quinnipiac/Princeton (3): 2 (-1)
at Colgate/Cornell (2): 1 (-2)
The Engineers were actually on pace to earn the bye throughout much of the second half of the season after their road sweep of Quinnipiac and Princeton - the actual mark that ended up needing to be reached last year was 24 points, the lowest it has been in eight years - but the loss in the Freakout and to Colgate were the killers. They ended up with 23 points, two away from the goal which, given their tiebreaker loss to Colgate, actually ended up being a necessary 25 points.
Of course, that late in the season, the matter of reaching 25 points becomes irrelevant. If you're that close to a bye, you know what has to be done, and what other teams need to do. This formula is more of an earlier season indicator, especially during the period in which teams have played an uneven number of games (which begins this weekend, as Yale and Brown have no ECAC games) and an uneven number of home and away weekends.
This Season
at Dartmouth/Harvard (2): 2 (0)
at Union/Union (0):
at Yale/Brown (2):
Clarkson/St. Lawrence (3):
at Cornell/Colgate (2):
Harvard/Dartmouth (3):
Brown/Yale (3):
at Quinnipiac/Princeton (2):
Colgate/Cornell (3):
at St. Lawrence/Clarkson (2):
Princeton/Quinnipiac (3):
After one weekend, the teams are looking like this:
Yale: +1
St. Lawrence: +1
Union: +1
RPI: 0
Cornell: 0
Princeton: 0
Harvard: -1
Quinnipiac: -1
Colgate: -1
Brown: -2
Clarkson: -2
Dartmouth: -2
Looks like there are six teams on pace for the bye, right? So the method's flawed. Well, it's not perfect, but it's not flawed because of this, per se. In any given set of four travel partner games, there will always be a net loss of 2 points between the teams. For example from last weekend, Union's +1 and Harvard's -1 even out, RPI was even, and Dartmouth was at -2. So as the season progresses, as long as there's some semblance of parity, the number of teams on pace to earn the bye with 25 points should decline since, in a perfectly even league, every team would presumably tie with 22 points.
And of course, the fudge factor says that to play it safe, you want to be on pace to finish a few points above 25. But that pretty much just plays into "just win," which is a maxim any team can get behind pretty easily.
What does it all mean? Well, immediately, it means a few things.
1) Splitting on the road last weekend wasn't horrible, although the extra point or two at Harvard would have been helpful.
2) This week, points are a bonus, but if RPI doesn't get some points, there won't be much room for error unless they start sweeping multiple weekends.
3) Given RPI's front-loaded road schedule, they could stay around the .500 mark through mid-January and still be in good shape to shoot for a top-four finish. Over Christmas break, they could potentially be sitting on a 1-3-2 or 2-4-0 ECAC record and still be on a positive trajectory for a bye (of course, 5-1-0 would be somewhat more positive).
As an aside, 18 is the magic number for home-ice in the first round. That's a little more difficult to split evenly - it can be reached by averaging home splits, one point on the road, and earning a split with the travel partner. That's still only 17 points, so in this simplistic method, each team starts the season off with a -1 difference. Hopefully, we won't be tracking this one moving forward, but the Engineers are even on this metric as well.
Look, it's RPI. You should have known what you were getting into.
Additionally, the Engineers are one of only two teams out of the 13 that has never earned the first-round bye as one of the top four teams in the league. Quinnipiac is the only other one, and they've had three fewer opportunities.
So how does one get the bye? Let's take a look at the last eight seasons and find out just how many points a team needs to be in the running. The median and mode "magic number" is 25 points, with the mean coming in at 25.875, which we round up to 26. In five of the eight seasons, 25 points has been enough to earn a bye. The mean is somewhat skewed by outlier results in 2004 and 2005 - teams needed 28 and 29 points respectively in those years thanks to a lack of parity between the top and bottom of the league. That outlier ultimately cost the Engineers in 2004, the only season in which they reached 25 points in the last eight. They had 27 points that year to tie for 4th with Dartmouth, losing the tiebreaker (Dartmouth, of course, earned the bye with only 27 points, but it took 28 points to earn the bye straight up without going to a tiebreak).
So generally, we should expect that 25 points is, more than likely, going to be enough to earn the free pass through the first round. The trick is reaching that level.
Given that one would normally expect a team to play better at home, we should expect the Engineers to earn more points on average in a home weekend than on the road.
1) Average three points in every home weekend (5 x 3 = 15)
2) Average two points in every road weekend (5 x 2 = 10, 15+10 = 25)
3) Points scored against the travel partner are gravy - that is, they give some leeway with the hard and fast 3/2 scheme.
Let's apply this to last season.
Last Season (Needed points): Points gained (Cumulative difference)
Yale/Brown (3): 4 (+1)
at Clarkson/St. Lawrence (2) : 2 (+1)
Cornell/Colgate (3): 0 (-2)
Union (0): 0 (-2)
at Quinnipiac/Princeton (2): 4 (0)
at Union (0): 0 (0)
Dartmouth/Harvard (3): 3 (0)
at Brown/Yale (2): 2 (0)
St. Lawrence/Clarkson (3): 3 (0)
at Harvard/Dartmouth (2): 2 (0)
Quinnipiac/Princeton (3): 2 (-1)
at Colgate/Cornell (2): 1 (-2)
The Engineers were actually on pace to earn the bye throughout much of the second half of the season after their road sweep of Quinnipiac and Princeton - the actual mark that ended up needing to be reached last year was 24 points, the lowest it has been in eight years - but the loss in the Freakout and to Colgate were the killers. They ended up with 23 points, two away from the goal which, given their tiebreaker loss to Colgate, actually ended up being a necessary 25 points.
Of course, that late in the season, the matter of reaching 25 points becomes irrelevant. If you're that close to a bye, you know what has to be done, and what other teams need to do. This formula is more of an earlier season indicator, especially during the period in which teams have played an uneven number of games (which begins this weekend, as Yale and Brown have no ECAC games) and an uneven number of home and away weekends.
This Season
at Dartmouth/Harvard (2): 2 (0)
at Union/Union (0):
at Yale/Brown (2):
Clarkson/St. Lawrence (3):
at Cornell/Colgate (2):
Harvard/Dartmouth (3):
Brown/Yale (3):
at Quinnipiac/Princeton (2):
Colgate/Cornell (3):
at St. Lawrence/Clarkson (2):
Princeton/Quinnipiac (3):
After one weekend, the teams are looking like this:
Yale: +1
St. Lawrence: +1
Union: +1
RPI: 0
Cornell: 0
Princeton: 0
Harvard: -1
Quinnipiac: -1
Colgate: -1
Brown: -2
Clarkson: -2
Dartmouth: -2
Looks like there are six teams on pace for the bye, right? So the method's flawed. Well, it's not perfect, but it's not flawed because of this, per se. In any given set of four travel partner games, there will always be a net loss of 2 points between the teams. For example from last weekend, Union's +1 and Harvard's -1 even out, RPI was even, and Dartmouth was at -2. So as the season progresses, as long as there's some semblance of parity, the number of teams on pace to earn the bye with 25 points should decline since, in a perfectly even league, every team would presumably tie with 22 points.
And of course, the fudge factor says that to play it safe, you want to be on pace to finish a few points above 25. But that pretty much just plays into "just win," which is a maxim any team can get behind pretty easily.
What does it all mean? Well, immediately, it means a few things.
1) Splitting on the road last weekend wasn't horrible, although the extra point or two at Harvard would have been helpful.
2) This week, points are a bonus, but if RPI doesn't get some points, there won't be much room for error unless they start sweeping multiple weekends.
3) Given RPI's front-loaded road schedule, they could stay around the .500 mark through mid-January and still be in good shape to shoot for a top-four finish. Over Christmas break, they could potentially be sitting on a 1-3-2 or 2-4-0 ECAC record and still be on a positive trajectory for a bye (of course, 5-1-0 would be somewhat more positive).
As an aside, 18 is the magic number for home-ice in the first round. That's a little more difficult to split evenly - it can be reached by averaging home splits, one point on the road, and earning a split with the travel partner. That's still only 17 points, so in this simplistic method, each team starts the season off with a -1 difference. Hopefully, we won't be tracking this one moving forward, but the Engineers are even on this metric as well.
Look, it's RPI. You should have known what you were getting into.
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
Uh... Blackout?
Say, fans! Have you heard the big news about the big new promotion going on at Union for the RPI game on Friday?
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Upcoming Podcast: Ken Schott, Jeff Foss
With the big Union weekend on the horizon, we have our first repeat offender coming onto the Without a Peer podcast this week, airing at 8pm on Wednesday, November 10th.
Ken Schott of the Schenectady Gazette has his finger firmly on the pulse of both Union and RPI, and we'll check back in with him with his thoughts on both teams' play last weekend against Dartmouth and Harvard, and we'll see what he thinks about the war for the Capital District.
We'll also get a chance to talk to senior defenseman Jeff Foss. Union has not been an easy task for the Engineers during his tenure in Troy - we'll see what his thoughts are about facing the Dutchmen one last time.
It's a big week, so we'll have open phone lines throughout the show to take your questions and comments - (310) 742-1841.
Of course, we'll also talk about the women's opening league home weekend, and talk about their trip to Yale and Brown this week.
Last week, we talked to WHRB's Brendan Roche and RPI junior Jill Vandegrift. Check it out in the player below, on demand.
Ken Schott of the Schenectady Gazette has his finger firmly on the pulse of both Union and RPI, and we'll check back in with him with his thoughts on both teams' play last weekend against Dartmouth and Harvard, and we'll see what he thinks about the war for the Capital District.
We'll also get a chance to talk to senior defenseman Jeff Foss. Union has not been an easy task for the Engineers during his tenure in Troy - we'll see what his thoughts are about facing the Dutchmen one last time.
It's a big week, so we'll have open phone lines throughout the show to take your questions and comments - (310) 742-1841.
Of course, we'll also talk about the women's opening league home weekend, and talk about their trip to Yale and Brown this week.
Last week, we talked to WHRB's Brendan Roche and RPI junior Jill Vandegrift. Check it out in the player below, on demand.
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