Do You Notice A Trend?

I know the most recent edition of The Rundown spoke about taking the U SPORTS Women's Hockey Top Ten with a few grains of salt, but I'm very curious about who U SPORTS is asking for their opinions on teams at this point because there's a very clear trend that is showing with the first week's rankings published above. Admittedly, you may not pick up on it immediately, but it's staring at me fairly clearly which is making me wonder who is submitting rankings.

We'll jump back to March 2020 when there was supposed to be a U SPORTS National Championship in Charlottetown before the COVID-19 pandemic had other plans, shutting the tournament down after games had been played. I want to draw your attention to the teams who qualified for that tournament. Here's a quick reminder.

If you're reading that graphic above, six of the eight teams who went to Charlottetown are currently ranked in this year's Top Ten. The only teams who aren't in the Top Ten at this moment are the 0-2-0 Montreal Carabins and the 5-1-0 UPEI Panthers. You could make the case that the Panthers deserve to be on the Top Ten list as well based on their record, but having four AUS teams on the Top Team does seem to be a little overkill from that conference.

Beyond that, those six teams are no more than three spots different than where they were ranked going into the tournament as well. Alberta and StFX swapped spots as Alberta was #1 in 2020 and is #3 today, and StFX was #3 in 2020 and sits atop the rankings today. McGill went from #4 to #2, York dropped from #5 to #8, Toronto went from #2 to #5, and Mount Royal bumped up one spot from #7 to #6.

The reason that I'm pointing this out is because of the strength of the schedules each team has played thus far and the false records being posted on the Top Ten rankings. I'll give you a few examples from the conferences who have played.

Should StFX be the top team in the nation? They have a 5-2-1-0 record that includes an overtime win against UNB and a regulation loss to Saint Mary's. Comparatively, UNB is 4-1-2-1 with and overtime win over Saint Mary's and an overtime loss to StFX. Not to be forgotten is Saint Mary's who have built a 5-1-1-1 record with an overtime loss to UNB and a convincing 4-2 win over StFX in their only meeting thus far. If we were using these records to determine placement on a three-point system, Saint Mary's has 18 points compared to UNB's 17 points and StFX's 16 points.

The standings in a two-point system show UNB out in front with 13 points and a win over Saint Mary's who also has 13 points. Right behind them are StFX with 12 points and UPEI with 12 points, but StFX would be behind UPEI due to head-to-head wins and losses as UPEI is the other team to hang a regulation loss on StFX. So the question needs to be asked: should StFX be the #1-ranked team in the nation if they're fourth-place in their own conference based on tie-breaking rules?

Moving out west, Alberta, ranked third in the nation, hasn't finished a game in regulation time as they hold an 0-0-3-1 record to this point, and have defeated Mount Royal once and Regina twice in those games. Mount Royal, ranked sixth, has a win over Alberta in extra time, a win over Calgary, and two wins over Trinity Western. Manitoba, ranked seventh, has defeated Calgary twice, UBC once, and Saskatchewan twice - once in regulation and once in overtime. Comparatively, Manitoba sits atop the Canada West standings with a 4-1-1-0 record which would amount to 14 points in a three-point system while Mount Royal's 3-1-1-1 record would give them 12 points and Alberta's 0-0-3-1 record gives them seven points.

How is it that the team in Canada West who has played the toughest competition through six games while posting the best record in the conference is four spots worse in the Top Ten than a team who needed extra time twice to dispatch the eighth-place team from that conference?

And before you go off about me rallying for Manitoba's ranking here, this isn't about any specific team as much as it is about the rankings and how they're reached based upon the votes which U SPORTS receives. If Manitoba was ranked as the top team in the country, I'd still question that because they haven't played the likes of Alberta or Mount Royal yet, so there are still good teams they need to prove themselves against in Canada West. If Manitoba goes 0-4 against those two teams, that 5-1 record isn't so shiny and happy any longer.

This has always been my gripe about the rankings - people who vote in this farce of a rankings system are doing so based on reputation rather than the strength of the schedule being played and the results turned in from that schedule already. I'm convinced very few voters are even paying attention to the other conferences on which they vote, and that's how we get the fourth-place team from the AUS as the #1-ranked team and the fourth-place team from Canada West as the third-ranked team in Canada.

It's just a coincidence that McGill beat both Montreal and Concordia on the opening weekend in the RSEQ, so they likely have a strong team this year as we know that both Montreal and Concordia have been strong in the past few years. McGill, in my estimation, should have a higher ranking than some teams, but I have a feeling that they reached their spot in the rankings largely on reputation as opposed to who they played in their opening set of games last weekend. C'est la vie, I suppose.

For those asking, Toronto is on the road to play Ontario Tech in their season-opening game on Thursday while Ryerson will travel to meet York in the OUA's first all-ranked matchup of the season on Friday before swapping jerseys as all four teams play home-and-home series this weekend. I'd imagine that at least one of the OUA teams, depending on who wins and who loses, will be bumped off the Top Ten list next week as voters stare down the standings and forget who played whom this weekend.

As cynical as I am, I always think you need a month of play from all conferences before you can start to see who is good based on trends, schedule, and results from early games. As I stated in The Rundown, take the list at the top of this article with a handful of salt because it will not look the same next month when everything starts falling into place and voters start seeing trends emerge.

I'm not going to say I'm an expert by any means, but my Top Ten would look a lot different.

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!