That U SPORTS Play-In Thing

You may have heard me yapping about the U SPORTS National Women's Hockey Tournament this past week on The Hockey Show that went down most recently in Saskatoon. There was nothing wrong with the tournament itself, but I feel like we're not really putting the best teams in the country against one another when only two of the top-five teams ranked by U SPORTS played at the tournament. In my view, U SPORTS saw a solid field show up and compete for the national championship that was eventually won by Concordia, and I'm taking nothing away from their efforts or any of the effort put forth by any of the other teams. All earned their way there following the rules as they are currently setup. That doesn't mean things can't be improved, though.

I had proposed that the tournament move to a week-long format where there would be two days of play-in games to determine the best opponents in the tournament for the champions who won their way into the dance. In short, if a team wins its conference, it's guaranteed a top-four spot at Nationals, and they would play on the normal Thursday-to-Sunday schedule that we currently see. It's the other days that I'm proposing we change, and there's a way we can make this tournament a better version of best-on-best.

As we know, the finalists from each conference plus the hosting team get a free berth into the U SPORTS National Championship. Being the second-best team in your conference shouldn't get you a free pass into potentially winning a U SPORTS gold medal, in my view, so I want to see a win-and-you're-in idea take hold. You can't back into a championship, so let's make each team earn their way there.

What would happen is that the four finalists would advance to the play-in tournament on Monday and would square off against the next three best teams in terms of win percentage plus the host team assuming that the host team isn't the champion or finalist for one of the conferences. The finalist with the highest win percentage from its total regular-season and playoff games would be the top-ranked play-in team with the remainder of the finalists taking their spots as the second-ranked, third-ranked, and fourth-ranked play-in teams.

Pretty simple so far, right? Let's press on to the other teams.

The remaining four teams would consist of the next three teams with the highest winning percentage from across each of the conferences plus the host team. For example, the Guelph Gryphons would have advanced to the play-in stage in Saskatoon with their 23-4-3-3 as the fifth-ranked play-in team. Alberta would have qualified as the finalist from Canada West, so Saskatchewan would fall into the play-in lower rankings as the host team with a 20-9-2 record as the sixth-ranked team. Bishop's 17-11-0 record would see them ranked as the eight-seeded play-in team, and Saint Mary's would qualify as the seventh-ranked team with their 20-10-4 record in the AUS.

Played on Monday and Tueday of the week of Nationals, the eight play-in teams would play a single-game elimination game to advance to the National Championship in order to have every single team at Nationals win their way into a championship berth. If we used the above system to come up with the play-in round this season, it would have looked as follows:

• PLAY-IN 1: #1 Alberta Pandas vs. #5 Guelph Gryphons
• PLAY-IN 2: #2 Toronto Vars. Blues vs. #6 Saskatchewan Huskies
• PLAY-IN 3: #3 Montreal Carabins vs. #7 Saint Mary's Huskies
• PLAY-IN 4: #4 StFX X-Women vs. #8 Bishop's Gaiters

Just for the record, I had to move the finalists around in order to prevent teams from the same conference meeting one another in the play-in games. With Alberta joining the fray as the Canada West finalist, these seedings would only matter for the play-in games, and those teams that won their play-in game would be reseeded on the Wednesday prior to the National Championship officially getting underway. Championship teams will set those rankings and matchups.

What should be noted is that the play-in matchups would change annually. If a Canada West finalist played an OUA qualifier as Alberta and Guelph do, the following season would see the Canada West finalist play someone from either the RSEQ or AUS. The purpose for this switching of conference meetings in the play-in round is to see a greater number of interconference games played among a larger number of teams, thereby giving us a more accurate representation based on how the teams are currently ranked. With more games, national rankings start to mean something.

"Yeah, but Teebz," I can hear some of you saying, "doesn't this put the host team at risk of not playing in the championship they're hosting?"

To that question, you're right, but also missing the point. Only twice has the host team ever won the gold medal - 1998 and 2003. The host team has medalled only once since 2015 when the tournament expanded to eight teams. While I get that some schools want to host the tournament for the potential economic windfall that comes from the National Championship, history has shown that the hosts have no advantage in playing in their own barn when it comes to the National Championship. In short, hosts are just hosting seven other teams.

What may change that is if the hosts are forced to win their way into the tournament either through winning their conference or by winning the play-in game they're forced to play. Don't get me wrong in that the cards would have been stacked against recents hosts like UPEI, Queen's, and Calgary, but the purpose of the National Championship is to have the best playing the best to determine which team is tops in Canadian university hockey. If one doesn't have a strong program, no one is saying that program can't host, but this is a National Championship. Only the best teams should be playing in it.

Is this play-in idea perfect? No, not by any means, but it serves a purpose in keeping the best teams in Canada in the game assuming that they may have had one bad weekend or ran into a hot goalie. When the third-, fourth-, and fifth-ranked teams in Canada this season were all excluded from the National Championship, it's hard to pronounce that the best team in Canada won. Again, I take nothing away from Concordia in their victory as they certainly earned it, but I feel like all of Guelph, Alberta, Mount Royal, and Nipissing may have wanted a crack at the Stingers before the season ended.

Making Canadian university hockey better shouldn't require anyone to move mountains, so I'm always confused that U SPORTS doesn't listen to anyone not wearing a big "U" on their shirt. Having eight teams play in the National Championship who won their way there either by being a top team all season long or by qualifying via the playoffs will only make the team that stands atop the mountain a more undisputed champion of Canadian university hockey.

That's how a champion should be defined.

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!