AT&T Metroplex HS Hockey League Playoff Format & Dates

The Dates & Format for this year's AT&T Metroplex HS Hockey League Playoffs have been revelled which will be starting this year on March 5th for the Gold Tier Teams while the Silver Tier Playoffs will begin on March 7. With just 22 teams overall this season in the league (6 in the Gold Tier, 16 in the Silver Tier), the playoffs are going to come fast & furious this season overall. In addition to the league playoffs, the Gold Tier Champion will advance to the USA Hockey HS National Championships which will be from March 21-25 in Salt Lake City, Utah this season.

Here's the Full Varsity Playoff Schedule

While the Top Silver Tier Teams will advance to the Silver Tier State Champions against the Top Teams from the Houston & Austin Area which will take place from March 23-25 in a location that is still yet TBD.

The format for both Tiers will be as follows this season.

Gold Tier: With just 6 teams in the leagues Top Tier this season, all 6 teams will be in the playoffs with the #1 & #2 Seeds gaining Quarterfinal Byes while the #3 VS. #6 & #4 VS. #5 Teams will be starting out in the Quarterfinals. The Semifinals will have the #1 Seed taking on the Lowest Seeded QF Winner, while the #2 Seed will play the Highest Seeded QF Winner that next night. Both the Quarterfinals & Semifinals will be a Single Game. Then once the Gold Tier Championship Series is all set it will be a Best of 3 Series to determine the league champion & who will represent Texas in Salt Lake City at the USA Hockey HS National Championship in Late March.

Gold Tier Playoff Dates

3/5: Quarterfinals

3/6: Semifinals

3/8: Gold Tier Final Game 1

3/9: Gold Tier Final Game 2

3/11: Gold Tier Final Game 3 (If Needed)

If the playoffs started today, here's a look at what the Playoff Matchups would look like right now.

#1 Arlington ISD & #2 Plano West would have 1st Round Byes

#3 Dallas Jesuilt VS. #6 Coppell

#4 Allen VS. #5 Plano Senior

The Parity in the Gold Tier has been very tight with the exception of Coppell who's sitting way back in last place with just 9 PTS (4-11-1) in 16 games so far this season. So basically everyone else could find themselves anywhere from the #1 to #5 Seeds when the regular season wraps up on March 1. A 3 way tie is currently atop the top of the Gold Tier between Arlington ISD (10-5-1), Plano West (9-4-3) & Dallas Jesuit (9-4-3) with 21 points each.

Just behind them are Allen & Plano Senior (Both 8-6-2) with 18 points, but are very much in the race for the 2 Quarterfinal Round Byes when the playoffs early March. With just 6 games left in the regular season, it's going to be a wild wild finish to the regular season in the Gold Tier.

Silver Tier: The Silver Tier Playoffs will have the top 4 teams in both the North & South Divisions where they will start in a cross over (#1N VS. #4S, #2N VS. #3S etc.). With the winners will play each other in the Semifinals and on to the Finals. Each Round will be a single elimination format for all 3 rounds. The winners will advance to the State Silver Tier Tournament against the Top Teams from the Interscholastic Hockey League (ISHL) and the Austin Area Champion as well.

Silver Tier Playoff Dates

3/7: Quarterfinals

3/8: Semifinals

3/11: Silver Tier Championship

If the Playoffs started today, here's a look at what the Quarterfinal Round Matchups would look like.

#1N Plano East VS. #4S GCISD

#2N Highland Park VS. #3S Midlothian

#1S Keller ISD VS. #4N Prosper

#2S Southlake Carroll VS. #3N McKinney ISD

The South Division Top Seed is most likely going to come down to a 3 team race between Keller ISD (14-2-0), Southlake Carroll (12-2-2) & Midlothian (12-4-0) who are just 4 points apart which separate the top 3 teams in the South. While GCISD (9-7-0) is currently holding down the 4th & final playoff spot at the moment, both Mansfield ISD (8-6-2) & Denton County (8-8-0) are hot on their tail as they look to chase them down over the final month of the regular season.

As for the two Flower Mound Teams, for the most part, they will battle for pride and most likely stay out of last Place in the South Division as they sit just 5 points back of both GCISD & Mansfield ISD. Their only hope of making the playoffs is that either GCISD, Mansfield ISD or Denton County collapse down the stretch and that either team can get red hot.

The North Division has Plano East (10-3-3) holding a 4 point lead over Highland Park as the Scots will be hoping that the Panthers falter some over the final 6 games to help improve their chances of getting the #1 Seed for the post season.

Elsewhere in the North Division, McKinney ISD & Prosper are fighting it out for the #3 Seed and looking to avoid top seeded Plano East in the Quarterfinals Round of the playoffs. However, Richardson/Rockwall (6-9-1) and is emerging as the top challenger to get into the top 4 to challenge both McKinney ISD & Prosper. Speaking of the race for 3rd & 4th, Richardson/Rockwall will be playing McKinney ISD this week as it will repserent a critical game in this Race where the gap at the end of the night could be anyway from 1 to 5 points.

A Richardson/Rockwall Win would really eat into that gap start making both McKinney ISD & Prosper beginning to sweat. While a McKinney ISD Win would put a big blow into Richardson/Rockwall's Playoff hopes this season.

While Bishop Lynch & Frisco ISD (both 5-11-0) & Garland ISD (3-12-1) are way back in this race and would most likely take a miracle for either one of them to get into this playoff race.

What is the CHL thinking with it's new Playoff Format?

Talk about letting everybody in on a grand scale, the Central Hockey League recently announced the new playoff format for the 2010-2011 season when it gets underway in October. What they doing is just downright BS that you would probably see something you would see in the NCAA & Junior Hockey Ranks.

CHL Announces Playoff Format

2011 CHL Playoff Format

The format was announced that 16 of the league's 18 Teams will be making the playoffs next year with basically everyone excpt the last place teams of both conferences where they will have 2 Conferences of 9 teams.

The top 8 in both conferences will make the playoffs, usually this wouldn't be something I would a big deal with, considering that half of the Teams in the NHL & AHL make it every year, that means 89% of the teams will be making the playoffs. This will make the Regular Season almost useless for the most part. By doing this, the CHL is basically letting everyone who has basically played a game, the only way your going to miss the post-season is that if your so bad that your team won't challenge for a playoff spot which will basically be impossible.

The post season is spouse to be something that you earn to get to go. Regardless of your battling for the Conference/Titles, Home Ice, or one of the last teams that means the difference between playing for a league championship and ending your season way to soon.

If the CHL is looking for more money, this could backfire if they is a team like the Wichita Thunder who won just 9 games and acclimated 23 points last year, a whopping 40 points back of 6th Place Tulsa and 45 points back of the Missouri Mavericks who made the playoffs in their first year. This will provide little excitement and little drama as the league will say to the 7th & 8th place teams that will have little shots of advancing to be a punching bag for one of the championship contenders.

If I would have had an idea for the playoffs, the most teams that I would have advocated would have been 12 where 2/3 of the teams would make it. I would have the same format as the NFL with the #1 & #2 Seeds getting 1st Round Byes and the #3 VS. #6 & #4 VS. #5.

At least by doing it this way you would have 4 rounds, but you take out that punny little Best-of-3 Play In Round where since it was introduced in 2008 has turned out to be useless for the most part. With the exception of the Texas Brahmas in 2008, everybody else has gotten sweeped in the Conference Semifinals.

Here's a look at the Opening Round Teams in the Playoffs since 2008.

2008

Play In: Odessa Jackalopes VS. Austin Ice Bats: Odessa Wins Series 2-1

Conf. SFS: Laredo Bucks VS. Odesssa Jackalopes: Laredo Wins Series 4-0


Play In: Texas Brahmas VS. Mississippi Riverkings: Texas Wins Series 2-1

Conf. SFS: Bossier-Shreveport Mudbugs VS. Texas Brahmas: Texas Wins Series 4-0

Conf. Final: Colorado Eagles VS. Texas Brahmas: Colorado Wins Series 4-3


2009

Play In: Bossier-Shreveport Mudbugs VS. Rocky Mountain Rage: Bossier-Shreveport Wins Series 2-1

Conf. SFS: Colorado Eagles VS. Bossier-Shreveport Mudbugs: Colorado Wins Series 4-0


Play In: RG Valley Killer Bees VS. Corpus Christi Icerays: RG Valley Wins Series 2-1

Conf. SFS: Texas Brahmas VS. RG Valley Killer Bees: Texas Wins Series 4-0


2010

Play In: Mississippi Riverkings VS. Missouri Mavericks: Missouri Wins Series 2-1

Conf. SFS: Rapid City Rush VS. Missouri Mavericks: Rapid City Wins Series 4-0


Play In: Texas Brahmas VS. Corpus Christi Icerays: Texas Wins Series 2-0

Conf. SFS: Odessa Jackalopes VS. Texas Brahmas: Odessa Wins Series 4-2

So that shows you that the Play In Round was basically a shame with just one exception and i'm glad that part is gone, but having where almost everybody makes the playoffs is a shame for the Professional Ranks. I would expect this from the NCAA where nearly everybody makes it to the Conference Tournament expect for Hockey East where the bottom 2 regular season teams are eliminated.

As for the different Junior Ranks, they is a lot of major violators. The NAHL had it for the last couple of years where 4 of the 5 teams in all the divisions made the playoffs. In fact, last year in the West, all 4 teams played in the postseason basically because they was no one else in the League. The Kenai River Brown Bears had the worst record of the 16 playoff teams with just 30 points, all 3 5th place teams missed the playoffs all with better records (Alepna with 46, Wichita Falls with 42 & North Iowa with 36). Because these teams finished 5th, they all missed the post-season.

The Major Juniors have 16 teams make the playoffs. The worst violator is the QMJHL where only the bottom 2 teams with the worst records make it, regardless of how they fared in their division.

Perhaps the worst though are the Alberta & Saskatchwan Jr. A Leagues as only the bottom ranked teams in both divisions miss out on the playoffs. This is bad stuff that the Central Hockey League is getting into and it's something you would see in low level Juniors or the ACHA which is Group of College Club Hockey Teams that are not in the NCAA.

So if the CHL/IHL Merger is going to work to get higher level talent, send more players to the higher ranks and have the fan base want to come to these games. Making the playoffs tougher to make should have something that the league should have thought of.

Earlier this month, Greg Wyshynski who does the Puck Daddy Blog on Yahoo, did an article about the playoff format with some notable quotes from different reporters in the CHL Cities.

Ben Smith of the Ft. Wayne Journal Gazette called the format "Totally ridiculous," while offering more of a Franke's explanation we excerpted at the top:

"The Though Process is the way the economy is going right now, it probably would make sense if all the teams coming into those last six weeks of the season had an opportunity to make the playoffs," he said. "There are so many other things people can do right now, and if teams are way out of it in late January, are they gonna continue to come to the games? No 2., we looked at it from the prospective that we believe the league is going to grow two or three years, and be more then 18 teams. So why not institute a 16 team format now, rather then switch it around every year?

So the regular season for the most part with the exception of the last part of the season to determine the playoff seeding will be a crap shoot and is such a joke. This is how Greg Rajan who covered the Corpus Christi Icerays for the Caller Times before the recent move to the Junior Ranks in the North American Hockey League. He mentions the format as "What A Joke" and followed up with a couple of specific reasons on why the format stinks.

What exactly is the purpose of the regular season, and extending it two games, to boot? So two cellar dwellers can be formally eliminated? The Regular Season has lost pretty much any importance it had. What's the reason for the casual fan can go to a game if it really has little to no meaning in the big picture? And what sports league allows 88.8% of it's teams to make the playoffs?

Contrary to what some people think, putting more teams in the playoffs won't help many teams financially. In my years of covering the CHL, I'd say only a handful of teams actually made money during the playoffs. Why? Because it's so hard to sell playoff tickets. You have to resell your entire season-ticket inventory and there's a little lead time to go out and sell groups or plan for games. Plus, many playoff games fall on less then attractive nights, such as mid-week days and Sunday's. Combine low box office numbers and the player salaries and it's not a pretty financial picture.

He also mentioned of the 4 Rounds, the first 2 will be a best-of-5 which could create issues from a competitive standpoint as well.

So this just proves that if the CHL wants to remain viable to hopefully grow from 18 teams in the next few years. They need to rethink their playoff structure by basically giving everybody a trophy for making the playoffs and to dilute the chase for the Ray Morin Presidents Cup Championship.

Here's the Full Story from the Puck Daddy Blog

Central Hockey League Playoff Format

The Central Hockey League has continued laying out the groundwork for the 2010-2011 season as the playoff format has been announced. For the CHL, unlike staying put or even contracting the number of teams I thought it should have been from 10 to 8.

Instead, the Central Hockey League has announced that the format will be extended to have 16 of the league's 18 teams make the playoffs basically having the same format as the National Hockey League.

Only the 9th and last place teams will end up missing the playoffs this upcoming season as the league will slightly increase the season from 64 to 66 games and the seasons runs from October 15 to March 27. The 2011 Playoffs will begin the week of March 28 this season.

I don't like because this basically guarantees every team a spot in the playoffs unless if your really really bad and they will be to many nothing games throughout the season which can make it dull and not interesting on some nights.

What would I have recommended is no more then 12 teams in the playoffs with the top 6 making the playoffs. The 1st and 2nd Seeded Teams would go automatically through to the Quarterfinals while the #3 VS. #6 & #4 VS. #5 Teams would play each other in the 1st Round. This is basically the same format as the Junior A League in B.C.

With the Conference Alignment and Playoff format now set. The league announced that the 2010-2011 league schedule is set to come out on Friday.

Here's the official CHL Playoff Format from the CHL Website: www.centralhockeyleague.com

• The Playoffs will have 4 rounds to them. Conference Quarterfinals and Conference Semifinals will be a best of 5 series. While the Conference Finals and Presidents Cup Championships being a Best of 7.
• The Brackets will remain constant with no re-seeding at any point in the playoffs (Just like in the NBA).
• Should 2 or more teams be tied at the end of the regular season. Here's how the Tie Breaking Format will go: Most Wins, Head-to-Head between the two teams, then if needed, goals for and goals against.