MARCH TO THE SEA: Wake Me Up For Playoff Time

What? What time is it? Oh no! I slept through History 1780: The Regular Season.

Oh well, no big deal. Just wake me in time for Sociology 1100: The Playoffs.

The Harvard men’s and women’s hockey teams have recently won their respective ECAC Championships. Each team has earned an automatic bid to hockey’s version of March Madness. The Frozen Four awaits Harvard, along with a chance to bring home two national titles.

While the women dominated their opponents since the beginning of November, the men struggled all year before finally pulling together during the past two weeks in the ECAC Tournament. The same thing happened two seasons ago, when Harvard won the ECAC Championship after finishing its regular season with a 2-8-1 record. The men’s team was seeded sixth in the tournament this year and third in 2002, although Harvard was one regular season loss away from a No. 8 seed two years ago.

But does seeding even matter? The men’s and women’s teams play nearly 30 regular season games. They miss class, they practice night and day, they have to deal with annoying Crimson reporters for months—and for what? It doesn’t matter what the teams do in the regular season; all that counts is the playoffs.

The men’s hockey team can finish dead last in the regular season and still make the playoffs. That’s right, in the ECAC, every team makes the conference tournament. All 12. The squad could go 0-29 in the regular season and have a shot at winning the conference. Heck, they could play blindfolded for 29 regular season games and still win the national championship.

Come playoff time, Harvard has overwhelmed the competition for three straight years. Is it possible that Harvard would have lost to Cornell in the conference tournament this year? Perhaps—but when the Big Red machine went down to No. 9 Clarkson in the quarterfinals, Harvard became the favorite. Despite a No. 6 seed, the Crimson knew it was the tournament’s most skilled team. And it showed.

So, why bother playing regular season games at all? What’s the point of all those games if it doesn’t matter where a team is seeded? Why try hard, if you’re a player, or attend a game, if you’re a fan, if Harvard will win as a No. 1 or a No. 12 seed? There doesn’t seem to be much of a difference in competition. Harvard is just better…than everyone.

The Los Angeles Lakers have learned not to try in the regular season. They’ll just put it together come playoff time. What’s that, Shaqqy-poo? You hurt your binkie? Sure, take 20 games off. It doesn’t matter—we’ll just finish with a No. 5 seed and then win when it counts.

And thus, the NBA regular season is awful. There are too many games and way too many playoff spots.

Professional baseball and football have solved the problem: only the best make the playoffs. Ivy League basketball does not have a conference tournament. This makes every regular season game valuable and critical. If the Harvard women’s basketball team had a conference tournament, we’d probably be seeing Hana Peljto and Reka Cserny in the tourney right now. But the Crimson’s five Ivy League losses prevented a third straight trip to the Big Dance.

And while this is a shame, the women’s team did not deserve to make it this year. Harvard lost, fair and square. The team that plays the best for an entire season should make the playoffs. Otherwise, why bother having a regular season at all? If only two weeks are needed to determine what teams advance to the national championship, why not just play a two-week season?

Honestly, I’d like to see an Ivy League basketball conference championship—but only because it would give the Harvard men’s basketball team a chance to upset Penn or Princeton. But this is the easy way out. Winning a two-week tournament should not trump four months of games. And yet, in college hockey and basketball (except the Ivy League), the regular season is deemed meaningless. At-large bids help, but only for the big schools. In men’s hockey, the ECAC received just one bid this year—and it belongs to Harvard.

Ha ha, “No. 1” Colgate. The joke’s on you. Winning the regular season was just an exhibition. The real regular season is the ECAC Tournament.

And now, we’re all in agreement: the playoffs begin. Better rise and shine, you won’t want to sleep through this.

—Staff writer Alex M. Sherman can be reached at sherman@fas.harvard.edu.