Tie Breaking Procedures

Here is the press release for tie-breaking procedures put forth by the WCHA:

WCHA TIE -BREAKING PROCEDURES
FOR PLAYOFF SEEDING PURPOSES ONLY


At the conclusion of the regular season, teams will be ranked by the number of points accumulated. If two teams are tied for first place, they will be declared co-WCHA champions.

The first round of the WCHA’s post-season tournament will be a best-of-three games format at the home site of the teams ranked higher in the final regular season standings. All ten teams participate in the first round of the tournament.

First round playoff pairings will be: #1 rank vs #10 rank, #2 rank vs #9 rank, #3 vs #8, #4 vs #7, 5# rank vs #6 rank.

Following the five first round series, the five winning teams will be re-seeded #1 thru #5 according to their standings in the final WCHA in-season competition and will advance to the WCHA Final Five.

In the event that ties are encountered in the determination of WCHA ranking or designation of home teams for playoff purposes, the following procedures will be used in the order given to break the ties:

a) If two or more teams are tied, head-to-head competition during the regular (conference) season will be used to break the tie.

b) If two or more teams are still tied after (a), the highest seed will go to the team with the most WCHA (conference) wins during the regular season.

c) If two or more teams played a four-game series during the regular season and the teams have the same win-loss records for those series and the same number of WCHA wins, the team having the least number of goals scored against it in the four-game series shall have the higher rank. If two or more teams played a two-game series during the regular season, proceed to tie-breaker d).

d) If two or more teams are still tied after applying the provisions of (a), (b) and (c), the team having the greatest ‘winning margin’ during the regular season will have the higher rank. Winning margin = WCHA goals for during the regular season minus WCHA goals against.

e) Games played against WCHA opponents in holiday tournaments will not be counted in the determinations.

If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to call.

Doug Spencer
Associate Commissioner for Public Relations
Western Collegiate Hockey Association
phone: 608 829-0100