This isn’t for those who are the dedicated hockey fans, you guys already understand how college hockey works, you can stop reading here.

Now that the big fans have left, I’m writing to the football, basketball, baseball or whoever else is reading. You might not really care who makes the college hockey playoffs, but college hockey playoffs are coming. Your school’s team might be on the bubble (explained here) or they might be out. Or you could be one of the few that are already in. The top ten is easy to see, they are the top in not rankings but the top in Pairwise.

The pairwise is all that counts for playoffs.

Yes, everything. The selection Sunday is basically just deciding where the teams are going. I have briefly explained why college hockey works better than college football in the playoffs here.

On that Sunday, six teams will already know if they are in or not. Those are the six that won their conference tournaments, they get an automatic bid into the tournament. The remaining spots are going to go to the top teams in the pairwise.

So, the next ten will be the ones who are in order after the six automatics. It will not matter if they are bad on the road, or if the conference is weak. Making it very clear, it is just based on pairwise. Seriously. Just pairwise.

Playoffs are coming.

College hockey playoffs are coming, they will be very different. At this very moment, North Dakota is on the edge and are in danger of missing the playoffs, something that has not happened since 2002. Both Boston College and Boston University are on the bubble, and the Big Ten conference is getting more teams into the tournament. It is going to be a weird March, some might even say it is…mad.