Posted: Fri May 19, 2006 1:50 pm
Earning the bye to the championship game doesn't mean as much at this year's Memorial Cup.
The club with the best record in the round-robin portion of the tournament bypasses the semifinal or any tiebreaker games and goes directly to the final. That was becoming a huge advantage in winning the Canadian Hockey League title.
Twelve of the past 13 Memorial Cup champions have won the title in that fashion.
The disadvantage for the finalist that didn't get the bye was the team had less than 24 hours to recover from the semifinal.
And it wasn't unusual for a team to play three games in less than 48 hours on the final weekend, if it reached the final via a tiebreaker and a semifinal, and was thus exhausted for the most important game of the season.
The CHL addressed what was becoming a glaring imbalance by adding an extra day to this Memorial Cup, which is why the Peterborough Petes and the Quebec Remparts open the tournament tonight instead of tomorrow and why it is a 10-day event instead of its previous nine.
The tournament final is scheduled for May 28.
