OK, now follow along.
Yale's ice hockey season started with an Oct. 26 game. The Bulldogs play UMass Lowell in the Frozen Four April 11. That means their season will run 167 days. If they happen to make it to the championship game, the season will stretch to 169 days.
Yale's football season began on Sept. 21. It ended on Nov. 23. That's 70 days. Hockey wins the length-of-season battle in a rout, 167-70.
One Ivy League football team would go to the NCAA playoffs. Could two ever make it? Sure, about as often as two basketball teams make the NCAA Tournament. (Read: Not in your lifetime.)
How many men's ice hockey teams made the postseason this year? Let's see. That would be six. And how many Ivy League hockey teams are there? Let's see. That would be, um, six. Hockey wins the teams in the playoffs battle, 6-0.
In other words, every Ivy League hockey team went to the playoffs, no football teams went to the playoffs and one football team would if the Ivy rules were changed.
Yale will play seven or eight playoff games. Brown had six. Cornell and Dartmouth played five each. Harvard had three and Princeton two.
That's 28 or 29 playoff hockey games with practices between series.
How many football playoff games were there? None. Zero. Nada. Nichts. Aucun. Hockey wins, 28-0.
And finally, not to be a pessimist, but an Ivy League football team might win one playoff game on occasion. But a run like the Yale ice hockey team has made? Not likely.
Bottom line: The argument that the Ivy League shouldn't go to the football playoffs because of lost class time is a complete sham. End argument. Hockey wins. Football loses.
Go Bulldogs!
