Q. Are the results reported on the site 'Static' or 'Dynamic'?

All of the results are 'Dynamic' and are calcualted each time when a page is visited - built by extracting the relavent values from the 7,500 entries in the database. The only exception to this is the Streaks tables found on the Home Page - they were researched and entered manually.

Q. Is the database complete/comprehensive?

The Top 10 polls started in the 60s - unfortunately for seasons prior to 1979, some are incomplete while others are missing. The USPORTS Men's Hockey Ranking Coordinator is looking into recovering these missing years. The database includes every Poll from 1979/80 to present.

Q. What is the USPORTS Men's Top 10 Poll?

The USPORTS Men's Top 10 Poll is a weekly list of the top men's university hockey programs in the USPORTS association (formally the Canadian Inter-university Sport-CIS association) published throughout the hockey season October to early March).

Q. What is the USPORTS Men's Hockey League

The USPORTS Men's Hockey League is comprised of hockey teams from member institutions (universities, not colleges) from across Canada. The current USPORTS Men's Hockey League is divided into three(3) conferences; Atlantic University Sport (AUS) with 8 teams, Ontario University Athletics (OUA) which has two divisions: OUA-East with 9 teams and OUA-West with 10 and thirdly the Canada West (CW) conference with 8 teams.

Q. How is the list tabulated

Each member of the USPORTS Men's Hockey Top 10 Committee selects their top 10 choices and submits them for tabulation on Monday and publishing on Tuesday, in weeks where the USPORTS Hockey League is active (there is a mid-season break in December for exams and Christmas which results in no new polls being published). The committee size varies, but is generally in the range of 15-17 individuals from across the country with an interest in USPORTS Men's Hockey. The committee members are not publicly listed by the USPORTS.

Starting in the 2018-19 season, USPORTS will be publishing the selections made by each member of the committee as well as incorporating a ELO rating system. The combined values of the members score and a team's calculated ELO will represent their final score.


Q. Are you a member of the Committee?

No - I am not a member of the committee, but I do happen to know some members.

Q. Do Polls have an impact on the Schedule?

No - Polls have no impact on who-plays-who during the season or into the next season as the AUS and CW have balanced schedules and the OUA has a balanced intra-division schedule and a random inter-divsion schedule.

Q. Are Polls used for anything?

Yes. The last poll of the season, prior to the University Cup, is used to determine the seedings for the tournament. Note: There are at-large/wildcard selections for the University Cup but they are not determined by the 'best ranked team not advancing', instead each conference has play-downs/consolation finals to determine their at-large/wildcard team(s)

Q. Are the Polls used to seed the University Cup?

Yes & No - The rankings are used to seed the tournament, but the tournament has it's own pre-selected seeds. The top three seeds for the tournament must be conference champions (seeded in order of their respective ranking) followed by the OUA Runner-up (Queen's Cup loser) as #4 (regardless of their ranking). After which, the remaining 4 teams are seeded based on their last ranking. The USPORTS University Cup manual has a set of rules to avoid teams from the same conference being in the same pool or same side of the tournament ladder in round one - as such, teams ranked outside the top 4 may have a seed value different than their rank once all conflict rules are applied. Also, a team maybe ranked 6th, but not attending the University Cup, and as such a lower team, that is attending, moves up the 'seeding' ladder.

The Top 10 Committee's role isn't to seed the teams for the tournament - they are to 'rank' the top 10 teams at that stage of the season. The Tournament Committee will use this list to determine each team's seed for the tournament.

Example 1 - Two Pools: In a case where UNB(Ranked #1) and Acadia(Ranked #4) are the only two AUS teams - a tournament split of 1-4-5 vs 2-3-6 would put both teams on the same side, as such Acadia, being the lower ranked team, would swap seeds with #6 to avoid this scenario. 

Example 2 - Two Pools: The 2014 tournament host, Saskatchewan, was ranked 10th in the last poll of the season. They were the lowest 'ranked' team in the tournament and were 'seeded' #6.

Example 3 - 8-Team: The 2018 tournament had host UNB as #1, while AUS Bronze medalist as #8 representing the host. To avoid an AUS-v-AUS first round match between UNB and Acadia; Acadia was swapped with #7 Concordia resulting in UNB-Concordia and Acadia-Alberta pairings.



Q. is the Committee Bias?

I believe the committee does give teams with long term success (a history of being on the Top 10 year-after-year) slightly inflated rankings compared to other teams, with less of a winning pedigree but similar record. In the end, the 'inflation' affect will go away if the inflated team's performance doesn't improve. The committee is large enough that a few 'bias' votes will be averaged out and in the end, as the season progresses, it is harder and harder to support/vote for a team if their record doesn't warrant it.

Also, with the inclusion of ELO rating and the pubication of each committee member's selection - this is less likely to occur.



Q. What is the value of the Top 10 List?

The Top 10 list is both a marketing tool and an independent, but subjective measuring stick, of the top teams over the entire league. Since there are no inter-conference games, the USPORTS Top 10 Polls are a way of assessing the relative equality in teams from different conferences.






Note: All results should be condsidered unofficial.
This site is not affiliated with the USPORTS/CIS and is only provided for the interest of USPORTS/CIS hockey fans.
The USPORTS & CIS logos as well as "USPORTS" and "CIS" names are trademarks of the USPORTS.
Results come from the USPORT/CIS Archives, Bob Adam's CIS Page and HFBoards.com
Results cover all years from 1979/80 to present.
Teams that 'received votes' are listed alphabetically.
With the introduction of ELO ranking in 2018 and combined rank scoring in the past few years
(the combination of human voting and ELO) all programs are ranked. This site only tracks
those programs listed in the top 10
a www.vredshockey.com project - 2021