Big Fat Issue #2: Division Record Uber Alles

Fun fact: Half of the Militia’s games this season were exhibition games.

Well, pretty much. As it turns out, WFA division winners are not based on the team’s overall record for the season, but their record within their three- to five-team division. (Here are the current standings, for reference.) The other games literally mean nothing unless you get to Round 3 of the playoffs (and even then it doesn’t count if one team is a wildcard team).

The division record thing can sound good in theory, but in practice it’s kind of ridiculous. First of all, different divisions have different numbers of division and non-division games. (Division 2 – the Militia’s division – plays four division games out of eight. Division 12, the Dallas Diamond’s division, plays six division games out of eight.) But even weirder, there are – from what I can tell – seven divisions where teams within the same division play a different number of division and non-division games.

What the hell is THAT about? Division 1: The Keystone Assault play three division games this season. (Yes, that means that five of their games count for essentially nothing.) The Maine Lynx play three as well (or they were scheduled to, at least). The New England Nightmare play four. That just doesn’t seem right to me.

So what does all this mean in practice? For one thing, it means that the Militia, with their current 6-0 record, are not technically the division winner yet. Their division record is 3-0, while the New York Sharks’ is 2-1. Were the Sharks to win their game against the Militia next week, they would both be 3-1. Head-to-head would be a draw (since they would have each won once) whereupon it would go to point differential in their head-to-head games. So were the Sharks to win by more than 58 points, they (with their current 3-3 record) would be division winners over the Militia (with their 6-0).

Granted, the likelihood of that is so low that it need not be illustrated with an analogy. It is, however, interesting to note that the Sharks have already announced their position as the Division 2 wildcard team; I’m not sure if that’s because they know damn well they’re not beating Boston by 50-anything points or because they honestly don’t know that they have not yet been mathematically excluded from being the division winner.

There are other divisions, though, where this system could have much greater consequences than the above example. Take a look at Division 4: The Detroit Dark Angels currently have a 7-0 season record. The Cleveland Fusion are 2-5. However, the Dark Angels’ division record is 3-0 while the Fusion’s is 2-1. They play each other today; if the Fusion wins the game by 9 points or more (which is not at all inconceivable, since their one previous game this season was won by Detroit with a score of 14-6), Cleveland (with a 3-5 season record) would go to the playoffs while Detroit (with a 7-1 record) would go home for the season. Does that not seem just wrong?

I shall now conclude this entry with a bonus photo of Tiny Coach in his gameday gear. The Militia play the DC Divas tonight; wish we could be there to see it in person but we’ll be following from headquarters. Should the Divas actually score, we may still be able to hear the Divas’ announcer’s signature “Touchdown DIIIIIIIIII-vaaaaaaaaaas” which I will always, always process the same way as the first time I heard it, when for all the world it sounded to me like he was announcing the scoring play of one of our cats (“Touchdown PEAAAAAAAAAAA-nuuuuuuuuuut.”).