Men's hockey: University Cup odds

Probability of winning the University Cup
Saint Mary's, 26.3%
UNB, 22.8%
Alberta, 16.5%
Western, 16.2%
Lakehead, 11.5%
McGill, 6.7%

This was supposed to go up before today's SMU-McGill opener, so those probabilities don't count the 4-1 win by the Huskies, whose odds have jumped quite a bit now.

Alberta having the same chances as Western seems kind of odd, but UWO doesn't have to beat UNB so I can see how it makes sense. And Saint Mary's only has to finish ahead of Western and McGill to make the final, so their being the favourite does have some logic to it. (Again, their odds are better now that they've beaten McGill.)

I don't think these odds aren't as accurate as the basketball ones (both of which gave the eventual winners at least a 45% chance of winning the whole thing), mostly because these rankings have seemed off for hockey most of the year: Alberta's better than fifth, but not according to the RPI, to take one example. And it's also much, much, much harder to predict winners in a round robin setup, especially when goal differentials come into play as tiebreakers. But it's a quick way to handicap the six teams vying for the championship.

That Alberta-UNB-Lakehead pool is pretty brutal, but should feature three good games. It's likely that the overall winner comes out of that group, if they don't beat each other up en route to facing (likely) Saint Mary's.
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