Home/Road Index

One feature I'll put on the blog this year is an alternate way to view the conference standings. I call it the Home/Road Index. The premise is simple: you are supposed to win your home games and winning on the road is a bonus.
Here's how it works...When a team is at home for a conference game all it can do is lose points. If you lose a home game, you lose two points, if you tie a home game, you lose one point. Conversely, if you win a road game, you earn two points, if you tie a road game, you earn one point and if you lose a road game it costs you nothing.
This stat will prove accurate by season's end, as teams will have exactly 22 less points in the home/road index than they had in the conference standings...
For example, here is last year's standings with home/road index points first, followed by real conference points:

CLARKSON +11 33
PRINCETON +6 28
HARVARD +5 27
UNION +3 25

Anyway, you get the picture...using the home/road index the standings will appear different 'until' all the games are played, but it gives you an idea who really is on top. This weekend is too early to really get a picture, since it's the opening weekend, and teams at home, like Clarkson and SLU, cannot do anything but lose points.

But, just to show you how it works, here's the standings after the first night of the season for most teams:
Cornell, Colgate, Dartmouth +2
Clarkson, SLU, RPI, Yale, Brown, Harvard 0
Union, Princeton, Quinnipiac -2

This will start to be more interesting once games begin, but wanted to use today as a way to introduce the stat.