Welcome back, Super 8. MIAA Div. 1A playoffs to return for baseball, boys/girls hockey

The Super 8 is coming back - for baseball and boys and girls ice hockey.

The beloved Division 1A tournaments (nicknamed the Super 8s) controversially were put on hold for at least four years in April of 2021 by the MIAA's Tournament Management Committee. The MIAA Board of Directors, meeting on Wednesday, May 13, ended the lengthy hiatus and approved Super 8's for both baseball and boys/girls hockey by identical votes of 21-3.

The baseball Super 8 tournament will begin in the 2027 spring season. The hockey Super 8 tournaments will begin in the 2027-28 winter season.

"Love the format," said Braintree High baseball coach Bill O'Connell, who guided the Wamps to two Super 8 crowns and has been an outspoken advocate for the tournament's revival. "This isn't personal excitement because you need a special group and a special team to (qualify for the Super 8). But I think it's great for high school baseball. Whether we ever get there or not, I'm thrilled."

"I was against (eliminating the Super 8) from the beginning," said BC High hockey coach John Flaherty, who guided the Eagles to the last two of their six all-time Super 8 titles, winning back-to-back in 2018 and 2019. "I didn't understand why it happened. I'm glad it's back. I'm excited for our players. I've already started talking to our guys about what it means to play for a Super 8. Hopefully, the damage hasn't already been done to our sport (by taking it away)."

The boys hockey Super 8 ran from 1991-2020, although there were co-champs in 2020 (Arlington and Pope Francis) when the pandemic forced the cancellation of all the hockey and basketball finals. There were no MIAA playoffs at all in the 2020-21 winter season. The baseball Super 8 ran from 2014-19, although the 2020 and 2021 tournaments would have been staged if not for the pandemic. This will be the first time for a girls hockey Super 8.

The idea behind the Super 8 format was to bring together the best teams in the state, regardless of divisions. In practical terms, it served to shield public school teams from the dominant Catholic school programs. Powerhouses such as Catholic Memorial hockey were given their own elite tournament, thereby freeing up more potential divisional crowns for the publics.

"The landscape (of high school baseball) has changed," O'Connell said. "Between Catholic schools and reclassification at private schools and the world of AAU, all the obstacles that we have in our sport, I think it's great that some of the teams that can benefit from some of those situations get an opportunity to play in an elite tournament, which is where they belong. The teams that may not have those opportunities will be able to have a better experience in the (divisional) tournament that they belong in."

The old Super 8 tournament fields were decided by a committee vote. Now, the human element will be eliminated in favor of using the power-ranking system the MIAA employs as part of its statewide playoff system.

For example, if the baseball Super 8 bids had gone out on Tuesday morning (when the latest MIAA power rankings were released), we assume that the field would have looked like this:

No. 1 BC High (7.0962) -- currently No. 1 seed in Div. 1

No. 2 Hamilton-Wenham (5.8905) -- currently No. 1 seed in Div. 4

No. 3 St. Mary's-Lynn (5.7291) -- currently No. 1 seed in Div. 2

No. 4 Bishop Feehan (5.6320) -- currently No. 2 seed in Div. 1

No. 5 Catholic Memorial (5.3483) -- currently No. 3 seed in Div. 1

No. 6 Natick (5.3422) -- currently No. 4 seed in Div. 1

No. 7 North Reading (5.2972) -- currently No. 1 seed in Div. 3

No. 8 St. John's-Shrewsbury (5.2929) -- currently No. 5 seed in Div. 1

With only two divisions in girls hockey, a Super 8 this past winter would have featured just one Div. 2 team (Westwood). The boys hockey Super 8 also would have featured just one Div. 2 team (eventual Div. 2 state champ Canton).

The old Super 8s strayed from the traditional single-elimination playoff format used for all other MIAA team tournaments. The baseball Div. 1A tournaments used double-elimination brackets. Hockey often used that format but also sometimes staged mini-Olympic tournaments with round-robin pool play and crossover knockout rounds.

O'Connell said e believes the new baseball Super 8 will stage best-of-three series in the first round with the higher-seeded teams hosting Game 1 and Game 3 (if necessary). The semifinals and final would be single-elimination, meaning a maximum of five total playoff games for the finalists, the same number as finalists would play in a 32-team single-elimination bracket.

"You want to talk about generating interest (in the game), back in the Super 8 days, there were thousands of people there for Round 1," O'Connell said. "You don't get those type of crowds in a typical Division 1 first-round game."

O'Connell said games in the new Super 8 will be seven innings, as they are in the regular season, instead of the expanded nine-inning format of the old Super 8.

Flaherty sad he's not sure which format the new hockey Super 8 will take, although he would be in favor of having more true home games instead of staging the whole thing at neutral sites the way the old Div. 1A worked.

In baseball, Braintree was the first Super 8 power. The Wamps qualified for the first three title games, losing to Newton North in 2014 and winning crowns in 2015 and 2016, beating St. John's Prep each time.

Catholic Memorial was the undisputed champ of the boys hockey Super 8, winning 13 championships, including each of the first five from 1991-95. BC High (6) and Malden Catholic (5) also racked up titles with BC High the first to break CM's stranglehold by winning the 1996 crown. The Eagles also had the distinction of winning the last Super 8 final that was played, curtesy of an epic 2-1, four-overtime victory vs. Pope Francis in 2019.

Although the Catholic schools dominated the hockey Super 8, public schools did have their moments with Reading (2008), Hingham (2010) and Arlington (2017, 2020) winning crowns. In baseball, five of the six Super 8 titles were won by public schools with Newton North (2014), Franklin (2018) and North Andover (2019) joining two-time champ Braintree.

"College coaches loved it. Players loved it," O'Connell said of the new/old format. "The crowds are going to be back. I think there are nothing but positives. Obviously, the Board of Directors was hearing and seeing that people want it. It just shows that the old days aren't gone. This is one for the good old days."

This article originally appeared on The Patriot Ledger: MIAA returning to Super 8 tournaments for baseball, boys/girls hockey