skip navigation
MEAHA Official Site

Tournament Tied Breakers Rules

MEAHA's tie-breakers procedures follow USA Hockey.

After the round robin games completed, to determine teams’ placement for the championship rounds, follow these:

Note- With multiple teams tied -this procedure is to determine a clear victor in the tied spot, once determined, the process for the next spot starts at the beginning of the process. Sometimes a team that has defeated other teams within this group and may not proceed and finish last. 

A. The results of the head to head games played between the tied teams in the following order:

  1. Standings- Most points
  2.  Most total wins
  3. Differential - Subtracting goals scored against from goal scored in these games. Greatest surplus is the higher seed.
  4. Quotient - Dividing goals scored by goals against, the positions being determined in order of the greatest quotient.  A quotient involving dividing by zero (0) has a higher standing than a quotient by any other number other than zero. Where two or more teams have no goals against and the quotient tie breaker is required, the teams shall be ranked high to low in descending order of "goals for".

B. If after applying the formulas of A- 1,2,3 or 4, the tie still exists, the results of all the games by the teams tied in the following order:

  1. Most wins
  2. Differential- see explanation above
  3. Quotient - see explanation above
  4. Most periods won- in the games played in each tied game, points will be awarded by each period won (2 points) and for tied periods (1 point). Positions shall be in order of highest point total.
  5. Quickest first goal - the team that scored the quickest goal in the round robin game shall be ranked highest.

C. If the above procedure does not break the tie, the teams shall use the shootout procedure