You've read the title and the teaser; I guarantee this column will elicit conversation.

Every year, multiple coaches pass along horror stories from their sectional seeding meetings. Team 'A' gets ranked third by all other coaches except for one, who puts them sixth. As a result, Team 'A' ends up fourth instead of one spot higher, and despite coaches challenging their position, they stay in the fourth spot and have a tougher road to Madison, having to play the #1 seed in the semi-final game instead of in the finals.

I know, I know...if you are going to win it all you need to beat the #1 team. I get that, but I want my team to have two wins under their hockey belts and go into the final with added confidence and momentum.

You just don't get that by playing 'numero uno' in the sectional semi-final, especially since there is no chance of playing a home game at that point. But you could in the final if your rink was the host for that state tournament qualifying game.

Why does this happen every year? Because of perceived slights, intentional slights, and grudges that are longer that Rip Van Winkle's beard.

It happens, trust me, and if all the coaches that saw it from one side or the other would give me an 'amen,' you would think we were sitting in a Southern Baptist church.

So how do we improve a process that is good, but by no means perfect?

We take the human element out of the main portion. We have two gentlemen who use their analytical minds and their Cray mainframes to run computerized rankings every year, starting about Christmas time. They could probably figure out a way to rank the teams by sectional, using only sectional results, per WIAA guidelines.

The computer would factor in head-to-head, strength-of-schedule, and any other metric that could possibly influence accuracy in the sectional seedings.

The coaches would still have a chance to challenge their positions, but the starting point would be more accurate and a rightful gauge of where the team actually belongs in their sectional.

You might even be able to do this via Skype instead of traveling to a 'central' location, saving time and money.

And as an added extra bonus, maybe this will dial back some of the hard feelings that influence all-conference teams. How many kids that should have been First Team get bumped back to Second Team because of the clashes between two coaches? I hear these complaints every year.

Ever wonder why a kid made First Team All-State but is Second Team All-Conference? Now you know why.

We are trying to make our product better, and starting with the seedings might provide some impetus for that change. Like I mentioned, the process is good, not perfect.

We should work to try to get closer.

Can I have a hallelujah?