After crushing the San Jose Stealth, 18-6, earlier this evening, the Colorado Mammoth claimed several victories.

Colorado is the Western Division champion, the third straight regular-season division title for the Mammoth.

Colorado is in the driver's seat to clinch home-floor advantage throughout the playoffs, with just a potential tiebreaker yet to hurdle.

Most important, perhaps, Colorado gets two weeks off to recover from injuries, having a scheduled bye in Week Sixteen and an earned bye in the Western Division semifinal round.

Such is the benefit of being 12-3 with a game to play, when the next-best team in your division is 7-5.

Ironically, San Jose (7-5) had a shot at that division title. By winning out, beginning tonight, the Stealth would have been the Western champ, not Colorado, by virtue of reaching 12-4 on the season and winning a tiebreaker over the Mammoth (2-1 record in the season series).

Now, the Stealth is left to battle the Calgary Roughnecks (7-5) and Arizona Sting (6-7) for playoff position.

San Jose and Calgary have split their previous two meetings this season, so their 3 April duel at HP Pavilion could be very influential in deciding who hosts the West semifinal.

In the East, the Toronto Rock is one win and one Buffalo loss removed from securing the Eastern Division crown, thanks to this evening's 14-11 win for the Rock. Sure enough, they meet again Saturday night, on the Bandits' home turf.

The Rock would improve to 10-4 with a sweep-inducing win, while the free-falling Bandits would be just 8-7 and unable to get more than nine wins.

By losing tonight, Buffalo no longer controls its own destiny, needing victories on home turf over Toronto and Philadelphia (next weekend) and some help from the Rock's remaining opponents, Calgary and Rochester.

Speaking of Rochester, the Knighthawks are working on their own playoff berth, but must get past a hungry, desperate Philadelphia Wings team. The Wings (5-8) need to sweep the Knighthawks to reach the playoffs; falter once, and that spot belongs to Rochester.

Oddly, the two teams' other remaining games -- Philadelphia at Buffalo, Rochester at Toronto -- will have no effect whatsoever on the race for the third Eastern spot. Here's why:

A Philadelphia sweep puts the Wings at 7-8 and Rochester at 6-9. While the teams could then tie at 7-9, Philadelphia would win the tiebreaker on head-to-head results, taking three of four games.

One Rochester win in the home-and-home would assure the Knighthawks of at least a 7-9 record. Philadelphia could still get to 7-9, but the Wings would lose out on the divisional record tiebreaker -- 6-6 for Rochester, 5-7 for Philly.

Looking ahead to the Champion's Cup final, Colorado is just about guaranteed to host, if it gets that far. The only team which can still catch the Mammoth is Toronto, but even if they both wind up 12-4, Toronto has to catch up on season goal differential.

(Yes, it would fall that far down the list -- they haven't played this year and they have one common opponent, Vancouver, who they've each beaten twice.)

Toronto is 23 goals ahead for the season (166-143) with three games left to play, while Colorado is up 43 (206-163) with one to play.

And if they tie on that, too? Reach into your pocket and pull out a quarter.