Was it a coincidence that three of the Frozen Four participants had almost two weeks off prior to the NCAA Regionals?
Bemidji State won the CHA title, which had its championships the weekend before the other five leagues. Vermont and Miami were eliminated in their conference quarterfinals. Only Boston University played two weekends in a row.
Notre Dame coach Jeff Jackson had this to say after his team’s loss to Bemidji:
“The other thing, too, is – let’s face facts – almost every team that’s won in the tournament so far has had two weeks to prepare. The teams that have lost have pretty much played last weekend. That’s an advantage from a mental perspective.”
Vermont coach Kevin Sneddon said after his team’s 4-1 win over Yale, “We needed some healing time and we needed to rebuild”.
The resting 13 day layoff was a good thing, agreed Vermont’s Viktor Stahlberg. “We had some guys banged up and I think it was big to get them back into shape again. We had some time to work on our details that we obviously got away from the last couple weeks of the season.”
Things are all fair and square this weekend, as everybody’s had a week and a half to prepare.
