It’s probably going back about five or six years ago (maybe as far back as 2000), but the creative posters to the USCHO.com Fan Forum once developed a fictional post-season tournament named the “College Hockey NIT.” It certainly was enjoyable to pass some time reading the dramatic posts for each game that mimiced what now lives in the “Score Updates” folder on the Fan Forum. I believe that there was one main poster who was the catalyst behind drawing up the scripts for each game and narrating them online.
What I remember most about that was a group of media members who had all maybe had a few too many cocktails on the night before the Frozen Four deciding to call SportsTicker (the central repository for score reporting that fuels a lot of online and television tickers) and report fake score updates. If memory serves me right, SportsTicker actually reported the scores on their Website at one point, though I don’t think we ever had any proof of any media running the scores. Before the fake end of the game, SportsTicker caught on to the hoax, but nonetheless, fun was had.
In that vein, though, I ask the loyal readers of this blog to give their thoughts on who would win using the mock bracket that I lay out below. To keep it simple, I’ll only include eight teams – the final eight clubs that did not make the NCAA field (the original NIT thought up by the Fan Forum posters included EVERY team that didn’t make the NCAA tournament, including some Division III clubs, I believe).
So with the bracket:
College Hockey NIT Quarterfinals (higher seed hosts)
1. Wisconsin vs. 8. Cornell
4. Colorado College vs. 5. Dartmouth
3. Michigan Tech vs. 6. Vermont
2. Denver vs. 7. Quinnipiac
For now, just give me your quarterfinal winners (amazingly, I don’t have any first-round conference matchups :)
Tomorrow, I’ll play out the game based on stats, recent performance and the input of you, the readers, and post the semi-final matchups.
Hopefully, this will pass the time between now and the Frozen Four!
