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D-III Men … Final Bracketology

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The NCAA Division III Selection Committee won’t be officially meeting until after the ECAC Northeast championship, but their work may already be close to finished. Two possible scenarios will emerge based on the winner of that game, the final one before the field can be set.

Here’s what we know for sure:

Pool A

Pool A, which is comprised of teams getting automatic bids is set with the exception of the ECAC Northeast champion. The following are in:

Middlebury (NESCAC champion)
Norwich (ECAC East champion)
Plattsburgh (SUNYAC champion)
St. Norbert (NCHA champion)
St. Thomas (MIAC champion)
Either Wentworth or Curry will round out Pool A

Pool B

It’s close, but Hobart’s win over RIT in the ECAC should give the Statesmen the lone Pool B bid, which goes to the top team from a conference that does not qualify for an automatic berth. The same criteria are used to select all the at-large teams as well as seed the field once it’s selected. The criteria are:

• Win Percentage
• Strength of Schedule
• Head-to-Head Results
• Record Against Common Opponents Within Region
• Record Against Ranked Teams Within Region

Here’s the breakdown for Hobart and RIT:

 Hobart vs RIT
 WIN      0.6481  1      0.6364  0
 SOS      8.5556  0      9.5000  1
 H2H     2- 1- 0  1     1- 2- 0  0
 COP     8- 4- 5  0     9- 1- 4  1
 RNK     7- 4- 2  1     6- 6- 3  0
 ==================================
 PTS              3              2

RIT would have taken all five categories with a win, but the Statesmen take the winning percentage and record against ranked teams plus head-to-head.

Pool C

There are two Pool C bids, which go to the top teams, based on the criteria. Here’s where the two scenarios come in. If Curry wins, then the top two teams based on the criteria look to be Wisconsin-River Falls and St. John’s. Other teams under consideration are Lake Forest and New England College.
Here’s how they all stack up:

 Lake Forest vs Wis.-River Falls
 WIN      0.7143  0       0.7586  1
 SOS      9.6786  0      10.0690  1
 H2H     0- 2- 0  0      2- 0- 0  1
 COP    16- 4- 4  1     16- 5- 4  0
 RNK     6- 5- 3  0      7- 2- 2  1
 ===================================
 PTS              1               4
 
 New England vs Wis.-River Falls
 WIN      0.7200  0       0.7586  1
 SOS      9.3200  0      10.0690  1
 H2H     0- 0- 0  0      0- 0- 0  0
 COP     0- 0- 0  0      0- 0- 0  0
 RNK     5- 6- 1  0      7- 2- 2  1
 ===================================
 PTS              0               3
 
 St. John's vs Wis.-River Falls
 WIN      0.8696  1       0.7586  0
 SOS      9.6000  0      10.0690  1
 H2H     0- 0- 0  0      0- 0- 0  0
 COP    13- 3- 0  0      8- 0- 1  1
 RNK     4- 2- 0  0      7- 2- 2  1
 ===================================
 PTS              1               3

River Falls wins the comparisons with all three other teams, so the Falcons get one of the Pool C bids for sure.

Now, if Curry wins, the other Pool C bid will probably go to St. John’s but it will be close:

 Lake Forest vs St. John's
 WIN      0.7143  0       0.8696  1
 SOS      9.6786  1       9.6000  0
 H2H     0- 0- 0  0      0- 0- 0  0
 COP     9- 0- 2  1     14- 3- 0  0
 RNK     6- 5- 3  0      4- 2- 0  1
 ===================================
 PTS              2               2
 
 New England vs St. John's
 WIN      0.7200  0       0.8696  1
 SOS      9.3200  0       9.6000  1
 H2H     0- 0- 0  0      0- 0- 0  0
 COP     0- 0- 0  0      0- 0- 0  0
 RNK     5- 6- 1  0      4- 2- 0  1
 ===================================
 PTS              0               3

Lake Forest and St. John’s tie, but in the past, the NCAA committee has given more consideration to winning percentage and strength of schedule at times like this. The teams are very close in SOS, but St. John’s is way ahead in winning percentage.

That’s assuming that Curry wins. If Wentworth wins and takes the automatic bid, how does Curry stack up against Wisconsin-River Falls, St. John’s and Lake Forest?

 Curry vs Wis.-River Falls
 WIN      0.8913  1       0.7586  0
 SOS     10.4348  1      10.0690  0
 H2H     0- 0- 0  0      0- 0- 0  0
 COP     0- 0- 0  0      0- 0- 0  0
 RNK     3- 2- 0  0      7- 2- 2  1
 ===================================
 PTS              2               1
 
 Curry vs Lake Forest
 WIN      0.8913  1       0.7143  0
 SOS     10.4348  1       9.6786  0
 H2H     0- 0- 0  0      0- 0- 0  0
 COP     0- 0- 0  0      0- 0- 0  0
 RNK     3- 2- 0  1      6- 5- 3  0
 ===================================
 PTS              3               0
 
 Curry vs St. John's
 WIN      0.8913  1       0.8696  0
 SOS     10.4348  1       9.6000  0
 H2H     0- 0- 0  0      0- 0- 0  0
 COP     0- 0- 0  0      0- 0- 0  0
 RNK     3- 2- 0  0      4- 2- 0  1
 ===================================
 PTS              2               1

This may change slightly based on a loss to Wentworth, but it looks like Curry tops all three, so that will bump St. John’s.

So in terms of pairings, we have two scenarios:

Scenario One

Curry wins — The seedings should look like this:

1W St. Norbert
2W Wisconsin-River Falls
3W St. John’s
4W St. Thomas

1E Middlebury
2E Norwich
3E Curry
4E Plattsburgh
5E Hobart

Hobart will travel to Plattsburgh for the play-in game, with the winner going to Middlebury for the quarterfinals. Curry goes to Norwich for the other.

In the West, St. Thomas will travel to St. Norbert, while UWRF will host St. John’s.

Scenario Two

Wentworth Wins — The seedings should look like this:

1W St. Norbert
2W Wisconsin-River Falls
3W St. Thomas

1E Middlebury
2E Norwich
3E Plattsburgh
4E Curry
5E Hobart
6E Wentworth

In this case, The play-in game is in the West, with UWRF hosting St. Thomas. The three Eastern quarterfinals will be Wentworth at Middlebury, Hobart at Norwich and Curry at Plattsburgh.

Stay tuned for the official announcement later this evening.

CSI: NCAA, The 2004 Edition

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Wow. What a great weekend of conference championship hockey. And what a tough job the NCAA Men’s D-III Hockey Committee had after the upsets of St. John’s and Curry on Sunday. Without a doubt, it left some fans and some teams disappointed, and scratching their heads just a bit.

Once again this year, let’s do a little forensic investigation — what we like to call CSI: NCAA. Since none of us were privy to the conversations that went on about the selection this year’s teams, let’s see if we can piece together from the evidence what might have happened to choose the nine teams and decide the seeding.

The first step in the selection of teams was easy for the committee. Six teams in conferences with automatic qualifiers won their tournaments: St. Norbert in the NCHA, Middlebury in the NESCAC, SUNYAC champ Plattsburgh, Norwich in the ECAC East, plus two upset winners, St. Thomas in the MIAC and Wentworth in the ECAC Northeast.

With those six teams in place, that left three more teams for the committee to select: the single Pool B bid, for a team from the two leagues without autobids — the MCHA and ECAC West — and the two Pool C bids, for teams that didn’t win league titles in the six autobid conferences.

The selection committee has five criteria on which to rank at-large teams: in-region winning percentage, in-region head-to-head results, in-region results against common opponents, the Strength of Schedule Index (SOS), and results against ranked teams. The NCAA has been publishing a regional ranking of teams since February 10, using those criteria.

It appears that the criteria were followed explicitly — and correctly — by the committee.

Once the ECAC Northeast championship was settled around 7:40 p.m. ET, each regional committee, comprised of coaches and athletic directors, was able to submit teams to consider from that region for at-large bids.

First, let’s look at the Pool B bid. Because Marian of the MCHA was not ranked, we can surmise that the Sabres were not really considered for the Pool B bid, and that the comparison was made among the four ranked teams in the ECAC West: Hobart, Manhattanville, RIT, and Utica. Utica was ranked well below the other three, so let’s drop the Pioneers from the comparison.

Hobart downed RIT for the ECAC West championship and beat RIT in three of the five criteria: winning percentage, head-to-head record, and record against ranked teams, giving the Statesmen the nod over the Tigers. Manhattanville and Hobart split the criteria, winning two comparisons each and splitting head to head, while RIT beat Manhattanville in four of the five categories, including head to head. Hobart gets the Pool B bid by having the best comparisons among the three.

That leaves us with the most controversial picks, the two Pool C at-large bids.

The top two teams in the east not receiving automatic qualifiers were Curry and New England College, while in the west, Wisconsin-River Falls and St. John’s were the top two submitted in that region.

Each region submitted its two at-large candidates in order. River Falls beat St. John’s in three of the five comparisons: SOS, record against common opponents, and record against ranked teams. St. John’s had a slightly higher winning percentage, and the two teams did not compete this season. Thus, the west region’s two teams were River Falls and St. John’s in that order.

The third ranked team not winning a conference in the west was likely Lake Forest. It lost four comparisons to River Falls, and split with St. John’s. With a better winning percentage and better record against ranked teams, the Johnnies would get a slight edge.

In the east, Curry beat New England in three of five comparisons: winning percentage, SOS, and record against ranked teams. The Pilgrims were one of only three teams to beat Curry, and New England had a better record against common opponents. Both Curry and New England win comparisons against the next teams, Trinity and Oswego.

Next came the part that probably took at least a couple of hours — hammering out the choices for Pool C. With each region presenting its top team, Curry was then compared to River Falls. Curry wins two comparisons, winning percentage at 0.8542 vs. 0.7586, and SOS at 10.2083 to 10.0690. River Falls wins one comparison, record against ranked teams at 7-2-2 against 3-2-0.

Curry wins the first Pool C slot.

Next, River Falls was compared against New England College. The Falcons win three comparisons to none for the Pilgrims. River Falls gets the other Pool C bid.

What could possibly take so long to determine Pool C after those comparisons? Let’s match up Curry and St. John’s. While we saw already that St. John’s loses to River Falls in the five criteria, the Johnnies beat Curry in winning percentage and record against ranked teams, while Curry has the higher SOS. That circular comparison must have been quite a topic of discussion.

Now a couple of what ifs for St. John’s:

If St. John’s had been ranked higher than River Falls, St. John’s would have beaten out Curry for the first Pool C bid, and Curry would then have beaten River Falls for the second bid. But since St. John’s was not the top team in the west, Curry’s advantage in the comparisons over River Falls kept the Johnnies out.

And had Curry won the ECAC Northeast, St. John’s would have received the other Pool C bid by beating New England, Oswego, and Trinity in comparisons. Unranked Wentworth was clearly the spoiler.

With that, we have our field of nine teams.

Next, the committee was charged with seeding the teams. A page of comparisons won, like the USCHO Men’s D-III National PairWise Rankings, generates this list:

1. St. Norbert
2. Middlebury
3. Norwich
4. Plattsburgh
5. Wis.-River Falls
7. Curry
11. St. Thomas
15. Hobart
29. Wentworth

(The numbers are those of the USCHO Men’s D-III National PairWise Rankings, not the NCAA’s.)

Using the rankings above, the committee seeded the field like this: Since there is a 6-3 east-west split, the first-round game is held in the west region, to avoid flying teams in the first round. River Falls, as the higher seed, hosts St. Thomas on Wednesday, March 10, and the winner of that game visits St. Norbert on Saturday, March 13.

In the east, the committee followed the rankings exactly when choosing seeds. Wentworth visits Middlebury, Hobart is at Norwich, and Curry travels to Plattsburgh in eastern quarterfinals on Saturday.

By 10:30 p.m. or so, the committee had finished its work. For a second straight year, the selection committee followed the championship manual to the letter.

Another case closed.

D-III Women’s NCAA Field Announced

USCHO Staff Report
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The 2004 NCAA Division III Women’s Tournament field was announced this evening with no real surprises.

Manhattanville (23-2-2), the champions of the ECAC East, was awarded the No. 1 seed and the bye straight into the Frozen Four. Manhattanville’s home facility of Playland Ice Casino did not meet the NCAA criteria for hosting the Frozen Four, so Manhattanville will not get that typical associated benefit of the bye. The site of the Frozen Four will be announced after next weekend’s games.

The Valiants will be playing the winner of the Wisconsin-Stevens Point (17-6-4) and Gustavus Adolphus (22-5-0) game next weekend. The NCHA and MIAC Champions will be playing at the home of the Gutsies.

The other half of the bracket finds two teams each from the NESCAC and ECAC West. In one semifinal Middlebury (21-4-0) will host the two-time defending champion, and winner of the ECAC West Tournament, Elmira Soaring Eagles (18-7-2). The other semifinal will see Plattsburgh (20-5-2) host the NESCAC Champion Bowdoin (20-4-1).

USCHO.com’s Bracketology predicted the entire field of participants as well as the correct matchups. The only difference in the actual field and USCHO’s Bracketology was the site of the Wisconsin-Stevens Point and Gustavus Adolphus game.

NCAA Men’s Division III Field Announced

USCHO Staff Report
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The NCAA has announced the pairings for the 2004 Division III Men’s Hockey tournament. As correctly predicted by USCHO, the pairings are as follows:

First-Round, Wednesday, March 10

#3W St. Thomas at #2W Wisconsin-River Falls

Quarterfinals, Saturday, March 13

St. Thomas/Wisconsin-River Falls at #1W St. Norbert
#6E Wentworth at #1E Middlebury
#5E Hobart at #2E Norwich
#4E Curry at #3E Plattsburgh
 

Semifinals, Friday, March 19

St. Thomas/Wisconsin-River Falls at St. Norbert winner vs. Curry at Plattsburgh winner
Hobart at Norwich winner vs. Wentworth at Middlebury winner

The site for the Division III Frozen Four will be announced after the completion of the quarterfinals. Odds strongly favor an Eastern location, based on three Eastern teams guaranteed a spot in the semifinals.

USCHO will have reactions to the announced bids later on Monday.

Bracketology: D-III Women

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It’s all said and done in Women’s Division III action. All that’s left is the NCAA Touranament. It’s time to take a look at who I believe will be in the NCAA Tournament.

Let’s remind everyone that there are seven teams in the Division III Women’s Tournament.

• There are four automatic bids — the winners of the conference tournaments for the ECAC East, ECAC West, MIAC and NESCAC. This is Pool A.

• Then there is one bid for Pool B teams, those teams that are in conferences which do not get an automatic bid. In this case, it’s just the teams in the NCHA.

• And then there are two bids for Pool C teams. These are teams in the conferences which have automatic bids, but did not get the automatic bid.

With seven bids, we know that there are four teams already in the tournament. Those four teams are the Pool A teams. These four teams are:

MIAC Champion — Gustavus Adolphus
ECAC East Champion — Manhattanville
ECAC West Champion — Elmira
NESCAC Champion — Bowdoin

The next step is to award the Pool B bid to the tournament.

For this we take a look at the eligible teams. That is all the NCHA teams. Wisconsin-Stevens Point won the NCHA Championship, so that would lead us to believe that the Pointers should be awarded the Pool B bid. But that is not based on the criteria, so we have to look at the criteria.

Per the NCAA, the criteria for selection are:

• Win Percentage

• Strength of Schedule per the NCAA’s table

• Head-to-Head Results

• Record Against Common Opponents Within Region

• Record Against Ranked Teams Within Region

You can take those five criteria and create a PairWise Comparison table with them.

Ties are not broken by RPI as in the Division I PairWise, but rather by looking at all the criteria and then deciding — it’s subjective here.

Let’s take a look at the PairWise Rankings for the West Region, since that is where the NCHA is. Most notably. Let’s look at the NCHA teams which are tournament eligible.

Those three teams are the Pointers, Wisconsin-Superior and Wisconsin-River Falls. Per the rankings they are:

2 Wisconsin-Stevens Point
4 Wisconsin-Superior
5 Wisconsin-River Falls

Looking at the comparisons head-to-head between the three teams we see:

Wis.-River Falls

Wis.-Stevens Point

WIN

0.6481 0

0.7391 1

SOS

9.4074 0

9.9565 1

H2H

0- 4- 1 0

4- 0- 1 1

COP

15- 5- 0 1

12- 5-1 0

RNK

4- 8- 1 0

7- 4- 2 1

PTS

1

4
Wis.-River Falls

Wis.-Superior

WIN

0.6481 0

0.7222 1

SOS

9.4074 0

9.4074 0

H2H

3- 1- 0 1

1- 3- 0 0

COP

13- 6- 1 0

18- 3-1 1

RNK

4- 8- 1 0

6- 5- 0 1

PTS

1

3
Wis.-Stevens Point

Wis.-Superior

WIN

0.7391 1

0.7222 0

SOS

9.9565 1

9.4074 0

H2H

2- 3- 0 0

3- 2- 0 1

COP

13- 1- 2 1

15- 4-0 0

RNK

7- 4- 2 1

6- 5- 0 0

PTS

4

1

From these three comparisons it is easy to see that Stevens Point wins two comparisons, Superior wins one and River Falls wins none.

Therefore we award the Pool B bid to Wisconsin-Stevens Point.

We now have five of our seven teams in the tournament.

It’s time to award the remaining two bids — the Pool C bids.

Let’s now take a look at the current PairWise Rankings for Division III Women on a national scale. Let’s look at the Top 10 of the Rankings on a national scale.

In rank order they are:

1 Manhattanville
1 Middlebury
3 Plattsburgh
4 Bowdoin
5 Elmira
6 Rensselaer
7 Gustavus Adolphus
7 Wisconsin-Stevens Point
9 St. Thomas
10 Wisconsin-Superior

Let’s take out the teams that already have Pool A bids to the Tournament (Manhattanville, Bowdoin and Elmira), plus our choice for Pool B, Wisconsin-Stevens Point.

1 Middlebury
3 Plattsburgh
6 Rensselaer
9 St. Thomas
10 Wisconsin-Superior

We have to eliminate Wisconsin-Superior because they are not eligible for a Pool C bid because they are a Pool B team. That leaves four teams for two spots.

Looking at the pure rankings themselves, Middlebury and Plattsburgh look like they will be the two teams, but let’s just confirm that with the comparisons.

Let’s take all four teams and do the head-to-head.

Middlebury

Plattsburgh

WIN

0.8750 1

0.8400 0

SOS

10.2500 0

10.4400 1

H2H

2- 0- 0 1

0- 2- 0 0

COP

10- 3- 0 0

7- 1- 1 1

RNK

7- 3- 0 1

6- 3- 2 0

PTS

3

2
Middlebury

Rensselaer

WIN

0.8750 1

0.7500 0

SOS

10.2500 1

9.6111 0

H2H

0- 0- 0 0

0- 0- 0 0

COP

5- 0- 0 0

2- 0- 0 0

RNK

7- 3- 0 1

5- 3- 1 0

PTS

3

0
Middlebury

St. Thomas

WIN

0.8750 1

0.7407 0

SOS

10.2500 1

9.4815 0

H2H

0- 0- 0 0

0- 0- 0 0

COP

1- 0- 0 1

0- 0- 1 0

RNK

7- 3- 0 1

3- 4- 1 0

PTS

4

0
Plattsburgh

Rensselaer

WIN

0.8400 1

0.7500 0

SOS

10.4400 1

9.6111 0

H2H

0- 0- 0 0

0- 0- 0 0

COP

5- 0- 1 1

4- 2- 1 0

RNK

6- 3- 2 1

5- 3- 1 0

PTS

4

0
Plattsburgh

St. Thomas

WIN

0.8400 1

0.7407 0

SOS

10.4400 1

9.4815 0

H2H

0- 0- 0 0

0- 0- 0 0

COP

0- 0- 1 0

0- 0- 1 0

RNK

6- 3- 2 1

3- 4- 1 0

PTS

3

0
Rensselaer

St. Thomas

WIN

0.7500 1

0.7407 0

SOS

9.6111 1

9.4815 0

H2H

0- 0- 0 0

0- 0- 0 0

COP

0- 0- 0 0

0- 0- 0 0

RNK

5- 3- 1 1

3- 4- 1 0

PTS

3

0

Looking at the comparisons, Middlebury wins three of the six, Plattsburgh two of the six and Rensselear the last one.

So, that confirms our selections of Middlebury and Plattsburgh.

Therefore our seven teams in the tournament are:

1 Manhattanville
1 Middlebury
3 Plattsburgh
4 Bowdoin
5 Elmira
7 Gustavus Adolphus
7 Wisconsin-Stevens Point

Now we need to break ties to determine the seedings.

We have two ties here, one in the east and one in the west. Therefore we break the ties using the regional PairWise Rankings.

Let’s break the Western tie with Gustavus Adolphus and Wisconsin-Stevens Point. Looking at the overall ranking, they each have six comparison wins. So let’s look at the individual comparison.

Gustavus Adolphus

Wis.-Stevens Point

WIN

0.8750 1

0.7391 0

SOS

10.5833 1

9.9565 0

H2H

1- 1- 0 0

1- 1- 0 0

COP

7- 2- 0 0

6- 0- 2 1

RNK

4- 3- 0 0

7- 4- 2 1

PTS

2

2

We have ourselves a tie. So we have to figure out who is the higher seed here.

Remember that this is subjective. There is no weight to either of the five factors, so the tie could be broken by any of the five criteria. We head to out-of-region competition to take a look.

The Gusties pick up a win over Colby and two losses to Bowdoin and Williams. The Pointers picked up a win over Williams, ties against Plattsburgh and Elmira and a loss to Middlebury. Breaking it down a little more, let’s take a look at out-of-region competition against teams already in the tournament.

It becomes clear that the Pointers are 1-1-2 against those teams while Gustavus Adolphus is 0-2.

I give Wisconsin-Stevens Point the sixth seed and Gustavus the seventh seed.

Now let’s break the Manhattanville-Middlebury tie.

Manhattanville

Middlebury

WIN

0.8696 1

0.8636 0

SOS

10.9130 1

10.1818 0

H2H

0- 0- 0 0

0- 0- 0 0

COP

4- 1- 2 0

8- 3- 0 1

RNK

9- 2- 2 1

6- 3- 0 0

PTS

3

1

The head-to-head comparison favors Manhattanville. Therefore we award Manhattanville the number one seed. Or do we?

But if you go to the national comparison, the two are tied because of a switch with the winning percentage.

Manhattanville

Middlebury

WIN

0.8696 0

0.8750 1

SOS

10.9130 1

10.2500 0

H2H

0- 0- 0 0

0- 0- 0 0

COP

4- 1- 2 0

8- 3- 0 1

RNK

9- 2- 2 1

7- 3- 0 0

PTS

2

2

Let’s look at record against teams that are in the tournament. Manhattanville is 2-1-2, Middlebury is 4-3-0. That still makes me choose Manhattanville as the number one seed.

The seven teams in the tournament by rank order are as follows:

1 Manhattanville
2 Middlebury
3 Plattsburgh
4 Bowdoin
5 Elmira
6 Wisconsin-Stevens Point
7 Gustavus Adolphus

Let’s now set our games.

Based upon the NCAA Championship Handbook, group by geography. That means that we have one matchup of Wisconsin-Stevens Point and Gustavus Adolphus. Let’s set that matchup as one of the first-round games next weekend. Who gets to host? The higher seed, in this case Wisconsin-Stevens Point.

Geographic proximity, as defined by the NCAA, is within 500 miles of one another. Therefore all five of the teams are in geographic proximity with each other.

The closest matchups would be Bowdoin-Middlebury and Elmira-Plattsburgh, but since all teams are within 500 miles of each other, we will go with the matchups of Elmira at Middlebury and Bowdoin at Plattsburgh.

I know what everyone is saying. The tournament champions have to go on the road, while the two losers of the championship games get to host? That’s what the numbers say.

This also gives Manhattanville the bye and the right to host the Frozen Four.

But, Manhattanville cannot host the Frozen Four. A first-round game, yes, but not the Frozen Four due to its facility at the Playland Ice Casino.

Now the questions begs, do you take away Manhattanville’s bye? You can’t according to the criteria.

But you have to find a place for the Frozen Four to be played. The next logical step is to award it to Middlebury. We can do that, but then again there is the possibility that Middlebury will also gets the Men’s Division III Frozen Four.

But you can not make a decision based upon a possibility that Middlebury will win a first-round game and then be eligible to host the Frozen Four. Therefore we give it to Middlebury.

We now have our NCAA Division III Women’s Ice Hockey Championship set.


First Round
Gustavus Adolphus at Wisconsin-Stevens Point
Elmira at Middlebury
Bowdoin at Plattsburgh

Frozen Four
at Middlebury
Gustavus Adolphus/Wisconsin-Stevens Point vs. Manhattanville
Elmira/Middlebury vs. Bowdoin/Plattsburgh

The selections come out on Sunday, we’ll see how accurate our bracketology was.

Crimson Anchor

By Juan Martinez
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One of the ECAC’s best-kept secrets continues to excel. Arguably the best defensive defenseman in the league, Harvard junior Ryan Lannon is the quiet anchor of a stingy blueline corps.

Lannon

Lannon

A group of seven defensemen, six of whom, including Lannon, are NHL draft picks, they have combined to do the majority of the heavy lifting in leading Harvard to back-to-back shutouts — the first such feat for the Crimson since 1987.

Friday, the sextet combined to hold Vermont to just 19 shots, including only 10 with 10 minutes to go in the teams’ ECAC playoff Game 1. This is the same UVM squad that scored six times last Friday against Harvard.

“I thought we did a lot of good things defensively,” said Harvard coach Mark Mazzoleni.

Especially on the penalty kill, where the Crimson held UVM without a quality scoring chance over six opportunities, including a crucial 5-on-3 early in the first period.

“[That’s] a great opportunity to generate offense,” said Mazzoleni, “but it can work both ways — if you don’t generate offense, it takes away your momentum.”

“We worked on shutting them down,” added Lannon. “We did not want to give them room to operate. We wanted it more than them.”

While the return to health of rookie Dylan Reese and senior Dave McCulloch have been big boosts down the stretch, it is Lannon who has consistently been the best defender of the Harvard zone all season long — and among the best in the league since his rookie campaign.

The Grafton, Mass., native is the most physical defenseman on the team, using the strength contained in his 6-foot-2, 220-pound frame to keep opponents’ top forwards off balance and away from the front of the net.

“When you play defense,” explained Lannon, “one little detail can cost you a goal. You want to play aggressive, but not too aggressive. Every game from here on out is magnified.”

Lannon walks that fine line better than most in the ECAC. Rarely out of position, he has a strong understanding of his role.

“When I’m at my best,” he said, “my game is to keep it simple and by physical. I don’t have the quick hands and feet to step up into the offense. My job is to support the forwards, not lead the rush.

“Being a veteran, it’s a big difference. We’ve been in this position before. Confidence is a big part of it. As a freshman you may be nervous in the first playoff game. Now it comes more naturally. I know my game and I don’t do too much.”

On the contrary, Lannon does it all for the Crimson.

Bracketology: D-III Women

By
-

It’s crunch time. This is the final weekend of the Division III Women’s season and there is a lot on the line. With the NCAA selections coming this weekend, let’s do Bracketology: Division III Women’s Hockey style.

What we’ll do here is take a look at who I think is in the tournament, and then possible scenarios with this weekend.

Let’s remind everyone that there are seven teams in the Division III Women’s Tournament.

  • There are four automatic bids — the winners of the conference tournaments for the ECAC East, ECAC West, MIAC and NESCAC. This is Pool A.
  • One bid is for Pool B teams, those teams that are in conferences which do not get an automatic bid. In this case, it’s just the teams in the NCHA.
  • And then there are two bids for Pool C teams. These are teams in the conferences which have automatic bids, but did not get the automatic bid.

    There are five criteria used when selecting teams. These criteria are:

  • Win Percentage
  • Strength of Schedule per the NCAA’s table
  • Head-to-Head Results
  • Record Against Common Opponents Within Region
  • Record Against Ranked Teams Within Region

    You can take those five criteria and create a PairWise Comparison table with them.

    Ties are not broken by RPI as in the Division I PairWise, but rather by looking at all the criteria and then deciding — it’s subjective here.

    It’s time for a snapshot of what would happen if the season ended right now. What would the tournament look like?

    Let’s now take a look at the current PairWise Rankings for Division III women and its Top 9 teams.

    In rank order they are:

    1 Middlebury
    2 Plattsburgh
    3 Manhattanville
    4 Elmira
    5 Rensselaer
    6 Bowdoin
    7 Wisconsin-Stevens Point
    8 Gustavus Adolphus
    9 St. Thomas

    Let’s take the top seeds in the tournaments for each of the automatic bid conferences. Those are Middlebury, Plattsburgh, Manhattanville and St. Thomas. We’ll call these the four Pool A teams.

    (We now see our first twist to the process. St. Thomas is number nine and only seven make the tournament. Which means that somebody in the Top 7 will be left out of the tournament.)

    Now that we’ve chosen our Pool A teams, let’s choose the Pool B teams. In the top nine, there is only one eligible Pool B team: Wisconsin-Stevens Point, the NCHA champion. We give our Pool B bid to the Pointers.

    Now it’s time for Pool C. In our top nine, we have three Pool B teams: Elmira, Rensselaer and Bowdoin. We will take Elmira since they are above Rensselaer and Bowdoin. Now we’ll choose between Rensselaer and Bowdoin.

    They each have the same number of PairWise comparison wins at 14. So we have to break the tie by looking at the five criteria. They have not played one another this season, so let’s first see who wins the head-to-head between these two in the comparison criteria.

    Win percentage favors Bowdoin, but Rensselaer wins Strength of Schedule, Record Against Common Opponents In Region, and Record Against Ranked Teams in Region. Rensselaer wins the comparison 3-1. So we take Rensselaer over Bowdoin. The Engineers become the last team in the Tournament.

    Ranking our seven teams:

    1 Middlebury (A)
    2 Plattsburgh (A)
    3 Manhattanville (A)
    4 Elmira (C)
    5 Rensselaer (C)
    6 Wisconsin-Stevens Point (B)
    7 St. Thomas (A)

    Let’s set the field:

    Middlebury receives the bye to the semifinals and gets to host the Division III Women’s Frozen Four.

    The Bracket would then be:

    St. Thomas at Wisconsin-Stevens Point. The winner plays Middlebury in one semifinal

    Rensselaer at Plattsburgh, and Elmira at Manhattanville. The winners play each other in the other semifinal.

    What Will The Weekend Bring?

    Well, this is an interesting weekend coming up. The conference championships are taking place, meaning some results can change the whole scheme.

    There are some things that won’t change, and that is that the top four in the PairWise are definitely in the tournament, as is Wisconsin-Stevens Point. That makes five teams in the tournament and only two spots to be decided. One of those spots is the MIAC Pool A winner, so there is only one truly at-large spot left.

    Who gets left out is the question.

    The teams on the bubble, Elmira, Rensselaer and Bowdoin, could help themselves out with two wins this weekend. That would give them Pool A bids and a ticket to the tournament, leaving one of the number-one seeds out of the tournament.

    It comes down to the MIAC championship game for Gustavus and St. Thomas. The loser of that game is out.

    But let’s look at some scenarios individually, and at the bubble teams. Because I have already called Elmira as being in the tournament, the only real bubble teams are Rensselaer and Bowdoin.

    What would be disastrous for both teams is that if they do not win their tourneys and none of the top four win their tournaments. Both teams would then be out. Williams, New England College and Utica come to mind as possible spoilers here.

    If both teams lost their semifinal games what would happen? Rensselaer plays New England College. Rensselaer would still win the comparison 3-1, because it would still beat Bowdoin in the criteria despite the two losses.

    If Rensselaer won and Bowdoin lost, then Rensselaer would obviously be above Bowdoin. If Rensselaer lost and Bowdoin won, and then Bowdoin lost the NESCAC championship, what would happen?

    Tough call. Bowdoin would pick up a loss against a ranked team, as Rensselaer had. That criterion still goes Rensselaer’s way.

    The comparison in Common Opponents would also still go Rensselaer way, as the only team that could affect that in the NESCAC championship is Williams. The strength of schedule criteria would go to Rensselaer as well.

    So Rensselaer is in? Yes and no.

    Should Middlebury beat Bowdoin in this theoretical, then yes, Rensselaer would go. But should Williams defeat Bowdoin for the championship, the Rensselaer is out. That is because Elmira/Plattsburgh and now Middlebury would get the two Pool C bids.

    Should both teams win, then lose in the title game, the numbers still favor Rensselaer. If it’s Middlebury-Bowdoin in the championship game, Rensselaer wins the comparison. If it’s Williams-Bowdoin in the championship, we have the same situation as above.

    If both teams won their semifinals and only one of them won the championship, the other would automatically be out because there are no more Pool C spots left.

    Let’s turn our attention to the bye now, looking at the top four teams.

    Middlebury — Two wins for Middlebury could assure it the bye. It would help tremendously if the Panthers played Bowdoin for the championship and won. That could solidify them for the number-one seed as they would switch the comparison with Plattsburgh by winning the Ranked Teams criterion. Let’s examine that in a little more detail.

    Here is the current comparison:

    Middlebury

    		Plattsburgh

    WIN

    		0.9000 1 pt

    		0.8810 0 pt

    SOS

    		10.200 0 pt

    		10.714 1 pt

    H2H

    		2- 0- 0 1 pt

    		0- 2- 0 0 pt

    COP

    		7- 2- 0 0 pt

    		6- 0- 0 1 pt

    RNK

    		5- 2- 0 0 pt

    		6- 2- 1 1 pt

    PTS

    		2

    		3

    Let’s look at the Ranked Opponents line, the last one. Two wins over Williams and Bowdoin would give Middlebury a 7-2 mark there. Plattsburgh with two wins would be 7-2-1, as Neumann is not ranked but Elmira is. That criteria now switches over to Middlebury, giving it the head-to-head comparison win. Two wins by both teams does not affect win percentage, head-to-head or common opponents.

    And Plattsburgh has already won the strength of schedule criterion, so if that switched, it would make no difference; Middlebury wins the comparison.

    Plattsburgh — As noted above, two wins may not be enough to get the bye if Middlebury wins two. Plattsburgh needs Middlebury to lose to continue to win the head-to-head comparison between the two teams.

    Manhattanville — The Valiants’ chances hinge on losses by Plattsburgh and Middlebury. It is almost impossible for the Valiants to get the bye should either of those two win two games this weekend. They lose the comparison to Plattsburgh and are tied with Middlebury. Nothing can change those comparisons unless they both lose. It did not help the Valiants that Mass.-Boston upset RIT in the ECAC East quarterfinals. They would rather have played New England College, a ranked team.

    Elmira — Elmira has a tough go. Even if all three teams above them lost in the semifinals, it would be highly unlikely that the Soaring Eagles could jump to the top seed. The Frozen Four will have a new home for the first time.

    Well, there you go — a quick look at what the field would like today and some of the possibilities after this weekend.

    We’ll be back Sunday afternoon with a final look, including the predicted field for the NCAA Division III Women’s Championship.

    • Between the Lines, March 4, 2004

    By Adam Wodon
    -

    What a weekend we’ve got coming up. You can’t be a college hockey fan and not be looking forward to this. Two major league titles are on the line, NCAA berths are out there to be had — or lost — and the ECAC playoffs begin.

    In Hockey East, things are settled for the top spot (Boston College), but there is some intrigue elsewhere. If Boston University loses at home to New Hampshire tonight (certainly possible), and to UNH again on Friday, that would open the door for Northeastern to actually make the playoffs as the 8th-place team. Northeastern has a pair of games with Massachusetts, which has struggled in the second half, and is another interesting story — to see if it can right the ship enough to make a strong playoff run and even its first NCAA berth. But if Northeastern made the playoffs, it would be a seismic happening. For one, it would mean bumping out BU, which has never happened. Second, it might be a last reprieve for coach Bruce Crowder, who seems to be on the chopping block right now.

    Michigan State's Jim Slater is a Hobey candidate, and he hopes to lead the Spartans into first place this weekend.

    Michigan State’s Jim Slater is a Hobey candidate, and he hopes to lead the Spartans into first place this weekend.

    In the CCHA, Notre Dame’s sweep of Michigan last weekend has opened the door for Miami and Michigan State to make a run at the title. Miami was in good position until it faltered a bit, starting with its own pair of weekend losses at the hands of Michigan. But now the Red Hawks are back within two points. The Spartans are four back, but have destiny in their hands with a weekend series against the Wolverines (the Saturday game is at Joe Louis Arena). It’s a tall order for Michigan State, but it will be exciting. And the Spartans need the games for NCAA purposes on top of it all. Miami, meanwhile, has its own exciting home-and-home with Ohio State, which has its own issues to deal with. Alaska-Fairbanks and Notre Dame are just one point behind the fourth-place Buckeyes, and, again, there are NCAA implications.

    North Dakota gave second-place Minnesota-Duluth an unceremonius “not so fast” hand to the face last weekend, sweeping the series in Duluth, and thus taking all five meetings against the teams this year. These were great college hockey games, however, with the normally wide-open teams playing low scoring games. For one, there was a lot on the line, and for two, the goaltenders, North Dakota’s Jake Brandt and UMD’s Isaac Reichmuth, are on the top of their game. With North Dakota now in the lead by two points and hosting Michigan Tech, odds are the Sioux have first place. Duluth plays two at Wisconsin, which has a lot on the line as well, making the task for the Bulldogs pretty difficult. But they still have plenty to look forward to in the WCHA and NCAA tournament. … This conference is so knock-down drag out, though, that just about every matchup has major standings and NCAA implications. Colorado College is at Denver with home ice and NCAA berths on the line. St. Cloud State is at Minnesota for a pair, with the same issues hanging out there, and both teams in need to get themselves back on the right track. … Of course, it’s not really fair to say that a couple of WCHA losses in a row means a team is on the wrong track. The WCHA is so ridiculously difficult right now, that there really is no shame in losing games here. Just ask Minnesota, which loses its captain for a bit and all of a sudden is barely .500 (13-12-1), yet is still ranked seventh in the nation.

    And the ECAC is sure to be wild this weekend as well. Other than the matchup between No. 5 seed RPI and No. 12 Princeton, there doesn’t figure to be any clear cut favorites. No. 11 Vermont just defeated No. 6 Harvard last Friday, 6-4, so that’s no gimme for the Crimson, who are dying to rectify an extremely disappointing season, a la two years ago. And with five teams separated by three points at the top of the standings, there are no gimmes to Albany either.

    We love this game.

    Holy Smokes

    Who knew there were so many Holy Cross hockey fans? And they all seemingly wrote to me last week, telling me how incredibly dumb I was to even suggest that Quinnipiac may be anywhere close to Holy Cross academically. According to one gentleman, I had better be a Quinnipiac alum, because if so, he could respect me sticking up for my school. Otherwise, I just must be an idiot.

    OK, uncle. Call me an idiot. Holy Cross is a fine academic institution. I’ve seen the statistics. My eyes have seen the glory. It is superior to Quinnipiac.

    So much for a throwaway line that was just trying to be nice to Quinnipiac — so all their alums wouldn’t write to me and tell me how I was disparaging their fine academic institution.

    Let’s understand something, though. It just doesn’t matter. OK, so Holy Cross is a superior institution. It wasn’t the point of that whole section. It doesn’t matter if Holy Cross is a combination of Harvard and Oxford. It won’t be the basis for them getting into the ECAC.

    Geography, academics and its Patriot League relationship with Colgate are all in Holy Cross’ favor. But if those are the reasons the ECAC uses for bringing them in, they just shouldn’t bother with a 12th team.

    The point was that Quinnipiac is good enough academically to fit into the ECAC, and is overwhelmingly superior in their commitment to a strong hockey program. If the ECAC decides it wants a 12th team, I would think that should be an overwhelming factor. Although, as I said, the groundswell is to leave it at 11 for now.

    But let’s throw in that Quinnipiac has a relationship with the New England Sports Network (NESN). That’s a heckuva lot more than can be said for the rest of the ECAC right now. (Keep reading.)

    TV Guide

    CSTV broadcast two ECAC games this season, out of the goodness of its own heart, apparently, since the ECAC never actually announced a relationship with the network. This despite the fact that CSTV is falling over itself to get college hockey games on televison, and every other conference signed and announced a deal years ago.

    logos/conf-ec.gif

    Meanwhile, all season long, the ECAC tournament Championship Game was on CSTV’s schedule, also supposedly part of this phantom deal. All of a sudden, it’s March 4th — heck, still 15 days from the tournament, plenty of time, eh? — and the ECAC sends out a press release saying that the games will instead be televised on CN8, a regional cable station owned by Comcast and shown on Comcast systems throughout New England and the Mid-Atlantic.

    What in the world happened? If we only knew. But this has all the makings of another Phil Buttafuoco-led ECAC fiasco.

    Remember, this is the league that reneged on a handshake agreement with Lake Placid, and never returned its phone calls for months. Buttafuoco has a history of fracturing business relationships through neglect. Did this happen here? God only knows. But if it did, so help us all if it’s not the last straw for ECAC teams to bolt from this boondoggle.

    Somehow, the games will probably be picked up by some satellite entity or another, allowing the games to be seen by people outside CN8’s coverage area.

    (By the way, this has nothing to do with CN8, a fine channel which I’ve actually worked for in the past, and who I’m sure will do a very good job with the broadcasts.)

    But in the meantime, what happened with an entity that the ECAC desperately needs to have in its corner? I’m sure the ECAC will say there was financial considerations, but why then was the game on CSTV’s schedule all year? And don’t you need to see the forest for the trees here?

    If there was any conference more in need of the relationship with CSTV, it’s the ECAC, which has no other regular TV contract. Here’s a place that’s actually dying to have you. And not just some nothing place, but a place with the first-ever national college hockey game of the week. The same place that has deals with all the other big boys. And because the big boys already have their local deals, here’s an opportunity for you to sign on with this place and become their highlight game on the biggest weekend of the season pre-NCAAs.

    And then it doesn’t happen. Why? I don’t know. Something.

    “I know he’s working his butt off, but I don’t know what’s in his mindframe that makes him say, ‘I’m going to ignore [these people] again,” says one source close to the league. “That’s the problem I could never figure out with the guy.

    “He doesn’t like confrontation, and that’s part of why he doesn’t return calls that could be a little sticky. … He has great ideas. He absolutely understands what needs to happen. The problem is how he executes them, and the relationships he ends up destroying along the way.”

    The league deserves better than this.

    This is a league filled with great schools, great fans, great coaches, great players. It has character. It has tradition. Because of the nature of athletics, it may never again reach its heights of the ’70s and ’80s, but ECAC teams can still be competitive every night. And do it within the confines of much higher academic standards than anywhere else.

    In no other sport, except lacrosse, can Ivy League teams compete on this kind of level. These programs should be given a medal and saluted by every sports fan in North America.

    At the same time, however, it continues to associate itself with this albatross in Centerville.

    The ECAC hockey schools need to reinvent themselves so that we can go back to talking about how great they are, and not how much their progress is hampered by inept leadership.

    There is more to say, but it can wait, because, frankly, I personally don’t want to distract any more from what is set up to be another outstanding ECAC tournament.

    Check, Please

    And people wonder why coaches sometimes go off on officials. You don’t think Mike Schafer’s tirade following a game against Rensselaer in January had any effect? Try these numbers on for size.

    Schafer

    Schafer

    Cornell’s coach was upset with referree Joel Dupree, calling him out for failing to “protect his players” from a number of hits from behind. One led to a shoulder injury to Cornell power forward Shane Hynes. Following the game, Schafer went on a three and a half minute tirade, and was subsequently suspended for the team’s next game.

    Don’t think for a second, however, that Schafer didn’t know what he was doing. He didn’t know at the time, of course, whether it would have any effect, but we can now see that it did.

    In 44 ECAC games up to and including Schafer’s comments, there were six hit from behind penalties called. That’s one every 7.3 games.

    In the 63 ECAC games from that point forward, there were 31 hit from behind penalties called. One every 2.0 games.

    Pretty sad that it takes a three-and-a-half-minute profanity-laced tirade to get something accomplished, but sometimes it does.

    Close Call

    With five points separating three teams at the top of the ECAC standings, and numerous other close bunches throughout the 12-team league, Saturday’s regular-season finale was filled with intrigue. Teams were calling each other’s press boxes, getting up-to-the-minute updates on where games stood with teams close to them in the standings. Sports Information Directors racing down to the benches to relay scores to coaches. It was happening all over the league.

    In one place, however, it appears someone got a little overzealous.

    Union’s game with Princeton was going unusually long. Meanwhile, Cornell’s game with Clarkson was also going long, because it was on local television. It started seven minutes later than all other games, and included TV timeouts. Nevertheless, that game was pretty close to conclusion as Princeton tied Union in the game’s closing minute.

    It seems that Union’s coaches were informed that Clarkson was losing, but didn’t get the update that the game was over. Union entered the night a point behind Clarkson for the final home-ice spot, but if the teams finished even, Union won the tiebreaker. There was still a chance Clarkson could tie, though, so Union’s coaches had to go for the win. So Union pulled its goalie in overtime. Union scored, won the game, and came in eighth place, the final home-ice spot, one point ahead of Clarkson. Brilliant.

    Except that Union didn’t need to win the game.

    According to information released before the game, if Clarkson and Union finished in a tie for eighth, then Union would win the tiebreaker based on record against the Top 4 in the league. Union coaches never got the new information that Clarkson had officially lost. If Princeton had scored an empty-net overtime goal, Union would be playing at Clarkson this weekend, instead of vice-versa.

    This is why it pays sometimes to be a stats geek.

    When the Balls Come Tumbling Down

    I’m all for tradition. I’m even for dumb tradition, as long as there was a point, at some point. But Dartmouth’s “tradition” of throwing tennis balls on the ice when it faces Princeton at home, is right up there in the Hall of Dumbth.

    This year, fans were implored not to do it by coach Bob Gaudet and the administration. It happened anyway, and continued to happen later in the game, to the tune of two penalties.

    This is not so much the problem. Cornell throws fish on the ice for Harvard. It has gotten a penalty before, thanks to some dumb freshman. That shouldn’t be held against the rest of the crowd.

    It’s the way it got started that makes it silly.

    Princeton fans, as they were, used to throw tennis balls onto the ice for the first goal of every game. When that started, I don’t know, but it was happening in the early ’90s. Princeton coach Don Cahoon, who took over in 1991, hated that. After a few years, he managed to put an end to it.

    Somewhere in there, however, Dartmouth fans, as they were, took personal offense to this. Why they thought it was personal, I don’t know. But the next time Princeton came to Dartmouth, they were bombarded with tennis balls and oranges (Princeton, orange, get it?) after the Big Green scored their first goal. All this ever seemed to accomplish was to delay the game and take momentum away from Dartmouth. But Princeton was befuddled, wondering what they did to deserve this treatment. You know those crazy Princeton fans, though … enough to stir the passion in anyone.

    So the whole genesis is somewhat inane, which is reason enough to kill it. At least Cornell’s fish tradition had a point. Harvard fans, mocking Cornell’s agriculture school, tied a live chicken to the goalpost during a game. Cornell fans responded with the fish to mock Harvard’s proximity to the bay. And on it went. Sometimes things get too out of hand, though, and times change, and now Cornell officials are trying to stop the fish.

    It’s like with the Detroit Red Wings. The octopus thing was rooted in some logic … needing to win eight games for a Stanley Cup. Unfortunately, just like with a lot of other things, with increased media coverage over the last couple decades, the octopus thing became chic. Soon, hundreds of people were doing it at Wings games, after every goal. It got to be too much. End of tradition.

    Day Late, Dollar Short

    For years, higher-seeded teams have often been forced to play NCAA games in the home arena of lower-seeded teams. Most recently, this has often happened with Michigan, which has defeated higher-seeded St. Cloud State and Colorado College in recent years, in Ann Arbor. This always leads to an outcry, even though there is nothing shady about the whole thing.

    But with the turn to a 16-team, four-region tournament, more teams are getting the chance to host regionals. And turn the tables. And one of the responses to the conspiracy theorists has always been, “Don’t worry, such and such a team will be getting a chance to host soon too.”

    One such team is Colorado College, which put in for and received a bid for this year’s West Regional. Turnabout is fair play, right?

    Well … the best laid plans. Gearing up for years to finally return the favor, the Tigers look like they won’t even make the NCAAs this year.

    How’s that for a kick in the pants?

    Between the Lines

    By Adam Wodon
    -

    CSTV broadcast two ECAC games this season, out of the goodness of its own heart, apparently, since the ECAC never actually announced a relationship with the network. This despite the fact that CSTV is falling over itself to get college hockey games on televison, and every other conference signed and announced a deal years ago.

    Meanwhile, all season long, the ECAC tournament Championship Game was on CSTV’s schedule, also supposedly part of this phantom deal. All of a sudden, it’s March 4th — heck, still 15 days from the tournament, plenty of time, eh? — and the ECAC sends out a press release saying that the games will instead be televised on CN8, a regional cable station owned by Comcast and shown on Comcast systems throughout New England and the Mid-Atlantic.

    What in the world happened? If we only knew. But this has all the makings of another Phil Buttafuoco-led ECAC fiasco.

    Remember, this is the league that reneged on a handshake agreement with Lake Placid, and never returned its phone calls for months. Buttafuoco has a history of fracturing business relationships through neglect. Did this happen here? God only knows. But if it did, so help us all if it’s not the last straw for ECAC teams to bolt from this boondoggle.

    Somehow, the games will probably be picked up by some satellite entity or another, allowing the games to be seen by people outside CN8’s coverage area.

    (By the way, this has nothing to do with CN8, a fine channel which I’ve actually worked for in the past, and who I’m sure will do a very good job with the broadcasts.)

    But in the meantime, what happened with an entity that the ECAC desperately needs to have in its corner? I’m sure the ECAC will say there was financial considerations, but why then was the game on CSTV’s schedule all year? And don’t you need to see the forest for the trees here?

    If there was any conference more in need of the relationship with CSTV, it’s the ECAC, which has no other regular TV contract. Here’s a place that’s actually dying to have you. And not just some nothing place, but a place with the first-ever national college hockey game of the week. The same place that has deals with all the other big boys. And because the big boys already have their local deals, here’s an opportunity for you to sign on with this place and become their highlight game on the biggest weekend of the season pre-NCAAs.

    And then it doesn’t happen. Why? I don’t know. Something.

    “I know he’s working his butt off, but I don’t know what’s in his mindframe that makes him say, ‘I’m going to ignore [these people] again,” says one source close to the league. “That’s the problem I could never figure out with the guy.

    “He doesn’t like confrontation, and that’s part of why he doesn’t return calls that could be a little sticky. … He has great ideas. He absolutely understands what needs to happen. The problem is how he executes them, and the relationships he ends up destroying along the way.”

    The league deserves better than this.

    This is a league filled with great schools, great fans, great coaches, great players. It has character. It has tradition. Because of the nature of athletics, it may never again reach its heights of the ’70s and ’80s, but ECAC teams can still be competitive every night. And do it within the confines of much higher academic standards than anywhere else.

    In no other sport, except lacrosse, can Ivy League teams compete on this kind of level. These programs should be given a medal and saluted by every sports fan in North America.

    At the same time, however, it continues to associate itself with this albatross in Centerville.

    The ECAC hockey schools need to reinvent themselves so that we can go back to talking about how great they are, and not how much their progress is hampered by inept leadership.

    There is more to say, but it can wait, because, frankly, I personally don’t want to distract any more from what is set up to be another outstanding ECAC tournament.

    Check, Please

    And people wonder why coaches sometimes go off on officials. You don’t think Mike Schafer’s tirade following a game against Rensselaer in January had any effect? Try these numbers on for size.

    Cornell’s coach was upset with referree Joel Dupree, calling him out for failing to “protect his players” from a number of hits from behind. One led to a shoulder injury to Cornell power forward Shane Hynes. Following the game, Schafer went on a three and a half minute tirade, and was subsequently suspended for the team’s next game.

    Don’t think for a second, however, that Schafer didn’t know what he was doing. He didn’t know at the time, of course, whether it would have any effect, but we can now see that it did.

    In 44 ECAC games up to and including Schafer’s comments, there were six hit from behind penalties called. That’s one every 7.3 games.

    In the 63 ECAC games from that point forward, there were 31 hit from behind penalties called. One every 2.0 games.

    Pretty sad that it takes a three-and-a-half-minute profanity-laced tirade to get something accomplished, but sometimes it does.

    Close Call

    With five points separating three teams at the top of the ECAC standings, and numerous other close bunches throughout the 12-team league, Saturday’s regular-season finale was filled with intrigue. Teams were calling each other’s press boxes, getting up-to-the-minute updates on where games stood with teams close to them in the standings. Sports Information Directors racing down to the benches to relay scores to coaches. It was happening all over the league.

    In one place, however, it appears someone got a little overzealous.

    Union’s game with Princeton was going unusually long. Meanwhile, Cornell’s game with Clarkson was also going long, because it was on local television. It started seven minutes later than all other games, and included TV timeouts. Nevertheless, that game was pretty close to conclusion as Princeton tied Union in the game’s closing minute.

    It seems that Union’s coaches were informed that Clarkson was losing, but didn’t get the update that the game was over. Union entered the night a point behind Clarkson for the final home-ice spot, but if the teams finished even, Union won the tiebreaker. There was still a chance Clarkson could tie, though, so Union’s coaches had to go for the win. So Union pulled its goalie in overtime. Union scored, won the game, and came in eighth place, the final home-ice spot, one point ahead of Clarkson. Brilliant.

    Except that Union didn’t need to win the game.

    According to information released before the game, if Clarkson and Union finished in a tie for eighth, then Union would win the tiebreaker based on record against the Top 4 in the league. Union coaches never got the new information that Clarkson had officially lost. If Princeton had scored an empty-net overtime goal, Union would be playing at Clarkson this weekend, instead of vice-versa.

    This is why it pays sometimes to be a stats geek.

    This Week in Women’s Hockey: March 4, 2004

    By
    -

    No matter how long sports are played, watched or coached, the next week is never quite like any other. Many of women’s college hockey’s seniors, even as they’re ritually honored in their final home games of the regular season, nonetheless have plenty of new competitive experiences forthcoming. Even if the seniors were to play forever, they would still find they have a lot left to learn.

    For some, these last few weeks have already been marked by unprecedented achievements. Minnesota’s seniors, after living through three straight Minnesota-Duluth NCAA titles, earned their first three-win season over the Bulldogs and likely dealt the death blow to a UMD Frozen Four run. Dartmouth’s seniors became the first to go undefeated against Harvard and Brown during the same regular season in recent history.

    For the most senior of the seniors on each side of the Harvard-Dartmouth rivalry, this past weekend brought a tremendous amount of adversity in the midst of unprecedented achievement. Harvard’s Angela Ruggiero and Dartmouth’s Lydia Wheatley are the only players left on each roster who could describe Dartmouth’s 3-2 overtime win over Harvard in the 2000 ECAC semifinals first-hand. As experienced as they are, neither could anticipate the misfortune that befell them this past weekend.

    Like the stuff of Greek tragedies, both players proved most vulnerable because of their feet. Ruggiero, when her foot struck the head of Dartmouth’s Katie Weatherston’s on Friday night, earned the first disqualification of her hockey career in the biggest game of the season. Wheatley, who sustained a small fracture in her foot later in the weekend, might have just played the last games of her career.

    After an emotional weekend, Ruggiero will be back in action for No. 3 Harvard this weekend against Yale and No. 9 Princeton with an ECAC title on the line. After back-to-back seasons of ACL injuries, Wheatley finds her foot in a cast, and there’s only a slim chance of her returning for the ECAC final rounds.

    The Penalty

    Though hundreds may have left Dartmouth’s 3-2 win at Thompson Arena on Friday believing that Angela Ruggiero maliciously kicked Katie Weatherston in the head during the second period, neither Harvard coach Katey Stone, Dartmouth coach Mark Hudak, nor Ruggiero herself thinks there’s any evidence of intent.

    By Ruggiero’s account, Weatherston fell on the ground after attempting to take the puck from her. As Weatherston lay on her back, her legs wrapped Ruggiero’s foot. The first time Ruggiero pulled up to skate away, she was pulled back by Weatherston’s grip. As Ruggiero pulled up the second time, Weatherston released her grip and lifted her head at the last possible moment. The result is what everyone saw.

    “It was completely accidental. The second I hit her and started skating away, I turned around to apologize to see if she was okay,” Ruggiero said. “Hockey is a game, and obviously I’d never want someone to be injured in the process of playing a game.”

    Ruggiero never got to apologize on the ice, because she was crosschecked by Dartmouth’s Alana BreMiller in retaliation. Ruggiero sought Weatherston again during the postgame reception to offer an apology but failed to find her. She did speak with Hudak and Dartmouth sophomore Tiffany Hagge so that they could pass an apology along to Weatherston.

    “I find it very tough to believe that Angela maliciously did something like that,” Hudak said. “She certainly struck her in the head with the skate, but whether it was just reckless or her trying to get away, I don’t know, and I really can’t tell from the tape.”

    “As a coach and an educator, you have to be an optimist and you have to believe in the best part of people. Angela spoke with me after the game in private and apologized, and she didn’t offer an excuse or anything. She said she was really sorry and it was certainly not her intent to do that, and I have to believe her. I’ve spoken with Angela before on the ice and I’ve watched her play and I think she’s a good person.”

    Furthermore, Hudak speculated that his players could sympathize with Ruggiero’s situation.

    “I think the team was certainly upset at the time, but at the same time, they’re all athletes and they’ve all done things in their careers which I am sure they wished they hadn’t, which I’ve got to believe is Angela’s position right now,” Hudak said. “I don’t think anyone on the team is sitting there thinking she’s a bad person or was trying to injure somebody. I think they look at it as an unfortunate incident.”

    Ruggiero said she holds the same respect for Dartmouth. It was tough for her to miss the opportunity to close out that game.

    “It’s fun, that’s why you play hockey, when you know it’s going to be a one-goal game and have to capitalize on their mistakes and make the least mistakes possible for your team,” Ruggiero said. “Those are the games you want to play in and as an athlete you want to be challenged as much as possible. And Dartmouth always brings their best game to us so all the little things we’ve worked on all year long are going to pay off in those situations — well, hopefully they’ll pay off. I love to play against Dartmouth.”

    As Ruggiero was being removed from the ice, she spoke with the officials to clarify that the contact was unintentional, but her words could do nothing to keep her in the game. Even if the officials were to agree there was no intent, she still had no case by the book.

    In the official NCAA rulebook, there is no mention of intent being a requirement for the kicking penalty, which always results in a disqualification — an immediate ejection and one-game suspension for first-time offenders. In fact, the rules state that a kicking penalty should be given even if a kicking gesture is made towards a player that results in no contact.

    A point of emphasis this year is to show zero tolerance for contact to the head. Ruggiero can accept that.

    “Whenever there’s contact to the head, I realize and understand that the referees have to protect the players on the ice,” Ruggiero said. “I’ll take the disqualification if that’s what they think is necessary.”

    Earning a disqualification was an entirely new experience for Ruggiero. She had earned two game misconducts earlier this season in the final minutes, but never any penalty this serious. In fact, those have been the only three ejections of her entire playing career. She lasted this long without an ejection despite having once played for a squirt team where all but five players were unable to dress due to various punishments. She was one of the five who played.

    Perhaps the toughest part for Ruggiero was that she was unaware of her one-game suspension until she started to dress for the Vermont game on Saturday. Stone said she had talked to Ruggiero the night before and was under the impression that she knew, which made the situation all the more unfortunate.

    Another difficult aspect of this third ejection for Ruggiero is that she has faced questions regarding her character that she’s never had to answer before. This is the same Angela Ruggiero who was one of three Patty Kazmaier finalists last year and the same Angela Ruggiero that during the 2002 Olympic Winter Games was one of eight U.S. athletes elected to carry the American flag that survived the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. She maintains that her teammates and the opponents who know her stand by her. Her coach has always supported her.

    “It’s certainly not part of a larger problem,” Stone said of Ruggiero’s three ejections. “Angela Ruggiero has played her best hockey at Harvard University this year. She has played more of the way I want her to play than ever. She’s under control. She manages the game well.

    “We would not be where we are if it hadn’t been largely for the way Angela Ruggiero played for us. There’s no question about it. We’re a very young team. And she’s a great leader.”

    Stone said that Ruggiero has come a long way in college hockey, since she was a freshman and really didn’t know how to play with athletes who weren’t as strong. Ruggiero drew 74 minutes of penalties her freshman season. She had not come close to matching that total until the events of these past several weeks, an increase that Stone attributes to Ruggiero having to enter another period of learning — one where she has to deal with the reality that she’s always being watched.

    Ruggiero’s worst game this season was a 6-3 loss to Princeton in which Ruggiero drew four penalties in just the first period. By the final minute, she had earned 22 penalty minutes and a game misconduct.

    “She’s playing the best hockey she’s ever played in college hockey this year,” Stone said. “She’s the most dominant player, and with that comes a heavy burden and a huge bulls-eye on your back. So now there’s even another growth period here where she has to understand those hurdles even more and adjust her game to suit the things that are happening on the ice. The advantage is going to the less talented, less skilled, less strong player in this league right now and I think that’s unfortunate.”

    Stone calls Ruggiero the strongest, best-conditioned player there is. She observes that most other players would have fallen at some point had they been leg-locked by Weatherston or crosschecked by BreMiller.

    “I think it’s typical of our players that we’re trying to get them as strong and fit as possible,” Stone said. “They’re not diving. They’re not dropping to draw penalties. They’re trying to stay on their feet and play hard. That’s how we’re going to do it. If that means we don’t get to draw as many penalties as other teams, that’s okay. I prefer to play that way.”

    Stone did not take issue with the disqualification, and she noted that the level of officiating is headed in the right direction.

    And she stands by her player.

    “She’s a tremendous ambassador for the game of women’s hockey.” Stone said of Ruggiero. “She’s bright, she’s articulate, and she’s kind. No one asked her to go up to that reception and apologize. That’s just a testament to her character. Kids don’t do that kind of stuff. She’s a mature kid.”

    Another Tough Break

    While Ruggiero has always inspired the Harvard team, Lydia Wheatley has been a constant source of inspiration for Dartmouth. In her junior year, her season ended after 10 games due to an ACL tear. In her senior year, her season ended after two games, when she tore her other ACL. Where others might have quit, she kept pressing onward for a what has been an outstanding fifth season.

    Wheatley has played in all 27 games this season, and her presence was crucial to Dartmouth’s success because of the team’s constant national team departures and frequent injuries. Wheatley was typically the player who got the call to fill in on the top two lines when necessary.

    In the weeks prior to her first ACL tear, Wheatley had been a dominant player. She had 4 goals and 8 assists in just 10 games of a junior season where she was finally coming into her own.

    One of her greatest starring roles came in an early season game against Brown, a team Dartmouth would battle blow-for-blow with all season for the ECAC title and a Frozen Four berth. Dartmouth had scored to go ahead 4-3 late in that game, when Wheatley took the puck straight off the faceoff, blew down ice and circled in front for a critical insurance goal just seconds after the fourth Dartmouth goal.

    It has never been easy for Wheatley to be the player she was before the knee injuries. In Dartmouth’s 7-3 loss to Minnesota in early February, she came up short on more than one breakaway chance that showed just a shadow of the Wheatley of the past.

    But Wheatley came to play this past weekend. She was one several Dartmouth players that could always bring her best for Harvard and Brown. Her first career goal as a freshman gave Dartmouth a commanding 3-1 first period lead the night Harvard raised its national championship banner, and the Big Green went on to stun the defending champions 5-4 in overtime. This past Friday against Harvard, she was there to redirect the puck at the crease on the power play for a 2-0 second period lead.

    “Lydia has been a real leader in that program,” said Stone, a most respectful opponent.

    On Saturday, Wheatley’s redirection tied up Brown, 1-1. The Big Green went on to win both games by a 3-2 margin and provide Dartmouth with its third Ivy title in four seasons on Wheatley’s last senior weekend.

    “The whole season has been a continued improvement for her getting right back into shape,” Hudak said of Wheatley. “This past weekend we saw a Wheatley that was really reaching for her potential.”

    That makes her broken foot this past weekend all the more upsetting for Dartmouth. According to Hudak, it’s not a bad break, but it’s enough to keep her in a cast and there’s only a very slight possibility Wheatley will be back by March 20th. It’s another tough blow for Dartmouth, who once again finds itself with different line combinations and power play units from the week before.

    If this past weekend’s games are Wheatley’s last, she can take solace in that she went out at the top of her game this season, and she has made her team proud.

    What Lies Ahead

    There is no league with more at stake than the ECAC this weekend, from top to bottom. Not one seed is secure. Vermont and Cornell fight for the last playoff spot, Princeton and Brown go head-to-head for home-ice advantage and the No. 4 seed, while St. Lawrence, Harvard and Dartmouth battle for the top.

    Dartmouth will be unable win the league title assuming St. Lawrence sweeps last-place Union or Harvard beats Princeton and Yale, but the Big Green still will have to get by Cornell and Colgate to maintain the No. 2 seed and the No. 2 standing in the Frozen Four hunt. Colgate gave Dartmouth a tough 4-2 game last time around, and Rebecca Lahar has been a steady presence in net for the Raiders.

    “They do a nice job defensively, trying to keep you away from the net and letting their goalies see the puck,” Hudak said. “I expect to have a good game with them. We’ll continue to work on the things we need to work on. At this time of the year our focus is really trying to refine some things we’re doing.”

    The Princeton-Harvard game on Sunday could have both home ice for Princeton and an ECAC title for Harvard riding on it, which promises to make it a show.

    The Tigers struggled a bit with losses to Yale and Mercyhurst this past week, which Princeton coach Jeff Kampersal attributed to youthful mistakes. On Sunday, the Princeton seniors, not wanting to close out their regular season home slate with three straight defeats, rallied for a 3-0 victory in a rematch with Mercyhurst. The Tigers were led by Seniors Angela Gooldy and Lisa Rasmussen who both netted goals, and Megan Van Beusekom who delivered a 40-save shutout.

    “Hopefully they can rally the troops again and perform well this weekend and get us going and back on track heading into the playoffs,” Kampersal said.

    Princeton took it to Harvard in a 6-3 win in late January but fell to Brown 3-1 the next day. The Tigers were outshot by a 31-18 margin and outscore 2-0 against the Bears in the final two periods.

    “I think that we put so much energy into that [Harvard] game that weekend and it was an emotional game, we were just flat on Saturday,” Kampersal said. “Not to take anything away from Brown — in the second and third period they really took it to us. We respect Brown, and hopefully we can match their intensity on Friday.”

    One of Princeton’s keys to success against Harvard was effectively shadowing Ruggiero. In her words, she could not skate in a straight line all day.

    “I just think Ruggiero is a dominant, dominant player and we’ve got a lot of respect for her,” Kampersal said. “Watching her in different box scores she’s posting 12 shots, 17 shots, 10 shots — it’s just a ridiculous number of shots for a defensemen. So that’s someone we tried to focus on a little bit more in that game.”

    “I just know that I’m fortunate to get to see her play in the summer and work with her a little bit in the summer. I don’t know her as while as some of the other kids, but she’s always pleasant, she’s nice, she’s a professional. She’s a respectful kid and she’s someone you don’t really want to play against on a particular day. We certainly don’t fear her but we certainly respect her, though.”

    Ruggiero said she’ll look to be prepared for what Princeton throws at her, though she added that as per usual, Harvard will not be changing its game plan. She expects to bring far better games against both Yale and Princeton this time around.

    “We have a lot of respect for all of our opponents,” Stone said. “We’d like to play better than we played the first time we played them. But we’re in a better place now than we were then. It should be a great atmosphere and two great hockey games.”

    Although Ruggiero only saw the end of the Dartmouth game from the tunnel and all of the Vermont game from the stands, she likes where Harvard is headed.

    “We played tremendous in that game,” Ruggiero said of the conclusion against Dartmouth. “We proved were not a two or three-person team, but we’re a really good hockey team. You have to take the positive experiences. We have that going into the playoffs, knowing that when we need to we can find it in ourselves to elevate our game.”

    “From what little bits I saw from my position in the tunnel, it was a good, fun period.”

    This Week in the ECAC: March 4, 2004

    By Juan Martinez
    -

    Playoff time is here. This season there are no dominating teams and no “sure things,” but instead a postseason in which any of the 12 teams could make a significant run if things fall into place. Here’s a look at how the eight teams in action this weekend stack up in the first round of the ECAC tournament.

    No. 12 Princeton (5-22-2, 5-15-2 ECAC) at No. 5 Rensselaer (19-13-2, 13-8-1)

    This Season
    RPI swept the series, winning 6-4 in New Jersey (12/6/03) and 5-1 at home last Friday.

    Recent Playoff History:
    2002 First Round at Rensselaer: RPI over Princeton 5-3, 6-0
    1999 Consolation Game: RPI over Princeton 6-4

    Top Five Scorers
    RPI – Kevin Croxton, So., F, 16-21-37; Kirk MacDonald, So., F, 14-16-30; Nick Economakos, Jr., F, 7-16-23; Scott Basiuk, Sr., D, 9-13-22; Brad Farynuk, So., D, 5-16-21.
    Princeton – Grant Goeckner-Zoeller, Fr., F, 5-13-18; Patrick Neundorfer, So., F, 7-5-12; Mike Patton, Jr., F, 4-8-12; Matt Maglione, Sr., D, 4-8-12; Steve Slaton, Sr., D, 3-9-12.

    Between the Pipes
    RPI – Nathan Marsters, Sr., 18-11-1, 2.06 GAA, .923 save percentage
    Princeton – Eric Leroux, So., 5-20-0, 3.78, .885; B.J. Sklapsky, Fr., 0-2-2, 3.07, .908

    An Inside Look
    Each team improved on last season’s win totals, including the Engineers’ rise from 11th place a year ago into the fifth seed this weekend. The Tigers, meanwhile, find themselves as the 12th seed once again, but did add three more conference victories to their win total.

    On paper, this is the biggest mismatch of the first round, especially when one considers Princeton’s inability to score (1.93 goals per game overall) or keep the puck out of its own net (3.93). RPI, meanwhile, leads conference teams in average scoring (3.09) and is fourth in goals against (2.21).

    Is it a recipe for a Tigers disaster?

    “It’s a new season for everyone,” said Princeton coach Len Quesnelle, “the regular season is in the past.”

    “Obviously, they had a tough year,” Engineers bench boss Dan Fridgen said, “but last year they gave Brown two tough [playoff] games.

    “We’ll have to play smart hockey and work hard as a team. We need to play well defensively and when we generate offensive opportunities, we need to capitalize on them.

    “Offensively, our lines are starting to come together. Kevin Croxton, Ryan Shields and Oren Eizenman had a good weekend [against Princeton and Yale], but our most consistent line was Cody Wojdyla, C.J. Hanafin and Mikael Hammarstrom. They did a great job generating things offensively.”

    Of course, in the postseason, teams will only go as far as defense and goaltending will take them. That said, RPI has the advantage in this category as well with the quietly consistent play of Nathan Marsters.

    “He’s been real solid for us,” said Fridgen about his senior netminder. “Which is what you need at this time of year.”

    The Tigers, meanwhile, will be focusing on defense more than anything else, especially since their already limited offense will be without defenseman Matt Maglione, who remains out for the season with an injury.

    “We need to shore up our game defensively,” said Quesnelle. “Great team defense goes a long way, especially in the playoffs. It is a focus of ours. Offensively, we’ll need to get inside their coverage.”

    Between the pipes, the Tigers have recently started alternating netminders. Sophomore Eric Leroux had been the No. 1 goalie, but rookie B.J. Sklapsky has stepped up and seen some action of late.

    “Eric’s made some very big saves,” said Quesnelle. “He’s been very good for us. B.J. has come in and played well. He went in against Dartmouth and played well (38 saves in road 2-2 tie). He gave a great effort and deserved another opportunity.”

    That opportunity resulted in a 3-2 overtime loss to Union on the regular season’s final night. Sklapsky made 34 stops, including 19 in the first period, and earned some additional points in Quesnelle’s book.

    “He proved he deserved to be in the game.”

    So, coach, does that mean you’ve made the decision on who will be in net Friday?

    “Yes, I have decided,” Quesnelle responded, followed by silence and what was surely a wry smile on the other end of the phone.

    Would you like to share what that decision is?

    “Nope, but I give you credit for asking,” he said with a laugh.

    Our pick: RPI in two games.

    No. 11 Vermont (9-20-4, 7-14-1) at No. 6 Harvard (12-14-3, 10-10-2)

    This Season
    The teams split the series with each club picking up 6-4 road wins, including Vermont’s victory last Friday.

    Recent Playoff History
    2003 Quarterfinals at Harvard: The Crimson over UVM 4-2, 5-1

    Top Five Scorers
    Harvard – Tom Cavanagh, Jr., F, 13-14-27; Tim Pettit, Sr., F, 8-19-27; Tyler Kolarik, Sr., F, 9-16-25; Brendan Bernakevitch, Jr., F, 6-13-19; Dennis Packard, Sr., F, 8-10-18.
    UVM – Brady Leisenring, Jr., F, 15-21-36; Jeff Miles, Sr., F, 13-22-35; Scott Mifsud, Jr., F, 10-13-23; Tim Plant, Jr., F, 7-10-17; Jaime Sifers, So., D, 3-14-17.

    Between the Pipes
    Harvard – Dov Grumet-Morris, Jr., 10-13-3, 2.43, .912
    UVM – Travis Russell, So., 9-14-4, 3.15, .900

    An Inside Look
    This is another series of teams that met last Friday. The Catamounts and Crimson played an exciting game that had a little bit of everything — power-play goals, a shorthander, injuries, hard hits and a fair share of scrums. It should make for an exciting playoff series, even though each club has admitted that they didn’t play well a week ago.

    “It is somewhat unique that we just played them,” said first-year UVM coach and one-time Harvard captain Kevin Sneddon. “I’m sure that [Crimson coach Mark] Mazzoleni will make adjustments and we will too.

    “It will be a pretty good series. We are familiar with their players as they are with ours.”

    What we look forward to is seeing which teams will emerge from their respect locker rooms in less than 24 hours. Harvard has been a mystery all season long and while it looks to be gaining some late-season momentum, the Crimson could come out flat and ineffective just as easily as it could dominate UVM.

    The Cats, meanwhile, lost their regular-season finale after winning five straight and establishing themselves as a dangerous team to play in the postseason. They had started to distance themselves from the club that struggled mightily all season, but then laid an egg at Brown on Saturday.

    “We were emotionally and physically drained against Brown,” said Sneddon. “Brown played with desperation because they were playing for the bye. Everything that could go wrong for us did.

    “But it was a wake-up call that we aren’t very good unless we do certain things right. We now know that when we play well, we can compete with anyone in the league.”

    Offensively, Harvard may have the higher-profile skaters, but a quick look at the stats sheet shows that Vermont may have a slight edge among its top lines. The Catamounts have two 30-plus point players, the Crimson have none. Both teams have three 20-plus point getters, while nine Harvard players have 10 or more points to Vermont’s eight. From the blueline, Noah Welch’s contributions have been inconsistent, but Vermont’s Jaime Sifers has stepped up in a big way of late.

    The “X” factor will likely be special teams and the Crimson’s ability (or not) to not put themselves behind the eight ball. When the clubs met on Friday, Vermont notched three power-play goals (as it did in the teams’ first meeting) and a shorthanded tally — its first of the season.

    “We need to do a better job with our decisions with the puck,” said Mazzoleni, “and we need more self-discipline and to stay out of the box. But you control that ability.

    “We’ve been getting real good production from a lot of people of late. Friday was the first time all season that we’ve been completely healthy. I like what we have and our potential. We have a good tempo and consistency now, and have been playing pretty well over the last month.”

    As for what it will take to emerge victorious, Mazzoleni said, “We’ve been through this before. We know what we have to do to win.”

    On the Vermont side, Sneddon knows what his team needs to do to be successful against Harvard.

    “We need to keep the game 5-on-5,” he said. “We cannot get into a special teams game against them. They are so skilled. We can’t give them extra opportunities on the power play.

    “They did a very good job cycling the puck and getting second and third opportunities. We got away with a lot. We just need to play sound defensive hockey and capitalize on our chances.”

    Look for the Bright crowd to be decidedly split again. Last Friday, the UVM fans were vocal and plenty. With these games meaning even more and with the school’s basketball team in town already for the America East playoffs, the Cats will likely get an added “seventh man” boost.

    “I’ve been overwhelmed by our fans’ support,” said Sneddon. “There aren’t too many teams that have as little success as we had early on and still have a big turnout and all those sellouts. The crowd does energize the players and we want to win for them.”

    Our pick: Harvard in three games.

    No. 10 St. Lawrence (11-19-6, 7-12-3) at No. 7 Yale (12-17-0, 10-12-0)

    This Season
    Yale swept the series winning 4-3 (ot) at home (1/10/04) and 5-4 in Canton (1/30/04).

    Recent Playoff History
    1997-98 ECAC Quarterfinals at Yale: The Bulldogs won the series 3-3, 3-3, 4-1.

    Top Five Scorers
    Yale – Joe Zappala, So., F, 18-12-30; Jeff Hristovski, So., F, 12-16-28; Christian Jensen, So., F, 10-17-27; Ryan Steeves, Sr., F, 9-16-25; Joe Callahan, Jr., D, 6-11-17.
    SLU – T.J. Trevelyan, So., W, 22-15-37; Rich Peverley, Sr., F, 14-23-37; John Zeiler, So., F, 8-24-32; Ryan Glenn, Sr., D, 7-19-26; Kyle Rank, F, So., 7-10-17.

    Between the Pipes
    Yale – Josh Gartner, So., 10-10-0, 3.86, .895
    SLU – Mike McKenna, Jr., 6-8-3, 2.60, .910

    An Inside Look
    Another series that could go either way, Yale enters the postseason in a major slump — five straight losses and one win since Jan. 31. A .500 team at home (6-6-0), the Bulldogs will host a club that has struggled mightily on the road. The Saints are 2-12-2 away from Appleton Arena this season, having been outscored 58-31.

    History hasn’t been kind to St. Lawrence either. In the 14 previous ECAC tournaments that the Saints have opened on the road, SLU has advanced just once and has only two wins in 23 road games. At Ingalls Rink, the Saints are 0-3-2 in the playoffs.

    “Friday starts a whole new season for us,” said Saints coach Joe Marsh after his team wrapped up the season with a loss at Colgate.

    “Obviously we have to figure out ways to generate more offense on the road. The guys worked hard [last] weekend, but you need more than a couple of goals to be successful.”

    That said, Marsh knows that his club has an opportunity to make others forget about its regular season struggles.

    “The playoffs are a whole new game,” he said, “and a chance to make something special happen. You just have to step up and grab the opportunity.”

    One player who did that down the stretch and is expected to continue his excellent play this weekend is junior netminder Mike McKenna. While the goalie has been victimized by defensive lapses, he’s been one of main reasons the Saints have a strong chance of advancing.

    Offensively, SLU remains a club that’s carried by its top line of Rich Peverley, T.J. Trevelyan and John Zeiler, whose goal against Cornell last Friday was his first since Dec. 13. They’ll need sophomore Kyle Rank — three points in his last four games — to continue his improvement and for talented defensemen Drew Bagnall and Ryan Glenn (seven points in last six games) to remain the offensive forces they’ve been all season.

    The Bulldogs, meanwhile, will need sophomore netminder Josh Gartner to be at the top of his game since the defense has been very shaky, at best. The Elis have allowed an obscene four goals per league game this season and have limited opponents to fewer than three tallies just six times in 29 contests.

    Yale can be impressive on offense at times, as evidenced by its six shorthanded ECAC goals and 2.95 goals per game in league play. The Bulldogs, however, have suffered a power outage since early February. After blowing a 5-2 lead in under 20 minutes in a 7-5 loss to Harvard, the Elis have scored just 11 times in seven (1-6-0) contests, including notching fewer than two tallies in four of those games.

    At a time of year when defense and goaltending win series, Yale will need a complete turnaround from what they’ve done most of this season to avoid losing to the Saints. And while St. Lawrence must shore up its defensive zone and get a second line to click offensively, it just may be able to get through this series with the Peverley-Trevelyan-Zeiler trio carrying the load.

    Our pick: St. Lawrence in three games.

    No. 9 Clarkson (13-16-5, 8-12-2) at No. 8 Union (14-15-5, 8-11-3)

    This Season
    The teams split the series with each club emerging victorious on home ice: Clarkson 4-1 (11/8/03), Union 3-1 (2/6/04).

    Recent Playoff History
    First Meeting

    Top Five Scorers
    Union – Jordan Webb, Jr., F, 12-14-26; Joel Beal, Jr., F, 8-18-26; Jonathan Poirier, So., F, 7-16-23; Scott Seney, So., F, 13-8-21; Olivier Bouchard, Fr., F, 7-10-17.
    Clarkson – Mac Faulkner, Jr., LW, 11-22-33; Chris Blight, Jr., RW, 14-16-30; Jay Latulippe, Jr., LW, 11-14-25; Rob McFeeters, Sr., RW, 5-15-20; John Sullivan, So., C, 7-10-17.

    Between the Pipes
    Union – Kris Mayotte, So., 11-14-5, 2.51, .912
    Clarkson – Dustin Traylen, So., 10-13-5, 2.53, .922

    An Inside Look
    Clarkson heads to the road to start the postseason for the first time since 1988 and it has itself to kick for that. A late-season six-game losing streak cost the club valuable points and home ice, but Union coach Nate Leaman has no sympathy for the North Country squad.

    “We lost nine in a row [earlier],” he said this week. “We wanted to get home ice and would do whatever it took to get it.”

    He wasn’t kidding. The Dutchmen pulled their netminder in overtime on the last night of the regular season. Although, as Leaman points out, the winning goal was scored with goalie Kris Mayotte still on his way to the bench.

    What prompted the rarely seen strategy?

    “We had our trainer calling our sports information director in the press box to get the Clarkson-Cornell score,” Leaman explained. “When we went into overtime, Clarkson was losing in the third period. That’s when we made the decision to pull the goalie.”

    It worked, but it could have backfired to the point of losing home ice completely. Follow along, if you can. With Clarkson and St. Lawrence on their way to losses, all the Dutchmen needed was a tie to earn the eighth seed. With no guarantee that the other clubs were actually going to lose, Leaman took a chance. By pulling its netminder, Union risked losing the game, which would have placed them on the road to Potsdam, regardless of the outcome of the Clarkson contest.

    Why the confusion? Turns out the information the bench received in overtime wasn’t quite up to date.

    By the time the last call to the press box was made by the trainer, the Knights and Saints had both already lost. That meant a tie would have been sufficient for Union to capture home ice. Oops!

    With luck already smiling on them, the Dutchmen enter their first home playoff series ever on a 7-3-1 streak. Clarkson, meanwhile, saw their modest two-game winning streak snapped by Cornell.

    “We expect very good goaltending from them,” said Leaman about his team’s first round opponents. “The league has about five or six really good goaltenders: Yann Danis, Steve Silverthorn, Dustin Traylen, Mayottte and David McKee are all in there.

    “It’s going to take a couple of shots to beat Traylen. It’s going to be a little bit of a battle between Traylen and Mayotte.”

    The Knights’ netminder has been on a hot streak of late after stumbling through the middle of the schedule. He’s allowed more than two goals in a game just once since Feb. 13 and more than three tallies twice since Jan. 24.

    Mayotte, meanwhile, has been stellar, allowing just four goals in his last four games and compiling a 1.40 GAA in the last 10. He’s allowed more than two goals in a contest only once since Jan. 30 and over three markers just one time since January 9.

    As Leaman sees it, in addition to Traylen, Clarkson presents another challenge for Union.

    “They are pretty deep,” he explained. “Just about everyone on their top three lines can score for them. Their defense is a little young, but they’ve held up well.”

    The Dutchmen will have their offensive weapons ready as well, especially the one-two punch of juniors Jordan Webb and Joel Beal, who, for the second straight season, finished the year tied for the team lead in points.

    “They really like playing together,” said Leaman, “and are pretty skilled guys.

    “Webb is an extremely intelligent player who picks things up right away. He also adjusts his game for the situation. You can put him on the ice when there’s 30 seconds left and you are down a goal or when there are 30 seconds left and you are up a goal. Beal is crafty and likes to get his feet moving. He also has a very good shot.”

    All in all, Leaman knows what’s ahead.

    “This will be an extremely tight series and we’ll really need our fans. We have an edge here and we need them to be loud.

    “This is as tight and as open as the league has ever been. It’s remarkable. This series will be so close that the littlest thing can cost you the series just as easily as the littlest thing can win you the series.”

    In that case, it is important to note that the Dutchmen finished the regular season 2-0-5 in overtime. The Knights were 3-2-5.

    Our pick: Clarkson in three games.

    Comcast, Not CSTV, to Televise Playoffs

    After yet another season without a television contract, the ECAC made the expected announcement today that they have agreed to a deal with CN8, the Comcast network, to air a select amount of league playoff games.

    College Sports Television (CSTV) was thought to have the upper hand on broadcast rights and was rumored to have had a verbal agreement with the ECAC. And despite the fact that the CSTV Web site continues to lists the March 20 ECAC Championship Game in its broadcast schedule, the first-year network appears to have been left at the altar.

    Comcast’s CN8 will air one ECAC Quarterfinal game, to be announced, on Friday, March 12 at 7:30 p.m. and both Semifinal games in Albany on Friday, March 19, beginning at 4:30 p.m. CN8 will also air the Championship game, Saturday, March 20 at 8 p.m. Play-by-play man Gregg Madden and color analyst Bob Norton will call the action.

    The Envelope Please …

    The 2004 All-Ivy Team was announced this week with Brown dominating the squad as well as the individual accolades. Among those conspicuously absent are two of the league’s most solid blueliners, Dartmouth’s Brian Van Abel and Harvard’s Ryan Lannon. Here’s the full list of honorees.

    2004 All-Ivy First Team: F-Matt Moulson, Cornell, So. F-Ryan Vesce, Cornell, Sr. F-Lee Stempniak, Dartmouth, Jr. D-Scott Ford, Brown, Sr. D-Grant Lewis, Dartmouth, Fr. G-Yann Danis, Brown, Sr.

    2004 All-Ivy Second Team: F-Brent Robinson, Brown, Sr. F-Les Haggett, Brown, Jr. F-Hugh Jessiman, Dartmouth, So. D-Charlie Cook, Cornell, Jr. D-Noah Welch, Harvard, Jr. G-David McKee, Cornell, Fr.

    Honorable Mention: Tim Pettit, Harvard Sr., F; Tom Cavanagh, Harvard, Jr., F; Vince Macri, Brown, Sr., D; Matt Maglione, Princeton, Sr., D; Jeff Dwyer, Yale, Sr., D

    Player of the Year: Yann Danis, Brown, Sr., G

    Rookie of the Year: Brian Ihnacak, Brown, Fr., F

    In Case You Missed It

    • Brown and Cornell finished tied for the 2003-04 Ivy League — there is no tiebreaker. For the Bears, it was their first Ivy title since 1995.

    • The Bears’ win over Vermont gave Brown three consecutive series sweeps over the Catamounts.

    • With his 43rd career win, senior Yann Danis tied the Brown record for wins in a career.

    • With wins over Brown and Colgate over the last two weeks, Clarkson posted back-to-back victories over an ECAC opponent for the first time all year.

    • With the Golden Knights’ blanking of the Raiders, they extended their shutout streak in Hamilton to 188 minutes.

    • Colgate assistant coach Andrew Dickson (’93) has now been a part of both of the Raiders’ regular-season titles; he was a freshman on the 1990 team.

    • It is the first time since 1999-2000 that the Raiders finished above .500 overall and had the most ECAC wins (14) since that same season.

    • Last weekend, RPI’s Nathan Marsters became the school’s all-time leader in games played by a goaltender (110), minutes played (6347:03) and career saves (2,979).

    • Cornell sophomore defenseman Jon Gleed scored his third goal of the year against SLU. It was also his second game-winner of the season.

    • Dartmouth’s blanking of Brown was its first shutout of the season and the first of junior goaltender Dan Yacey’s career.

    • In the game against Harvard, the Big Green were penalized only three times, marking the first time all season that they’ve had less than five penalties.

    • Vermont’s shorthanded goal against Harvard on Friday was the first allowed by the Crimson since January 2002.

    • Harvard’s shutout over Dartmouth was the first by the Crimson since the 1988-89 campaign. Harvard has also won its last four home regular season finales, including the last three via the shutout.

    • RPI is one game shy of posting its fourth 20-win season in the last six years.

    • The Engineers have outscored their opponent in every period (105-75), including a 42-28 advantage in the third period.

    • Forty-seven of RPI’s 105 goals this season have come on the specialty teams, including 42 on the power play.

    • Princeton has not won an overtime game since November 2001. Since then, the Tigers are 0-6-7.

    • SLU netminder Mike McKenna’s 2.60 goals against average is the best for a season by a Saints goaltender since Derek Gustafson posted a 2.07 GAA for the 1999-2000 campaign.

    • The Saints established a new record for ties in a season with six, one more than last season’s total.

    • Vermont freshman Art Femenella, a 6-foot-7, 248-pound presence, suffered a cut to his forearm in the regular-season finale and had surgery that night. He is likely out for the season.

    What’s on Tap

    No. 12 Princeton at No. 5 Rensselaer: This is the second time in three seasons that the teams have met in the first round of the ECAC playoffs. The Engineers are 52-25-8 all-time against the Tigers with a 33-11-3 mark in Troy. Over the last three seasons, RPI holds a 5-3-1 advantage head-to-head. The Engineers won both meetings this season after going 0-2-1 in 2002- 03 versus the Tigers. Princeton and RPI have met in the playoffs seven times and Rensselaer has won all seven of those games.

    No. 11 Vermont at No. 6 Harvard: These two teams meet for the second time in as many years in the postseason, with the Catamounts having been swept in last season’s ECAC Quarterfinals. The Crimson enter the playoffs riding a home unbeaten streak in the playoffs of three straight series (6-0-0). Head coach Mark Mazzoleni is 10-4-0 in ECAC playoff games with an overtime title victory in 2002. Harvard is 4-1-0 all-time against UVM in postseason action, with the lone loss coming in the 1989 ECAC Semifinals. The Crimson are 14-10-1 all-time at home against the Cats, including 2-0-0 in the postseason. Vermont is 5-6-0 in its last 11 games at Harvard.

    No. 10 St. Lawrence at No. 7 Yale: The Saints lead the all-time series 46-21-7, but Yale has won the last two games. Historically, the Saints are 2-18-3 in ECAC road playoff games and snapped a 19-game winless streak when they beat Colgate in the first game of last season’s first round. The only other win was over Army in the 1964 semifinals. This will be the first opening-round series for the Elis since the 2001-02 campaign. They earned a bye last year, but lost to Brown in the quarterfinals at Ingalls Rink.

    No. 9 Clarkson at No. 8 Union: Clarkson leads the all-time series against Union 18-6-4 and snapped a three-game winless stretch with its victory early in the season. The Dutchmen, however, are 2-1-2 against the Knights over the last five games. Clarkson, which owns an 8-2-3 record at Achilles Center, is winless in its last three games (0-1-2) in Schenectady. Union has not lost at home to the Knights since January 2001.

    This Week in the WCHA: March 4, 2004

    By
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    It’ll All Work Out

    Some thoughts this week, while realizing that when we thought we had some things figured out, the nature of the WCHA came back to prove us wrong.

    • How’s this for a situation? The top three teams and the bottom three teams in the standings are decided — not where they’ll finish, but that they’ll be in those groups. That middle pack of four? It’s all up for grabs this weekend, with those four teams playing each other.

    • We know better than to just hand the MacNaughton Cup to North Dakota right now. Don’t we? Actually, it wouldn’t be handing it to the Sioux, anyway. They reached out and emphatically grabbed it from Minnesota-Duluth last weekend.

    • Slightly off topic: Labatt Blue now is the official beer of USA Hockey. Molson is a supporter of Canadian hockey. There’s a war a-brewin’ here.

    • Has Wisconsin goaltender Bernd Brückler helped his WCHA Player of the year chances by allowing only one goal over the last three games? The ballots are due Saturday, so that likely will be the last thing Brückler left for voters to consider. But the wording could hurt the junior — some voters could be swayed because the award is for the league’s top player, not the one who’s most valuable to his team.

    • A reminder that Colorado College won the WCHA regular-season title last season before we say this: The Tigers’ sweep of St. Cloud State last weekend was their first on the road in more than two years. And so the on-again, off-again CC candidacy for the top five and for an NCAA tournament spot is now back on.

    • Perms? Minnesota players got perms?

    • And finally, will the surprises ever stop in this league? We could see CC beating St. Cloud once on the road last weekend, but a road sweep? And Minnesota — a team that hadn’t been swept in two seasons entering the year, has had it happen four times this season thanks to Denver last weekend.

    What a Finish

    From the comfortable position atop the mess that is the WCHA standings with one weekend left to play, North Dakota coach Dean Blais was able to look at what awaits the middle pack of teams in the standings and offer this assessment:

    “You couldn’t have written a better script at the start of the year,” he said, “and have it come true.”

    He was, of course, referring to the fact that there are four teams competing for two remaining home-ice spots for the playoffs and those four teams square off this weekend. Minnesota hosts St. Cloud State, while Denver and Colorado College play a home-and-home series.

    Just to recap: St. Cloud State is in fourth place with 28 points; Denver and Minnesota are tied for fifth with 27 points; and Colorado College still has a shot with 24 points.

    The Huskies clinch a home-ice spot with two points this weekend. Depending on what happens in the Denver-Colorado College series, the Gophers may need three points to top St. Cloud on the tiebreaker.

    The Pioneers just need to stay even with or ahead of Minnesota, except by being swept. The Tigers must sweep Denver and have Minnesota sweep St. Cloud or the other way around to get the final home-ice spot.

    And for the record, here’s what we know about the tiebreakers, knowing that the Minnesota-St. Cloud and CC-Denver tiebreakers will be decided this weekend: Denver wins tiebreakers over Minnesota and St. Cloud; Minnesota wins over Colorado College; CC wins over St. Cloud; and St. Cloud doesn’t have a tiebreaker advantage.

    But here’s to ties hopefully being broken on the ice, not on paper.

    “It’s all coming down to the wire,” Blais said, “and I guess that’s the way it should be.”

    Said Denver coach George Gwozdecky: “There’s four teams battling for the last two playoff home positions, and it’s going to be a heck of a battle this weekend amongst those four teams, that’s for sure.”

    Where It Stands

    While noting that no WCHA team has locked up its position, here’s the possible range of playoff seeds for each WCHA team:

    North Dakota, 1-2; Minnesota-Duluth, 1-3; Wisconsin, 2-3; St. Cloud State, 4-6; Denver, 4-7; Minnesota, 4-7; Colorado College, 5-7; Alaska-Anchorage, 8-9; Minnesota State, 9-10; Michigan Tech, 8 or 10.

    On the Injured List

    Things hadn’t been going especially well for Minnesota recently, and then the Gophers got the news this week that their coach probably wouldn’t be skating with them for the rest of the season and wouldn’t be behind the bench in a critical series this weekend.

    Don Lucia had surgery on Tuesday to fuse some cervical vertebrae to relieve numbness in his right arm and hand, the school said. He wanted to delay the surgery until after the season, but Gophers assistant coach Mike Guentzel said Wednesday that Lucia had been in a lot of pain for the last 10 to 12 days.

    Lucia will be forced to watch this weekend’s series with St. Cloud State from the Mariucci Arena press box. Guentzel and fellow assistant Bob Motzko will run the team during the series, although as of Wednesday afternoon, no concrete plan was in place of who would be in what role.

    “He will be off his feet for a while and probably can’t practice the rest of the year, but will have to just observe and do his deal from there,” Guentzel said of Lucia, who was scheduled to return home on Wednesday.

    Back On Top

    This is one of those seasons where being the top seed in the WCHA playoffs may not get you a whole lot in terms of advantages over being second or third. Playing a tired team in the Final Five is one, sure, but that has helped exactly one team win the Broadmoor Trophy out of the No. 1 spot in the last six seasons.

    But for North Dakota, winning the MacNaughton Cup is the important thing. Minnesota-Duluth could sweep Wisconsin in Madison, but the Sioux would still claim the Cup outright with three points at home against Michigan Tech this weekend.

    Being the champion of an exceptionally strong league would be a nice feather in North Dakota’s cap, Blais said.

    “It’s huge because of the level of teams in the WCHA,” Blais said. “When you look at the top 15 teams and there’s seven listed, that’s incredible. CC’s on the bubble and they came into Grand Forks and beat us 4-1. That’s a pretty good hockey team that went down and dismantled St. Cloud last week. It’s going to be a battle, even through the playoffs. There’s going to be upsets, I would think, this year because four, five, six and seven are all so close.”

    The Sioux got back in the top position with a hard-earned road sweep of the previous leader, Minnesota-Duluth.

    “It was fun going in there because for the first time all year, we were the underdog,” Blais said. “And then 13 straight weeks we were No. 1 in the country and everyone was gunning for us, and then all of a sudden Duluth wins 14 straight games (actually, it was 14 games without a loss), they’re No. 1 in the league, going to win it at home, they have the MacNaughton Cup over there with [commissioner] Bruce McLeod ready to present it, and our guys just looked forward to the challenge and played great.”

    As well as the Sioux have played all season? Considering the circumstances, Blais thinks so.

    But he said his team realizes there’s still work to do against Michigan Tech to put away the title.

    “We’re not overenthusiastic, we’re not tight,” Blais said. “But we’re not cocky. Last week was huge, but this is another week. Duluth’s in the past.”

    Plenty To Do

    Just because Denver swept Minnesota last weekend doesn’t mean it’s all set when it comes to the playoffs. Not by a long shot with this weekend’s rivalry series against Colorado College sure to provide as much of a challenge.

    “We knew going into last weekend that we control our own destiny, and we continue to do so,” Denver coach George Gwozdecky said. “But it doesn’t get any easier. The satisfaction of being able to accomplish what your goal was last weekend can be quickly forgotten if we’re not able to have the kind of success we want this weekend. It doesn’t get any easier, that’s for sure — not only for us, but for a lot of teams in this league.”

    What has made things a little easier overall for the Pioneers is a tightening of the defense.

    There have been a few notable exceptions — seven goals allowed to Minnesota State, six to Minnesota-Duluth and North Dakota and five to Alaska-Anchorage — but the Denver defense has done well in the second half of the season.

    The Pioneers have had two shutouts and have allowed only one goal five times since the start of January.

    “Part of the reason — and I want to stress part of the reason — that we have been playing better and having more success is that we don’t have any of our regulars out due to injury,” Gwozdecky said. “All of our regulars have been able to play in games now. It doesn’t mean our regulars are healthy enough to practice during the week, but we’ve been able to get everybody into the lineup that has been a regular for us, and it’s been a factor for us.

    “I think also we went through a period back in January where a number of our forwards were really struggling to finish around the net. Connor James was one of them. Obviously, Connor had three big goals against Minnesota this past weekend. He was 25 percent of our production. That has been a factor as well.

    “But when you’ve got your regulars in your lineup, when you’ve got Matt Laatsch and Matt Carle and Ryan Caldwell healthy and playing a regular shift on the blue line, it really helps the continuity of how we play and allows us to be more effective.”

    Stumblers

    Neither Minnesota nor St. Cloud State wants to back into the playoffs, but both have stumbled down the stretch.

    Their series at Mariucci Arena this weekend may put one team in the top five and the other in the bottom five, but one team will have to shake out of a funk to do that.

    St. Cloud State is winless in its last four games (0-3-1), while Minnesota is 2-4 in its last six. Not exactly the way to solidify a upper-level spot.

    “They’re a point ahead of us, and they’re in the same boat as we are, coming off some losses,” Guentzel said. “They want to try to get their thing straightened out, as we do. They’re a point ahead of us, so we know that we have to win and get three points to go ahead of them. They know they have to win one game to stay ahead of us.

    “It’s pretty black and white, and we’re just going to have to go out and play. We just need to worry about playing our game and getting back to doing the little things that make us ultimately successful at the end of the night and the end of the weekend.”

    For Minnesota, a gut check may be in order. Everyone knows the talent is still there, but there have been questions about the hunger.

    “We played great hockey in January,” Guentzel said of a month in which the Gophers were 7-1-2. “We went to Duluth and they’ve had a great season and they’re a good team, and they were on a roll. Then we came home and won two games. Then we went to Denver, and their undefeated streak is fairly lengthy right now, too. So we lost four games against teams who have been playing very, very well. So our confidence is probably not as high as it was three, four weeks ago, but this team still has the inner confidence that it knows what it takes to be successful at the end of the year.

    “I don’t think that’s something that they’ll be able to take away from us, no matter how many losses we’ve had. We still know that we’ve had past success. We just have to figure out what we have to do to get back to playing hard, playing successful. At that point, we can develop our own consistency.”

    Assume Nothing

    For all we know, the second-place battle between Minnesota-Duluth and Wisconsin will be a couple of shootouts.

    Not likely, right? About as likely as the top two offenses in the nation getting together last weekend and combining for eight goals?

    Anyway, the Bulldogs figure to have quite a defensive battle on their hands this weekend in Madison. The Badgers have the league’s top defense, allowing an average of only 2.15 goals per league game thanks to Brückler and Co., while UMD’s defense isn’t too shabby, either, with Isaac Reichmuth and a solid group of defensemen.

    “There’s no question I think goaltending and defensive play is going to be very prominent,” Minnesota-Duluth coach Scott Sandelin said. “I think you’ve got two of the best goalies in the league in Isaac and Brückler. They’re a team that doesn’t give up a lot, so they make it very tough for you to score goals. It’s one of those things where if things aren’t going in, you can’t get frustrated. You’ve got to be patient. We’re not going to change a lot — we’re going to hopefully keep doing what we’ve been doing and get opportunities.”

    Meanwhile, Wisconsin coach Mike Eaves said he’s happy to be going into the playoffs with a tough final weekend.

    “I just assume have it this way just because of the fact that it gets us into the mental frame of mind that we need to be in going into the playoffs,” Eaves said. “All of these series have had that for us, starting with North Dakota and leading right up to this. It just keeps us going. We’re on the same page. Our players don’t change their thinking. They come in prepared the same way and they are playing a team that is very good. That’s just going to get us better. We’re still such a young team that every time we play, it’s going to make us better.”

    This is the first time the teams will meet this season, but, if everything holds true, it won’t be the last.

    Unless UMD manages to sneak past North Dakota for first place, the Bulldogs and the Badgers will finish in second and third place, setting up a potential semifinal meeting at the Final Five in two weeks.

    The only way Wisconsin can leapfrog the Bulldogs for second place is by sweeping them.

    One Up, One Down

    Alaska-Anchorage slipped at the end in its drive for a top-five spot, losing its last eight WCHA games. But the Seawolves still finished 11 points better than last season.

    Minnesota State won its last league regular-season game, but the Mavericks slipped 21 points from their finish last season and from third to ninth or 10th place.

    And one event last Friday at Michigan Tech pretty much summed up the season for the Mavs. With Mankato down 4-2 in the third period, Dana Sorensen was called for charging, then proceeded to earn 30 more minutes in penalties and a night off on Saturday.

    He got a 10-minute misconduct for some words exchanged with referee Marco Hunt. After slamming the penalty-box door a couple times, he got a game misconduct. On his way off the ice, he broke his stick over the Plexiglas and got a game disqualification, which also kept him out for Saturday’s game.

    Using His Head

    Here’s to Denver’s James for being creative.

    He sealed a 6-3 victory over Minnesota last Saturday with a somewhat-empty-net goal. Somewhat because Minnesota goaltender Justin Johnson was between James and the goal, but was halfway out of the zone because he was trying to get off the ice for an extra attacker.

    James, seeing that he had the goalie out of the net, flipped the puck over Johnson’s head and into the net as the goalie made a desperate, over-the-head swipe at it with his stick.

    “Connor’s play, I really had to check it out on video before I believed it,” Gwozdecky said. “But he has always been able to do things for us over his four years and sometimes you say, ‘How did he do that?'”

    For the Cup

    With the Alaska Airlines Governor’s Cup on the line this weekend in Anchorage, let’s flash back to the first time the Seawolves and the Nanooks met this season — a weekend in which UAA was this close to putting a stranglehold on the trophy.

    After the Seawolves took a 1-0 advantage in the four-game season series, they held a 3-2 lead with less than a minute remaining in Game 2. But Fairbanks scored three times in the final 28 seconds to win 5-3 and even the series.

    If the teams split again, a shootout will determine the winner of the trophy.

    Your Turn

    A week ago, we asked you to pick the WCHA’s most valuable player and to give us a reason why. The varied responses indicate there is no one dominant player in the league this season.

    Maybe it was a trick question. The WCHA doesn’t give away an MVP award; it honors the player of the year. And yes, the different wordings probably create different votes.

    There were more cases made for Wisconsin’s Brückler than for any other player. Here’s a sampling of some of the responses:

    “Playing on a very young team, Brückler has been the backbone all season long. His presence between the pipes has allowed Wisconsin’s corps of young defenders to play their game, knowing that if they do make a mistake, he is there to bail them out … and he has bailed them out time and time again. I know there are a lot of great shift players in the WCHA, but Brückler has been on the ice for every minute of every game for the Badgers in WCHA play and his stats speak for themselves. He is the reason the Badgers have turned things around as fast as they have in Madison.”

    “Although Wisconsin has had many additions this season that have contributed to the success, Brückler’s consistent play should not be overlooked. His numbers are not as strong as a league MVP might require, but they are tops in the conference and Brückler has played every WCHA game. He has only allowed more than three goals twice in conference play (four both times and one was a blowout win) en route to a 14-6-6 record.”

    “I think the case is clear — Chris Conner of Michigan Tech is clearly the WCHA MVP. Not only is Conner one of the best forwards in the entire country, he is clearly the class of the Huskies, as that is to say about the once-great program. Conner’s goals, and his efforts even when not scoring, have kept Michigan Tech from being the abomination they were during Tim Watters’ last full year. If you doubt Conner’s value to the program, just imagine how bad Tech would be without him.”

    “Keith Ballard. Have you seen him play? Honestly.”

    “It would be an injustice to the league if Junior Lessard isn’t crowned the MVP. Not only is he a threat on the ice, he’s the leader of the team. The statistics show he is the top scorer in the league, and he is the leader of the best power play. He works harder than any player on the ice at any time. He might not be a flashy player, but he gets the job done. He should also get a piece of the credit for turning the Duluth hockey team around the last year and a half.”

    “I would have to say it would be Isaac Reichmuth. … Arguably the best goaltender in the WCHA, and the record he has put up should speak for itself.”

    “Looking at the league scoring statistics, Brandon Bochenski and Junior Lessard are just above Zach Parise. But if you look at all aspects of the game, Parise should clearly win the Player of the Year award in the WCHA this season. You really need to watch him play live to appreciate everything he does on the ice, whether it’s part of the play or away from the puck. I believe that he is the best two-way player in the league — hands down!”

    In Other Words

    WCHA players of the week were Colorado College’s Brett Sterling on offense, North Dakota’s Jake Brandt on defense and Denver’s Matt Carle as the top rookie. … With two power-play goals last Friday, Wisconsin freshman Robbie Earl took the team lead in goals at 14. Rene Bourque and Ryan MacMurchy tied him a night later. … Michigan Tech’s Brett Engelhardt had four goals last weekend against Minnesota State and also captured his 100th point for the Huskies. He’s the 58th Tech player to reach the century mark. … Colorado College defenseman Mark Stuart has a point in a career-high six games. …

    In Denver’s seven-game unbeaten streak, goaltender Adam Berkhoel has a 2.09 goals against average and a .928 save percentage. … Minnesota’s Kellen Briggs was pulled from both games at Denver last weekend. On Friday, he allowed three goals on the first six shots. A day later, he stopped only two of the four shots he faced. … Minnesota-Duluth’s six-game road unbeaten streak is its longest in 19 seasons. … The Bulldogs have lost only 10 games this season. Half have been to North Dakota. … Goalies playing against St. Cloud State in the last four games have a .961 save percentage.

    This Week in Hockey East: March 4, 2004

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    Time To Make Its Move

    This season has seen its ups and downs for New Hampshire. Unless they leapfrog Massachusetts this weekend, the Wildcats will finish fourth in Hockey East, only the second time in the last eight years they will have failed to finish in the top three. (In fairness, they would be on pace to do so again this season if not for UMass’ two forfeit wins over Massachusetts-Lowell.)

    There haven’t been the extended winning streaks, particularly in Hockey East play, that have marked previous Wildcat editions. Only once since November have they posted back-to-back league wins.

    “To put six or seven straight wins together in Hockey East is pretty darn difficult,” coach Dick Umile says. “Basically you want to be able to survive. I’ve said this all along: every weekend if you were to play one team home and away, which we do most of the time, getting a split in the weekend is a good weekend.

    “Winning two is a great weekend and obviously you don’t want to get swept. But to put six games together, that’s three straight weekends of winning both games and in our league that’s a tough task.”

    UNH entered last Saturday’s game with Boston College, however, in danger of falling to only a single game over .500 in Hockey East play. A main factor was the team defense. Unlike last year when the Wildcats tied for first in the league, allowing an average of only 2.29 goals per game, this year they’ve fallen to 3.14, seventh in league play, and a league-worst .794 penalty kill percentage. Dating back to the two-game set at Maine that closed out January, UNH had allowed three or more goals in every game but one.

    All of which made the 3-2 win over BC on Saturday all the more significant.

    “There’s no question that that was an area of concern for us,” Umile says. “We knew we weren’t doing a good job defensively.

    “I don’t want to take anything away from Maine. We went up to Maine and they just out-worked us and those are the reasons the goals went in in the defensive end. They were just quicker than we were to the puck and we were just losing those battles.

    “I thought we played well defensively against Lowell five-on-five, but we didn’t handle the power play very well.

    “Obviously we made defense a big concern and I think this weekend was a major improvement. We kept the numbers down. The last couple of weeks we’ve done a better job defensively, but it is an area that we have not done a great job with and obviously the results are there.”

    And the last line of defense is, of course, the goaltender. Mike Ayers, the 2003-03 all-everything goaltender, has seen his numbers drop from last year’s lofty heights (2.18 GAA, .926 Sv%) to those of mere mortals (in Hockey East play, 3.33, .885).

    “It’s everybody; it’s not only Mike,” Umile says. “He’ll be the first to tell you he hasn’t played as well. He was invincible last year. He put up some incredible numbers and the bar was really raised last year.

    “I think he’s done a good job for us and obviously we haven’t helped him out as a team defensively. Goaltending is always a result of team defense, which we’ve done a better job of this weekend. Hopefully that will continue.”

    Going into the BC series last weekend, 24 of the 74 goals Ayers had surrendered have come on the penalty kill, a further indication that the defensive numbers are a team problem rather than one with a single scapegoat. On a positive note, though, the Wildcats held BC scoreless in the eight Eagle weekend power plays.

    “We haven’t been very good on the penalty kill and that’s been the result of giving up second and third and backdoor shots,” Umile says. “We did better last weekend and hopefully that will improve. The most important thing is you can forget what happened early in the season if we continue to play well right now like we did this weekend. If we do that, we’ll be a difficult team to beat.”

    On paper, UNH faces the perfect team to send it into the playoffs on a high note: Boston University. The same BU Terriers that Ayers has recorded four consecutive shutouts. The eighth-place, struggling Terriers.

    “We’re not going into this weekend thinking we’re going to shut out Boston University,” Umile says. “Boston University has had a difficult time scoring goals, but they’ve played hard and they’ve outshot their opponents quite often. They’re a strong and aggressive team.

    “We’re just going into this weekend looking to continue to play well and finish the regular season well. We still have an opportunity to maybe move up and the most important thing is to play well when the playoffs come the following week.”

    With a little momentum and the kind of quality defensive play they displayed against BC last weekend, the Wildcats could be poised to enter the playoffs in their familiar position — a team no one wants to face — albeit as a lower seed than usual.

    And don’t be surprised if UNH then goes on a postseason run like it has the past two years when it won ten and eight consecutive games before losing in the NCAA semifinals and finals, respectively.

    “We’ll be a good team,” Umile says. “[There are] no guarantees we’re going to be playing like that, but you give yourself an opportunity to win and that’s what we want to do.”

    Last Stand

    This weekend will be Northeastern’s last chance to escape from the hole it dug for itself when it opened the season 0-9-2. Unfortunately, the Huskies don’t hold their fate in their own hands. They will take on Massachusetts in a home-and-home series while trailing Boston University by two points that act more like three since BU wins the tiebreaker in most cases. BU faces New Hampshire on Thursday and Saturday in its final two games of the regular season.

    (BU and Northeastern split their head-to-head series, resulting in total wins in conference play being the next tiebreaker. BU wins that one unless Northeastern sweeps this weekend and BU ties both games. That scenario, however, would deadlock the two teams with five league wins, which would invoke the third tiebreaker — head-to-head results against the number one team, then number two, and so on. Northeastern would win this tiebreaker based on better results against Boston College.)

    “We stand at the bottom looking up,” NU coach Bruce Crowder says. “We have all year, but I think there’s some light at the end of the tunnel. That’s the nice positive thing.

    “We’ll know about 9:30 Thursday night what we have to do. If we get a little help from the Wildcats, all of a sudden that opens the door and hopefully we’re ready to knock on that door and bust through it.”

    This column has noted the point before, but it is a testament to the team’s resiliency that it has put itself back within striking distance of a playoff spot. The best example of that came last weekend when the Huskies took three of four points from the same BU team they’ll try to leapfrog this weekend. They at least gave themselves a shot.

    “These guys have been fantastic,” Crowder says. “There’s no doubt [we wouldn’t have hung in there] if I didn’t have the character of the kids we have here, particularly our senior class.

    “The job [captains] Trevor Reschny, Brian Tudrick and Eric Ortlip have done has been fantastic. Even though two of the guys haven’t produced like they’ve wanted to offensively, they’ve been major factors with this turnaround.

    “A lot of people were throwing us under the bus and a lot of other kids might have tanked the season and said, ‘This sucks!’ But they didn’t. There was even the character [on display] a couple of weekends ago at UNH when we gave up five goals on 10 shots and even then there wasn’t any quitting.”

    Tudrick personifies the team’s character and resiliency. Unable to break into the lineup for a single game as a freshman, he redshirted and then dressed for 12 contests in 2000-01 without scoring a point. His breakthrough didn’t come until his third year on campus, his sophomore season from an eligibility perspective, when he totaled 12 points. That determination resulted in him wearing the assistant captain letter this year.

    “It’s a huge turnaround,” Tudrick says. “You just have to believe in yourself and what you’re doing. If you work hard and keep your head down and keep going, you’ll be all set.”

    It’s an approach his coach admires.

    “Those are the great stories,” Crowder says. “Especially at a [private] school like us, he came in here when he could have walked on at a state school and saved himself a lot of money.”

    Crowder had a conversation with Mike Tudrick, Brian’s father, after the freshman season, saying, “I don’t know if Brian is going to play here and I know it’s costing you a lot of money. If he’s here to go to school then that’s fine, that’s good. But if you think that he’s going to play, I can’t guarantee that right now.”

    Brian’s parents found a way to make the tuition payments while their son proved his worth on the ice surface.

    “Obviously, he’s on scholarship money now,” Crowder says. “You need those kids and they’re few and far between. Five years ago he made a decision to come to Northeastern, hoping he’d get a chance to play. [Last weekend], he scored a big goal for us against BU. You can’t say enough about him.”

    Going For Sixth

    A week ago, they’d taken five of their last six points and were shooting for fifth place, a mark they had achieved only once (1996-97) in their 15 years in Hockey East. That goal won’t happen now for the Merrimack Warriors after a loss and a tie with Providence last weekend. Nonetheless, there’s still much to applaud in Merrimack’s season and play of late.

    “Obviously, we would have liked to get fifth place, but that didn’t work out,” coach Chris Serino says. “I still think that if we continue to get better — as I think we are — that we can cause a little bit of trouble in the playoffs. I like the way we’re playing right now.”

    There’s still plenty to play for in the Warriors’ regular-season finale at Lowell.

    “We want to try to get that sixth spot,” Serino says. Mindful of the playoff matchup for the team that falls to seventh, he adds, “I don’t want to go Maine either. This is a big game for us.”

    The Trick-Or-Treat Terriers

    Just when they needed the points the most, BU’s Trick-Or-Treat Terriers took only one of four points from Northeastern, letting the opportunity to clinch a playoff berth slip through their fingers. Since the Beanpot opener, they are now 1-5-2 with perhaps the most damaging loss coming at home last Saturday.

    “[We played] horribly,” coach Jack Parker said after the game. “We didn’t cover anybody. We didn’t compete. We got beat to every loose puck…. They played like they were disinterested tonight. Absolutely disinterested. A pathetic display by the Boston University team, a terrific display by Northeastern.”

    Ouch!

    Trivia Contest

    Last week’s question asked what Hockey East school other than Boston College currently had the longest streak of consecutive wins? There was a hint: you’ll be surprised at the answer.

    As the hint indicated, this was a trick question. The Hockey East school is Vermont. (The Catamounts won’t begin playing in Hockey East until the year after next, but they are a member.) First to guess the sneaky answer was Ankur Patel, whose cheer is:

    Ticket to the Whittemore Center – $15 Ticket to the Fleet Center – $20 Ticket to the Worcester Centrum – $25 Ticket to Walter Brown Arena – $18 254 minutes and 24 seconds of shutout hockey – Priceless

    That one goes in the All-Time Cheer Hall of Fame!

    Tyler Durden uncovered an additional correct answer: the Providence women’s hockey team held an eight-game winning streak at the time of the question. Since my niece Cherie will be playing for those same Friars next year, I’d be loathe not to give credit for this answer as well so Tyler’s cheer is:

    “USE YOUR MAGIC, DAVE!!! PICK BC TO SWEEP!!! GOOOOO MAINE!!!”

    This week’s question notes that, as Ankur expressed in such witty fashion, UNH goaltender Mike Ayers has shut out Boston University a remarkable four straight times. Name the other two Hockey East schools that Ayers has posted consecutive shutouts over. One of those two streaks is current, the other is not.

    Email my trivia account with the two schools and the dates of the shutouts. The winner will be notified by Tuesday; if you haven’t heard by then you either had the wrong answer or someone else beat you to it.

    And Finally, Not That It Has Anything To Do With Anything, But…

    Mark down the date. This week I have nothing more to say.

    Thanks to Scott Weighart for his assistance.

    This Week in Division III: March 4, 2004

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    Championship Week

    It comes down to this. Twenty-two Division III teams left; there will be just nine standing on Sunday. Seven conference championships to be decided.

    Does it get any better than this? Let’s take a look at each of the weekend’s tournaments.

    ECAC East

    Where: Northfield, VT

    When: Semifinals are Saturday, March 6, 1 p.m. and 3:30 p.m.; Finals are Sunday at 3 p.m..

    Pairings: Babson (16-9-1) and New England (19-5-2) square off in the first game, followed by Salem State (12-10-3) and the host Cadets (21-3) in the second semifinal.

    Past as Prologue: Norwich did not lose to an ECAC East team all season. New England defeated every ECAC East team except for Norwich, dropping a 3-1 decision on Feb. 14.

    The Rest of the Story: The Cadets are heavy favorites to win what has been come to be known to some as the “Norwich Invitational.” They’re 12-0 at home this season.

    NCAA Implications: Norwich is in unless the Cadets, Middlebury and St. Norbert all lose. New England, ranked fifth in the NCAA Eastern Rankings, is behind the four top seeds in leagues eligible for the Pool C at-large berth (Middlebury, Norwich, Curry, Plattsburgh). That means the Pilgrims have a good chance, assuming they can make the championship game and no upsets occur elsewhere. Salem State and Babson must each claim the title and rely on the automatic bid that comes with it.

    ECAC Northeast

    Where: Boston, MA

    When: Semifinals are Saturday, March 6, 1 p.m. and 3 p.m.; Finals are Sunday at 3 p.m..

    Pairings: Mass-Dartmouth (18-7-1) and top seeded Curry (23-2-1) square off in the first game, followed by Wentworth (14-8-4) and Lebanon Valley (18-7) in the second semifinal.

    Past as Prologue: Curry was undefeated in conference play (16-0). Lebanon Valley has won 10 games in a row. Wentworth and Mass-Dartmouth are both 0-2-1 against the rest of field this season.

    The Rest of the Story: This is the first time that the ECAC Northeast has gone to a “Final Four” format, holding it on neutral ice at Matthews Arena on the campus of Northeastern University. Wentworth plays its home games there, but the Leopards are not considered the home team for the tournament. Wentworth is 8-5-1 at Matthews this season.

    NCAA Implications: Curry is ranked third in the NCAA East Regional Rankings and stands a good chance of getting a Pool C bid should the Colonels lose. Curry is probably the strongest favorite among the top-seeded teams this weekend. Wentworth, Mass-Dartmouth and Lebanon Valley will have to win their way in.

    ECAC West

    Where: Geneva, NY

    When: Semifinals are Friday, March 5, 3 p.m. and 7:30 p.m.; Finals are Saturday at 7:30 p.m..

    Pairings: RIT (12-6-5) and Manhattanville (15-4-2) square off in the first game, followed by Utica (15-9-1) and host Hobart (13-7-5) in the second semifinal.

    Past as Prologue: The ECAC West was a close race this year, with a single point separating the top three teams. Utica gained the fourth and final berth, its first ever, by a single point over defending champion Elmira.

    The Rest of the Story: On paper this is the closest of any of the tournaments. Each team defeated or tied the others at least once this season. Adjustments had to be made to allow Hobart, which plays in a semi-enclosed rink and has only three locker rooms, to host the tournament.

    NCAA Implications: The lone NCAA Pool B slot is up for grabs, as RIT, Manhattanville and Hobart are ranked eighth, ninth and tenth in the East by the NCAA respectively, while Utica is 15th. It’s too close to call for the Pioneers, who may not be able to leap over the RIT/Manhattanville winner should Utica win the tournament — there is no automatic bid. If Hobart defeats Utica on Friday, then it’s almost certain that the winner of the title game Saturday will get the Pool B slot.

    MIAC

    Where: TBD

    When: Semifinals are Thursday, March 4, 7 p.m. at St. John’s and 8 p.m. at St. Thomas; Finals are either Sunday at St. John’s if the Johnnies win their semi, or Saturday at the winner of the Gustavus/St. Thomas game should St. John’s lose.

    Pairings: St. Thomas (15-7-3) hosts Gustavus Adolphus (12-10-3) in one semifinal, while St. Olaf (11-11-4), winner of the play-in game against St. Mary’s on Tuesday, travels to St. John’s (21-3-1).

    Past as Prologue: The Johnnies lost their first league game of the season against Gustavus, but have won their last 15 straight, the longest active streak in Division III.

    The Rest of the Story: Even with that school-record winning streak, St. John’s has flown under the radar this season, steadily moving up in the polls. The reason for an initial lack of respect? St. John’s was the odd team out in this season’s MIAC-NCHA scheduling arrangement, meaning lots of games against weaker MCHA teams.

    “I think it hurt our credibility, not banging heads with a pretty strong league,” said St. John’s coach John Harrington. “It’s a fine line. You learn more by playing tough teams, even if you lose. But you also gain confidence by winning games.”

    The two turning points for the Johnnies, according Harrington, were a second-place finish at the Time Argus tournament at Norwich and a sweep of archrival St. Thomas. In the Times-Argus, St. John’s defeated Oswego 5-3 before bowing 4-1 to Norwich in the championship game after being tied 1-1 going into the third period.

    “I told my players that this was a great opportunity, to play both teams that were in the national championship game last season.” said Harrington. “Doing well there gave us some confidence and more respect nationally.”

    The late-season sweep of St. Thomas virtually locked up the regular-season title for the Johnnies.

    “That was huge,” said Harrington. “St. Thomas is the measuring stick in our league. We’re big rivals. If St. Thomas and St. John’s played a game of tiddlywinks people would show up.”

    It’ll be more than tiddlywinks if the two teams win on Thursday.

    NCAA Implications: St. John’s is in good shape, third in the NCAA Western Region ranking. If the Johnnies don’t win the tournament, it will come down to how many other upsets occur, and how they stack up against the top at-large teams from the East. St. Thomas, Gustavus Adolphus and St. Olaf have to win the MIAC title to make the NCAAs.

    NCHA

    Where: Ashwaubenon, WI

    When: Semifinals are Friday, March 5, 3 p.m. and 7 p.m.; Finals are Saturday at 7 p.m..

    Pairings: Wisconsin-Stevens Point (13-11-3) takes on Wisconsin-River Falls (19-4-4) in the first semifinal, while Lake Forest (18-5-4), takes on host St. Norbert (23-2-2) in the late game.

    Past as Prologue: Wisconsin-River Falls is one of only two teams to defeat St. Norbert this season, but the Falcons first have to get by Wisconsin-Stevens Point, which upset Wisconsin-Superior in the quarterfinals two weeks ago. St. Norbert was 5-1 against the rest of the field; Lake Forest was 1-5; Stevens Point was 2-4; River Falls was 4-2.

    The Rest of the Story: The major change for this season is the elimination of the NCHA consolation game, which was the only one played in Division III for the past few seasons.

    “I was in favor of getting rid of it,” said St. Norbert coach Tim Coghlin. “It was always tough on the team that lost on Friday to have to come back early on Saturday and play a pretty important game in terms of NCAA selection.”

    While eliminating the consolation game puts the NCHA in line with the other leagues, there are still two differences: no reseeding after the quarterfinals and, along with the ECAC West, staying with the Friday-Saturday format instead of moving to Saturday-Sunday.

    Both, according to Coghlin, may come up in off-season league meetings. “Frankly, we haven’t had to deal with (no reseeding) because the top seeds almost always have won the quarterfinals,” he said. “In this case, we probably match up better against Stevens Point (9-0, 5-1 wins) than Lake Forest (a pair of 5-3 wins). But what are you going to do? That’s the way it is.”

    With the ECAC East and NESCAC moving their championship games to Saturday, a possible third SUNYAC game on Sunday, and the MIAC and ECAC NE often playing on Sundays due to rink availability, should the ECAC West and NCHA follow suit?

    “We will probably talk about it,” said Coghlin. “There’s more speculation now with some leagues finishing up and then others knowing a little more about what’s at stake in their games on Sunday. I’d like to see everybody finish up at the same time.”

    NCAA Implications: St. Norbert, number one in the NCAA West rankings, is a virtual lock. Wisconsin-River Falls, ranked second, is also in good shape. Lake Forest, ranked fourth, could grab an at-large depending on what happens in the East. Wisconsin-Stevens Point has to win the tournament to get to the Big Dance.

    NESCAC

    Where: Middlebury, VT

    When: Semifinals are Saturday, March 5, 1 p.m. and 400 p.m.; Finals are Sunday at 1 p.m..

    Pairings: Hamilton (15-8-2) takes on host Middlebury (22-3) in the first semifinal, while Colby (14-6-4) plays Trinity (15-8-1) in the late game.

    Past as Prologue: Middlebury has lost just three NCAA games this season, but two were against teams in this tournament. Colby and Trinity both bested the Panthers this season. They are both 2-0-1 against the other teams, while Hamilton is 0-3.

    The Rest of the Story: Middlebury is looking for revenge against Trinity, which upset the Panthers in last season’s NESCAC championship game. But first, both teams have a tough game ahead of them. Hamilton has pulled off an upset or two this season, and Colby tied Trinity on the road.

    NCAA Implications: The Panthers’ win over Norwich two weeks ago puts them in the driver’s seat for an at-large bid should they not win the NESCAC title. The other three teams need to win their way in.

    SUNYAC

    Where: Plattsburgh, NY

    When: Game One is Friday, March 5 at 7 p.m.; Game Two is Saturday at 7 p.m.; a possible third game is scheduled for Sunday at 2 p.m.

    Pairings: This is a modified best-of-three series. If either team takes three points in the first two games (they can end as ties), the series is over. If the teams split their games or tie both, then a third game will follow on Sunday. That one will have a winner. Oswego (19-7-3) takes on host Plattsburgh (20-4-3).

    Past as Prologue: Plattsburgh swept Oswego in the regular season, but both were one-goal games. Plattsburgh lost just twice on home ice this season and was 6-0-1 against SUNYAC teams at Stafford Arena.

    The Rest of the Story: These two teams needed three games to settle things last season, and don’t be surprised if they’re playing on Sunday again. “It’s an exciting time of the year,” said Plattsburgh coach Bob Emery, whose team was picked to finish behind Oswego in the SUNYAC preseason poll. “We need to work hard and get good goaltending. If we do those two things, we’ll be OK.”

    NCAA Implications: Plattsburgh is ranked fourth in the East, Oswego is sixth. Neither team is guaranteed a spot if they lose. Oswego would need a lot of help — no upsets anywhere else and a favorable comparison against at-large teams from the West.

    Division II and the MCHA

    The Northeast-10 holds its title game on Saturday, and the MCHA crowned its champion last weekend. In both cases, goaltending has been the story.

    In the MCHA, Minnesota-Crookston defeated Marian in the title game for the second year in a row. Again the hero was Golden Eagles goaltender Erik Kraska, who made 31 saves in a 3-1 shutout. He repeated as tournament MVP.

    The Northeast-10 title game is Saturday, with St. Anselm hosting St. Michael’s. In the semifinals, Southern New Hampshire goaltender Tim Fewster kept things close against St. Anselm by making a whopping 65 saves in a 4-1 loss. That’s tops in men’s hockey this season in Division I, II or III.

    St. Mike’s, which defeated Stonehill 6-5 in overtime in the other semifinal, has quite a challenge. The Purple Knights lost 12-2 to the Hawks three weeks ago. My advice to St. Michael’s coach Lou DiMasi: take your team to see “Miracle.”

    This Week in Atlantic Hockey: March 4, 2004

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    Position Statement

    It’s probably been a term used in business for years, though it seems like the word “positioning” keeps popping up in the Monday through Friday, 9 to 5 world.

    This weekend, that trend carries over to hockey, particularly in Atlantic Hockey, as teams will have to scratch and claw to figure out their first-round opponents in the crowd-pleasing, though always dangerous, single-elimination league tournament.

    Two things are known. American International will finish as the cellar-dweller, as it is unable to catch running mates Bentley or Army in the standings. At the other end of the spectrum, Holy Cross clinched its first-ever regular-season title with an emotional come-from-behind victory over Mercyhurst last Friday night.

    “We were very excited,” said Holy Cross head coach Paul Pearl of the victory. “To be playing the second-place team and [come back] made it a lot of fun.”

    Asked if there was any glory in the fact that the Crusaders clinched by beating the three-time defending champ, Pearl said that didn’t enter his mind.

    “We didn’t really think of it that way,” said Pearl, a frontrunner for Coach of the Year in the league. “I know that the guys trying to chase us were the ones that we were playing and that’s good.”

    Despite the fact that Mercyhurst rebounded to trounce Bentley one night later, the Lakers find themselves in a precarious battle to hold onto the runner-up position. For that matter, second may not be the best place to land.

    “We’re trying to do everything we can to get the second spot,” said Gotkin, whose club will clinch second all to itself with two out of four points this weekend. “What will the reward be? Maybe a really good Army team at home.”

    Indeed, second could be a disastrous place to finish should Army, the host of this year’s tournament hold onto its thin lead over Bentley this weekend. That, though, won’t keep the Lakers from focusing on heading to the playoffs on a high note.

    “We want to win two games this weekend, though Canisius will have a lot to say about that,” said Gotkin, whose club will face its nearest league rival in a home-and-home Friday and Saturday. “They’re in a bit of a playoff battle themselves.”

    Canisius is part of a mixup with Connecticut for the five/six spots, holding a slim, three-point edge. Connecticut faces lowlier opponents this weekend, playing AIC on Friday and Army on Saturday, compared to the Griffs’ two-game series against the Lakers. Still, the fifth and sixth spots are close to set.

    That is the exception, not the norm for the rest of the league.

    As mentioned, the Lakers have a bead on second place, but Quinnipiac, one point behind, and Sacred Heart, two points back but holding the tiebreaker, are breathing down Mercyhurst’s neck. The advantage for the Lakers is the fact they still, at this late point in the season, have a game in hand on both teams. Sacred Heart and Quinnipiac are the only two clubs that will play single games this weekend.

    Perhaps the most critical positioning battle occurs at seven/eight. Army holds a one-point lead over Bentley for seventh. Though everyone qualifies for the playoffs this season, the eighth- and ninth-place teams will meet in a play-in game on Friday night before returning the next day to play the quarterfinal against Holy Cross.

    Though that would seem like an obvious disadvantage, not everyone agrees.

    “I guess you can look at it either way,” said Pearl. When his club takes the ice in the quarterfinals, they will face a team that is possibly fatigued, but likely without jitters. “Who knows if you’d rather play or not play, but regardless of what occurs, we’re going to be playing a good team. Whoever we play will be a tough game next Saturday.”

    Pearl’s club is in position to accomplish something it hasn’t done since the inaugural year of the league, which is win the postseason title. In the previous five league tournaments (all played under the auspices of the MAAC), the regular-season champ won the title only twice (Mercyhurst in 2001 and 2003).

    The single-elimination format makes winning the title a challenge for any team, and giving Army home ice clouds the picture. Still, Pearl like his club’s chances.

    “I think we’ve been very consistent all season,” said Pearl. “It hasn’t changed a lot from weekend to weekend. For the most part we’ve been able to grind it out pretty good.

    “There haven’t been many blowouts on that winning ledger. We’ve just prepared for each opponent and played very well.”

    Weekly Awards

    Player of the Week

    Todd Bowler, Canisius (Jr., F, Branford, ONT) — Bowler led all Griffs with five points in a weekend sweep of visiting American International at the Buffalo State Sports Arena. The Griffs won by scores of 4-2 and 6-3 over AIC. Bowler highlighted the weekend by recording three assists in the 6-3 victory Saturday night, posting a helper on the game’s first goal and two in the third period, including one on the game-winning goal by senior Kyle Bostic. Bowler also added two points in Friday’s 4-2 win, scoring the game-winner at the 8:34 mark of the third period and assisting on the Griffs’ fourth goal. Bowler has turned up his offensive production in the month of February, recording 11 points (3-8-11) in the Griffs’ eight games.

    Co-Goaltenders of the Week

    Bill Moss, Army (Sr., G, Reading, MA) — Moss got an opportunity to shine this past weekend and he made the most of it, recording 68 saves on 73 shots in Army’s two games. Moss defeated Connecticut Friday, carrying a shutout well into the third period and making one big save after another to keep the Huskies off of the scoreboard as long as he could. Moss started once again on Saturday against Sacred Heart, his first-career back-to-back starts, and fell, 2-3 despite making 33 saves. His 35 stops against UConn were two shy of his career best. The Friday win was the first career league victory.

    Justin Eddy, Quinnipiac (Sr., G, Apple Valley, MN) — Eddy made good on his first back-to-back starts of the season last weekend. He made 27 stops — several in the closing minutes — on 28 shots in a 2-1 win over Bentley on Friday night. The following evening, he was just as good, turning away 33 shots in a 3-3 tie with Holy Cross. Eddy ranks among the top 10 nationally in save percentage (.925) and is 2-0-1 in his last three starts.

    Freshman of the Week

    Jamie Hunt, Mercyhurst (Fr., D, Calgary, Alberta) — Hunt factored in five of Mercyhurst’s 11 goals last week. He had two assists in Friday’s 6-4 loss at Holy Cross and then scored his third goal of the season and added two assists in a 7-1 win at Bentley Saturday. Hunt is first on the team among freshman defensemen and second among freshmen overall in scoring with 18 points.

    Around the League

  • (I’ve buried this at the bottom as a reward for those reading the whole thing.) Sources in the ECAC say that Holy Cross packing up to head to that league two seasons from now is not likely. In fact, it seems that the chance of the Crusaders making their way to the to the soon-to-be 11-team conference at all is not strong. According to the source, the ECAC and its members do not want another non-scholarship school (the six Ivies and Union do not give athletic scholarships) admitted.

    The thought process would seem to be that without scholarships it would be difficult for Holy Cross to be competitive, potentially further lowering the already-low conference RPI that the ECAC maintains. So the next question is, “If not Holy Cross, then who?” The most likely candidates would be Niagara and Quinnipiac. Still yet, maybe the ECAC will throw a curveball and remain 11 teams. Stay tuned for more.

  • Was there a trend against top goaltenders last weekend? Army’s Bill Moss and Quinnipiac’s Justin Eddy both got back-to-back starts for the first time this season. Both decisions seemed to work pretty well as the league recognized them as co-goaltenders of the week. In addition, Canisius rested top ‘tender Bryan Worosz, in favor of Max Buetow on Saturday against AIC, with Buetow registering a key win. For the record, when Quinnipiac returned usual top dog Jamie Holden to the net on Tuesday, he made a remarkable 45 saves in a 5-2 win over Sacred Heart.
  • Playoffs approaching, it’s good to look at which teams are hot and which teams simply are not. Canisius holds the league’s longest winning streak, four games, while Quinnipiac has a league-best five-game unbeaten streak (3-0-2). Holy Cross is unbeaten in four and has lost just once in its last nine (6-1-2). On the other end of the spectrum, AIC has the longest losing streak, six, followed by Bentley, which has lost three in a row. Army could be grouped into that category, having won just once in its last six (1-5-0).

    • This Week in the CCHA: March 4, 2004

    By
    -

    All’s Well that Ends, Well …

    In early December, my dear friend, Tom Reese, was incensed by Al Gore’s endorsement of Howard Dean. Now, Tom, a Democrat, didn’t have a problem with Dean per se, but he was clearly unhappy about the timing of the endorsement — a full 11 months before the presidential election and well before any primaries and caucuses.

    “I just hate that they’ve anointed Dean,” bemoaned Tom. “Now it’s over. What’s the point?”

    “Tom,” I said, “it isn’t over. In hockey we say, ‘That’s why we play the game.’ There’s plenty of game left to be played.”

    How nice of Senator John Kerry and the Notre Dame Fighting Irish to remind us of why the game is played.

    (Never mind that each also reminds us of the relative insignificance of the media, indelible image of a yelping Dean notwithstanding.)

    In case you missed it, Notre Dame swept league-leading Michigan last weekend, for the first time ever, and that has made the final weekend of regular-season play that much sweeter for everyone but, well, Michigan.

    Notre Dame beat Michigan 4-1 Friday and 5-2 Saturday, and that was just part of the bad news for the Wolverines; in Friday’s 4-1 loss, after giving up three goals, sophomore goaltender Al Montoya left the game with a pulled hamstring.

    The injury came on Jason Paige’s first goal of the night for the Irish in Friday’s contest, at 14:35 in the second. Montoya was replaced by backup Noah Ruden. Paige got past Ruden at 4:27 in the third.

    Ruden allowed five goals on 16 shots in the 5-2 loss.

    Jeff Tambellini gave a supportive and diplomatic response to questions about Ruden after the first loss to Notre Dame. “We have a lot of trust in [Ruden]. He’s been a great backup goalie for us all last year and this year, and when given the chance to play, he’s done well, so we feel as strong as him in [net] as we do with [Montoya].”

    Ruden is 1-2-0 in three decisions this season. Montoya is 22-8-1. Montoya will play against Michigan State this weekend. Said Michigan head coach Red Berenson to the Ann Arbor News, “He’s fine. He’s just a little tight. Hamstrings have to be stretched.”

    Eyewitness reports from the game locate Montoya’s injury rather closer to the center of his body, but either way, Michigan’s number-one goaltender — and only steady, reliable goaltender — is less than 100 percent going into the playoffs.

    Ever hear the one about the eggs, all of them, and that basket?

    This sets up not only a great series between Michigan and Michigan State this weekend, but also an equally — if not more so — compelling series between Miami and Ohio State to end the regular season. Michigan looks good in the PairWise Rankings, as does Miami. While OSU has looked better this season, an NCAA tournament invite is the Buckeyes’ to lose.

    Michigan State, meanwhile, is on the bubble.

    And a team that held on to first place in the CCHA standings for nine straight weeks this season, Miami, has a chance to capture the regular-season title after all.

    Dragon Slayers

    The Notre Dame Fighting Irish have some impressive wins to their credit this season. The Irish shut out Maine and Boston College, beat Wisconsin, and just swept Michigan for the first time in program history.

    In sweeping the Wolverines, the Irish ended their regular season with a 14-game home unbeaten streak (12-0-2), another impressive feat.

    But the Irish, tied for fifth place with Alaska-Fairbanks, may wind up on the road in the first round of the CCHA playoffs. Notre Dame needs a win this weekend to secure home ice (the other contender for the last stay-at-home spot is Western Michigan), and the Irish need to travel to Sault Ste. Marie to do it.

    Don’t laugh. The Lakers play good hockey. And Notre Dame is 4-9-2 on the road.

    Still, Notre Dame head coach Dave Poulin seems unfazed by the task at hand. “After Boston College and Maine, we responded very well both times,” Poulin told my esteemed colleague, Steve Lowe, of the South Bend Tribune. “When you schedule nonconference teams like we have, you put yourself in similar positions throughout the season.”

    After beating Boston College, the Irish swept Nebraska-Omaha at home the following weekend, but after beating Maine, the Irish went on to narrowly escape Findlay at home (1-0) the following game and suffered a 5-4 overtime road loss to Bowling Green two games after the Maine victory.

    After a weekend in Madison during which the Irish tied and then defeated the Badgers, Notre Dame responded with two losses to Northern Michigan in Marquette. In fact, after the Wisconsin weekend, Notre Dame was 1-4-1 in its six subsequent games.

    Poulin told Lowe, “We want to play well and that’s the bottom line. Winning means that we’re playing well right now and that’s what you want at this time of the season.”

    The Irish ride a four-game win streak into the Soo.

    Games of the Week

    Yeah, sure, they’re playing hockey in East Lansing and Detroit this weekend, but what happens in Oxford and Columbus may make this a photo finish.

    Miami (19-11-4, 16-7-3 CCHA) vs. Ohio State (20-14-0, 15-11-0 CCHA)
    Friday, 7:35 p.m., Goggin Arena, Oxford, Ohio
    Saturday, 8:05 p.m., Value City Arena, Columbus, Ohio

    Has Miami head coach Enrico Blasi sent the Fighting Irish a thank-you note for last weekend yet? Not likely, given that the RedHawks swept the Irish just a month ago.

    There isn’t a team in the league from whom Miami hasn’t drawn at least one point, and after having beaten Ohio State 2-1 and 4-2 in a home-and-home series in early December, the RedHawks have an opportunity for a season sweep this weekend.

    But, as usual, Blasi isn’t taking anything for granted, especially in this tight CCHA season. “We know they’re a good hockey team. We know what they’re capable of.”

    In seasons past under Blasi, the RedHawks have come out of the gate fast and struggled down the stretch, often after a pivotal midseason series with Ohio State. Not so this year, as Miami has remained strong in the second half, vying still with perennial powerhouses Michigan and Michigan State for the regular-season title.

    As he has for the entire season, Blasi credits his senior class for this year’s RedHawk success.

    “You have to attribute a lot of it to the seniors. This group finished second [in the league] as freshmen, ninth as sophomores, sixth as juniors. They know how to prepare every day, and they’ve communicated that effectively to the team.”

    And that senior class is extraordinary, led by forwards Derek Edwardson (17-26–43), Mike Kompon (10-28–38), and Greg Hogeboom (16-18–34), a trio responsible for more than a third of Miami’s goals.

    The RedHawk talent isn’t limited to the senior class; six RedHawks have goals totaling 10 or more, including freshmen Matt Christie (19-10–29) and Marty Guerin (11-18–29) and junior Todd Grant (10-11–29). Miami is loaded up front, and these guys can flat-out fly.

    The Buckeyes, another team with a stellar senior class, has an offense that is more evenly distributed among the entire team; in fact, the Buckeyes — by necessity — score by committee. Currently, the line to watch consists of senior Scott May (12-18–30), sophomore Dan Knapp (9-17–26), and freshman Andrew Schembri (11-9–20). Another freshman,

    Bryce Anderson (4-6–10) has been productive of late, but will sit out Friday’s game after earning a suspension for checking from behind in a game in Kalamazoo Feb. 21. The league issued the suspension after reviewing a tape of the incident.

    The Buckeye bench is further shortened by injury. Sophomore defenseman Nate Guenin and senior forward Daymen Bencharski are out indefinitely with undisclosed injuries. Junior captain, forward J.B. Bittner, is expected to return to play this weekend after sustaining an injury — again undisclosed — Feb. 13.

    Both teams play similar styles of hockey, each team with a defense talented enough to aid the offense and not merely defend; each offense, too, plays exceptional defense.

    The difference? Maybe in net, maybe not. Miami’s weakest link is its goaltending, but that’s hardly a weakness these days, as Brandon Crawford-West has matured into a solid netminder. OSU’s Mike Betz went through a shaky period in February, but he’s a playoff goaltender, and this is playoff hockey — and after sitting out while David Caruso won three in a row, Betz returned with a vengeance, earning a 5-1 win in Kalamazoo.

    Here’s the series by the overall numbers:

  • Goals per game: Miami, 3.35 (second) ; OSU, 3.06 (sixth)
  • Goals allowed per game: Miami, 2.65 (fifth) ; OSU, 2.44 (third)
  • Power play: Miami, 21.5% (first); OSU, 14.7% (10th)
  • Penalty kill: Miami, 80.8% (eighth); OSU, 85.6% (third)
  • Top scorer: Miami, Derek Edwardson (17-26–43); OSU, Scott May (12-18–30)
  • Top goal scorer: Miami, Matt Christie (19); OSU, Paul Caponigri (14)
  • Top ‘tender: Miami, Brandon Crawford-West (.900 SV%); OSU, Mike Betz (.907 SV%)

    RedHawk goaltenders tend to have career games against Ohio State, something that has frustrated Betz for four years. After a 2-1 loss to Miami in early December, Betz summarized the reasons for the Buckeyes’ performance:

    “Not preparing all week. Not having the right attitude. Not having the championship attitude. Having guys on the team that won’t hold themselves accountable. Guys that only show up for half of a game. Not taking advantage of a team that might have been a little bit rusty taking a week off.”

    It was a memorable moment, but did little to galvanize the team, as OSU lost to Miami the following night.

    Picks: These should be two very hard-fought games, but Miami has the advantage in both. Not only are the RedHawks more consistent than are the Buckeyes this season, but OSU is banged up in very significant ways. Expect goal-scorers’ goals, from both teams, and fast-paced, end-to-end action each night. Miami 4-2, 4-3

    Wish I’d Said That

    Another esteemed colleague and all-around good guy, Rich Larson of the Fairbanks Daily-Miner, wrote this of the Fairbanks-Anchorage rivalry:

    “Current Anchorage coach John Hill played for the Seawolves from 1980-84 and watched as the upstart Nanooks turned from punching bag into sparring partners.”

    Nice turn of phrase.

    He Said That

    UAF head coach, Guy Gadowsky, is as articulate as a coach can be, but this more base expression of his desire to win the Governor’s Cup, again from the News-Miner is the quote of the week:

    “It’s something I want to scratch and claw to get.”

    Helminen to the Rangers

    He’s not even a college senior yet, and already he’s a big part of big hockey business.

    Michigan junior forward Dwight Helminen and backup goalie Steve Valiquette have been traded by the Edmonton Oilers for Petr Nedved and backup goalie Jussi Markkanen, according to today’s Toronto Globe and Mail. The Oilers also gave up a 2004, second-round draft choice to be named later as part of the deal.

    Not a bad measure of value, eh?

    Other Odd Musings on the Season

    Yet Another Helping of Pi?

    I have not seen Matt Shegos officiate one single game this year. I see Steve Piotrowski all the time.

    In fact, when I covered UAF at Miami, Piotrowski was the referee. When I went up to BGSU for an OSU game — the last time I would take my 15-year-old Jetta out of my area code, back in November — he was the official of record that night, too.

    Perhaps I’ll Try the Cheesecake … Or Not …

    Or is that beefcake? There are two media guides this season whose covers are strikingly different from all the rest.

    On the cover of Alaska-Fairbanks’ media guide, several players are dressed in Old West attire, posing with guns at a fake building front. Senior goaltender Preston McKay is in the foreground, wearing a duster and some sort of cowboy hat.

    Having been raised in Syracuse, New York — as far from the Wild West as you can get — the photo fascinates me. It’s not great art, and it’s not appealing even in a beefcake kind of way, but it’s mesmerizing just the same.

    The other media guide that will immediately catch anyone’s attention is Michigan State’s. The photo that graces the cover of that publication has every Spartan in a muscle shirt and jeans, and the guys’ arms are oiled to show off their guns, to use the vernacular.

    I blush every time I see the pic. Why? Not because I’m a prude and not because the Spartans are so fine (again with the vernacular), but because the players look so young to me that I’m embarrassed by the way they’re presented, as objects to be admired.

    What a drag it is getting old.

    Joe College

    I’ve seen the face of the CCHA’s Super Six Tournament twice this season, and he couldn’t skate either time.

    They Shoulda Been Contenders

    Everyone knows why and how Michigan and Michigan State contend yearly for the CCHA regular-season title. Each team is exceptionally well coached; each team, with its long tradition of excellence, draws exceptional recruits.

    Both Michigan and Michigan State have other advantages: big campuses, Big Ten traditions in other sports, outstanding facilities. There’s plenty to draw talent to each of these programs.

    But what of Notre Dame and Ohio State? Dave Poulin has proven repeatedly that he can overcome Notre Dame’s biggest handicap — the Joyce Center — to draw exceptional talent. OSU’s recruits in the past four seasons (or more) have been outstanding. Each program attracts NHL-caliber talent; each program is part of a school with an enormous big-time college sports atmosphere. Notre Dame has a reputation for academic excellence, which should be an additional draw. Ohio State sits in the largest CCHA city, another draw (albeit a different one) from that of Notre Dame.

    So why isn’t either of these teams threatening Michigan or MSU for the regular-season title? Ever?

    Perhaps it’s hard to argue with a 20-win season — the third in a row for the Buckeyes — why can OSU finish no higher than third? Why can Notre Dame possibly travel in the first round of the playoffs?

    Notre Dame has long been an enigma to me, and after watching the Buckeyes for nine seasons, I’m not closer to understanding that team than I was at the start.

    I can say this: each program should have, by this time, emerged as a genuine contender for the league title.

    Who knows? Maybe one of them will surprise me at the Super Six.

    Progress?

    This season, I did not receive one misogynistic email. The hate mail I did receive this season, however, was far more venomous than it has ever been in the past, even without the overt references to my gender.

    When I write about the email I receive, I don’t do it to solicit positive email messages from readers; I do get a fair number of them all season. I’ve just always seen the email — in fact, the whole column — as an ongoing dialogue between you and me.

    I’m always, always stunned when I receive rude email. It never gets old. I cannot believe how many people think that rudeness is an appropriate response to anything I write.

    Frankly, I can’t believe how many people get angry. It’s a column. It’s not news. It’s not fact. It’s one girl reporter’s opinion. And it’s sports, not world politics.

    I’m also always, always stunned when faced with the reality that I’m part of The Media. Several weeks ago, I left the friendly confines of the press box at the Schott to say hello to an old friends, between periods of one of the MSU-OSU games. The moment I entered the main concourse from the elevator, I was accosted by an OSU fan who saw me before I saw him.

    He spouted a series of questions about the Buckeyes, never introducing himself, standing about eight inches from my face, just as the elevator door was closing behind me.

    When he stopped — presumably for my answers, but clearly also to draw breath — I was speechless. After taking a moment to recover, I smiled, shook his hand, introduced myself, and said, “I hope you don’t mind, but I’m off to see a friend, and I have only a few minutes.” I sidestepped him and walked away.

    Best Fans

    Last week I said that Michigan State has the best fans in the CCHA. I took a lot of email flack for that this week, and each objection revolved around the quiet atmosphere of Munn Arena.

    Maybe I should have said that MSU has the nicest fans. Or maybe I should just stick to my original assessment; maybe a profanity-less environment does make for the “best” fans.

    All depends on your criteria, I guess.

    Perani Cup

    From what I can tell, this is the CCHA’s most dubious award.

    The Perani Cup is given to the player who received the most “star” votes during the season. In each game, three stars are awarded to the alleged three best players of the night.

    I wouldn’t have a problem with the awarding of stars were consistent, rink to rink. The truth of the matter is that each individual home team’s sports information director has the final say — and veto power — when awarding the three stars of the night.

    Disclaimer: In my time spent covering the Buckeyes, I’ve never seen anything untoward in the Perani Cup voting. The Buckeyes’ SID, Leann Parker, is as fair and unbiased as any I’ve met, and the media does vote on the three stars. Often stars are awarded to the losing team, if a specific player’s effort warrants it.

    At other rinks, this is not necessarily the case. I’ve see rinks where only the SID decides who gets the stars, rinks where the media is so biased that no one from the opposing team gets a star if the home team wins, and other practices that contribute to the dubious nature of this award.

    There is no consistency, no checks and balances.

    And, just as in the determination for CCHA Defensive Player of the Week, the “standings” are dominated by goaltenders. Now, I have nothing against goaltenders; in fact, I’m rather fond of them and their interesting “goalie heads.” And, of course, a goalie’s performance is central to a team’s success — but it’s just one reason why a team wins or loses on a given night, usually.

    Blueliner of the Week

    This award had a good run, and I’ll bring it back next season. Congrats to the winners, and thanks to all of you who provided necessary information. Messages came from all kinds of people, from mothers of players to fans in the stands. Easily my favorite email of the year.

    • This Week in the CHA: March 4, 2004

    By
    -

    Congratulations to Bemidji State on winning the CHA championship. But forgive this columnist if the ecomium feels premature.

    The CHA schedule-makers had performed a feat of almost sublime beauty. Scheduling the preseason favorites, Bemidji and Niagara, to face each other on the final weekend, they manipulated events to maximize the probability of a dramatic showdown next week.

    The plan reached the cusp of fruition when with two weeks two go, the Purple Eagles trailed the Beavers by just one point. The only problem was that Niagara had to take one game from Findlay, at home, and the Oilers had a lot more on the line than first place.

    For the Oilers, there is no next year, no building for the future. Any opportunity to etch their program name in CHA lore has to happen now and they did what was, if not unthinkable, then at least improbable — they went to Niagara and took two. Bemidji did the same at Air Force, and voila, new champions.

    And no dramatic showdown.

    “I thought for sure we would be playing Niagara next week for the title,” said Bemidji coach Tom Serratore. “There was no question in my mind.”

    The Oilers had one of those magical weekends when almost every shot off their sticks found the back of the net. They took 35 shots and scored 14 times. Neither goaltender Jeff VanNyatten nor Rob Bonk had any answer, especially senior Brian Sherry, who claimed the USCHO/ITECH Offensive Player of the Week Award with a four-goal, two-assist performance.

    Niagara still earned a bye for the first round of the CHA tournament, but in its quest for the top seed has to look at the Oilers, who despite all the emotion of the season, are still 9-20-2. Findlay took three of the four games of the season series from the Purple Eagles.

    The first of Findlay’s wins over Niagara was understandable, coming in the team’s first home game after the announcement that the varsity program would be terminated upon the season’s conclusion. But Niagara had to find a way to win one at home with a trip to Bemidji for the championship on the line.

    Instead, Bemidji knew by the end of the first period on Saturday that all it had to do was protect the 2-0 lead it had developed at Air Force. It did, cruising to a 9-1 victory.

    “With the two-hour difference in time, we knew that Findlay was winning 6-2 after two periods,” Serratore said. “We definitely went into the rest of the game knowing that we had the title.”

    Niagara coach Dave Burkholder took consolation of the fact that it could still claim the NCAA autobid by winning the conference championship. Serratore knows that his team really hasn’t won much yet.

    “The celebration was pretty mellow,” Serratore said. “There was some excitement, we talked about how we won the marathon … It doesn’t matter unless you win the playoff championship. It’s an end to phase one of the season; phase two begins next week.”

    The Purple Eagles will want to tell the Beavers that they still have a dogfight on their hands, and will face a challenge if the two top seeds meet a week from Saturday in Kearney, Neb.

    Bemidji still has goals in mind as well.

    “You want to win every game you can,” Serratore said. “You want to be playing your best hockey going into the playoffs. We also have 18 wins, and one of our goals was to win 20. We can do that next week.”

    Nonetheless, you can thank Findlay for the fact that all we have next week is a message game. That’s why they’re called “spoilers.”

    Bemidji Comes Full Circle

    Four years ago, Tom Serratore gazed out at the Bemidji locker room to the almost dozen freshmen sitting nearby and made them a promise.

    You will win a championship for this school.

    It must have been a tough sell. The Beavers wandered that year to a 4-26-4 record. Not until the 12th game of the season did Bemidji net its first win — and it took another 16 before the program tasted victory again.

    Now those freshmen-turned-seniors have metamorphosed four wins into 18 and fulfilled the pledge their coach made.

    “Those guys were there when we got our noses bloodied,” Serratore said. “We told them it was going to get better and now it has come to fruition. There’s nothing more gratifying than to see them win.”

    The tale of Bemidji as a small-college dynasty is well known, with 13 national championships. But this is the first title of any kind for the program since its elevation to Division I status.

    “Our seniors have been pretty resilient for us,” Serratore said. “Each year they saw the program get better and better. They helped shape the program … They are the true pioneers for our program.”

    The respect Serratore has for his veteran group removes any concern that the Beavers will ease up this weekend on the Purple Eagles. In addition to reaching the aforementioned goal of 20 wins, Saturday night will also be Senior Night, and it does not seem fitting for the Beavers to lose an evening for a class that has made such contributions to the program.

    “All the seniors are going to play,” Serratore said. “We know of only one way to play. We are trained to go in and work hard and smart. We have that mentality.”

    Of course, now the Beavers have a higher goal in mind and that is to make the NCAA tournament. They will enter the CHA tournament as both the top seed and the favorite to win the championship.

    That will be the ultimate test for this group, who have passed everything else thus far.

    Wayne State????

    The Oilers proved emphatically that their program is not over. Findlay has had a few moments in the sun this year — the Oilers have defeated ranked opponents and three times an Oiler has won an USCHO/ITECH Player of the Week.

    But even more encouraging for the CHA tournament is that Wayne State showed that is has plenty of fight left in it — literally.

    The Warriors were led by goaltender Matt Kelly, who stopped 80 Alabama-Huntsville shots to lead his team to a sweep of the Chargers, snapping a 10-game winless streak.

    But even more than the saves total, the stat that jumped off the box score is the penalties — as in 187, the combined minutes meted out on Sunday in WSU’s 4-1 victory. Twelve misconduct penalties were issued, as well as a game disqualification to the Chargers’ Keith Rowe, which came after he was tagged for a major for crosschecking.

    Before the week, Warrior coach Bill Wilkinson talked about playing hockey that was ugly at times and doing the little things necessary to get wins in the playoffs. He probably didn’t mean this type of hockey ugly.

    If the season were to end today, Alabama-Huntsville and Wayne State would meet in the first round. There’s not enough time for tempers to calm down this fast.

    Quick Things to Look For This Weekend

  • Can Niagara bounce back? The Purple Eagles may have a lock on second place, but if the Beavers sweep, Niagara will be limping into the playoffs.
  • Findlay’s last home games as a program. Expect Pat Ford’s team to go out with the class it’s shown all year.
  • Air Force-WSU: Instead of a battle for first place, we have a battle for last. With the sweep, the Warriors moved into a tie with the Falcons for fifth place. Air Force had the shot to play spoiler, facing Niagara and Bemidji back-to-back, and got steamrolled. Look for a tough series in Michigan with all-important momentum on the line.

    And Lastly

    The bells will peal louder next week, but it’s playoff time. Rejoice. This is the reason why hockey exists.

    • ECAC Tournaments to Air on CN8

    USCHO Staff Report
    -

    The ECAC has reached agreement with regional cable channel CN8 to broadcast its men’s and women’s hockey championships live.

    For the men’s tournament, CN8 will carry one quarterfinal game on Friday, March 12 at 7:30 p.m. (ET) at a selected campus site and both semifinal games at the Pepsi Arena in Albany, N.Y. on March 19, beginning at 4:30 p.m. Additionally, the ECAC tournament championship game will be televised Saturday, March 20 at 8 p.m.

    Meanwhile, the women’s tournament semifinal games will be showcased on CN8 on Saturday, March 20 at 1 p.m. The championship game has been scheduled for Sunday, March 21 at noon.

    “The ECAC is proud to join with CN8 to televise these special events,” ECAC commissioner Phil Buttafuoco said. “We are pleased to give CN8’s 6.2 million viewers from Maine to Maryland the opportunity to see college hockey at its best.”

    Calling the action for the men’s championship are Gregg Madden as the play-by-play announcer and Bob Norton as the color analyst. CN8’s Mick Moninghoff will provide play-by-play for the women’s championship with Ellen Wienberg as the color analyst.

    CN8 is known as The Comcast Network, owned by cable conglomerate Comcast. It runs on Comcast cable systems, with some common programming, and some local programming specific to that cable system region. It has its own news programs, and broadcasts numerous sporting events, including minor league hockey.

    Lucia Has Surgery; Expected Back This Week

    USCHO Staff Report
    -

    Minnesota coach Don Lucia is expected to return to his team later this week after undergoing surgery to relieve and prevent permanent numbness in his right arm and hand, the school announced Wednesday.

    Lucia

    Lucia

    Lucia, who has led the Gophers to two straight national championships, had some of his cervical vertebrae fused Tuesday afternoon at Fairview-University Medical Center’s Riverside Campus. Dr. Timothy Garvey of the University of Minnesota Physicians group performed the surgery.

    The Minnesota coach will not be able to skate for a few weeks, but he is expected to be able to return to the team later this week. He’ll watch this weekend’s games against St. Cloud State from the Mariucci Arena press box.

    According to the school, Lucia wanted to postpone the surgery until the end of the season, but an increasing need to relieve the symptoms prompted the decision to proceed.

    Lucia is in his fifth season at Minnesota, where he has a 127-61-20 record. In 17 seasons overall, including stops at Alaska-Fairbanks and Colorado College, he’s 406-216-49.

    Bracketology: March 3

    By
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    It doesn’t get any easier, does it? With plenty of key results moving teams up and down, a single game can affect the PairWise Rankings in a critical way. Remember, it’s not just what you do, but what everyone else around you does.

    With one more week and a load of significant results gone by, it’s time for our weekly look at how the NCAA tournament might shake out if the season ended today. It’s something we call “Bracketology” — a look into the thought process behind selecting and seeding the NCAA tournament.

    This is the fourth installment; we’ll be bringing you a new one every week until our final picks just before Selection Sunday. If you take a look at the sidebar, you’ll see our brackets from last week and you can compare and contrast on your own.

    Here are the facts:

  • Sixteen teams are selected to participate in the national tournament.
  • There are four regional sites (East – Albany, N.Y., Northeast – Manchester, N.H., Midwest – Grand Rapids, Mich., West – Colorado Springs, Colo.)
  • A host institution which is invited to the tournament plays in the regional for which it is the host, and cannot be moved.
  • Seedings will not be switched, as opposed to years past. To avoid undesirable first-round matchups, including intraconference games (see below), teams will be moved among regionals, not reseeded.

    Here are the NCAA’s guidelines on the matter, per a meeting of the Championship Committee:

    In setting up the tournament, the committee begins with a list of priorities to ensure a successful tournament on all fronts including competitive equity, financial success and likelihood of playoff-type atmosphere at each regional site. For the model, the following is a basic set of priorities:

  • The top four teams as ranked by the committee are the four No. 1 seeds and will be placed in the bracket so that if all four teams advance to the Men’s Frozen Four, the No. 1 seed will play the No. 4 seed and the No. 2 seed will play the No. 3 seed in the semifinals.
  • Host institutions that qualify will be placed at home.
  • No. 1 seeds are placed as close to home as possible in order of their ranking 1-4.
  • Conference matchups in first round are avoided, unless five or more teams from one conference are selected, then the integrity of the bracket will be preserved.
  • Once the six automatic qualifiers and 10 at-large teams are selected, the next step is to develop four groups from the committee’s ranking of 1 through 16. The top four teams are the No. 1 seeds. The next four are targeted as No. 2 seeds. The next four are No. 3 seeds and the last four are No. 4 seeds. These groupings will be referred to as “bands.”

    Additionally, the NCAA recently clarified its selection criteria to include a bonus factor in the Ratings Percentage Index (RPI) for “good” nonconference wins.

    And one more note: Massachusetts-Lowell’s forfeits have not been taken into account because the NCAA has not taken official action. Therefore, the results of the games played are used here. However, it is unlikely that the NCAA will change the results.

    Given these facts, here is the top 14 of the current PairWise Rankings (PWR), plus Holy Cross and Bemidji State, the current leaders in Atlantic Hockey and the CHA (through games of March 3, 2004):

    1 North Dakota
    2 Boston College
    3 Maine
    4 Minnesota-Duluth
    5 Michigan
    6 Minnesota
    7 New Hampshire
    8 Wisconsin
    8 Denver
    10 Miami
    11 Ohio State
    11 Notre Dame
    13 Colgate
    14 St. Cloud State
    14 Michigan State
    24 Holy Cross
    — Bemidji State

    There are some differences from last week. North Dakota reclaims the top spot, which it held two weeks ago. Boston College and Maine drop one spot each in the PairWise as a result. New Hampshire now has number seven all to itself, after a split against Boston College.

    Wisconsin remains in the top half, but Denver passes Miami with its sweep of Minnesota. Notre Dame jumps in from nowhere to land a tie for 11th and Colgate leaps into the Top 13. St. Cloud took a beating and dropped from a tie for 10th to a tie for 14th with Michigan State.

    Step One

    From the committee’s report, choose the 16 teams in the tournament.

    We break ties in the PWR by looking at the individual comparisons among the tied teams, and add Holy Cross and Bemidji State.

    From there, we can start looking at the bubble and ties in a more detailed fashion.

    There are three ties to break this week, at eight, 11 and 14.

    Let’s look at the tie at number eight first. Wisconsin and Denver each have 18 comparison wins, two more than Miami at number 10. Wisconsin defeats Denver in the head-to-head comparison, so we slot Wisconsin at number eight and Denver nine.

    Now we’ll move to the tie at 11 between Ohio State and Notre Dame. Ohio State wins the head-to-head comparison, so we set Ohio State at 11 and Notre Dame at 12.

    Now we move to number 14 — a huge spot, since it is the last at-large team in the tournament. St. Cloud State defeats Michigan State in the head-to-head comparison, which means that St. Cloud will be the last team in the tournament. Sorry about that, Spartans.

    Thus, the 16 teams in the tournament, in rank order, are:

    1 North Dakota
    2 Boston College
    3 Maine
    4 Minnesota-Duluth
    5 Michigan
    6 Minnesota
    7 New Hampshire
    8 Wisconsin
    9 Denver
    10 Miami
    11 Ohio State
    12 Notre Dame
    13 Colgate
    14 St. Cloud State
    15 Holy Cross
    16 Bemidji State

    Step Two

    Assign the seeds:

    No. 1 Seeds — North Dakota, Boston College, Maine, Minnesota-Duluth
    No. 2 Seeds — Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Wisconsin
    No. 3 Seeds — Denver, Miami, Ohio State, Notre Dame
    No. 4 Seeds — Colgate, St. Cloud State, Holy Cross, Bemidji State

    Step Three

    Place the No. 1 seeds in regionals, starting with No. 1 North Dakota.

    North Dakota is placed in the West Regional.
    Boston College is placed in the Northeast Regional.
    Maine is placed in the East Regional.
    Minnesota-Duluth is placed in the Midwest Regional.

    Last week we discussed why we placed North Dakota in the West Regional rather than the Midwest Regional despite the fact that North Dakota is about 70 miles closer to Grand Rapids, Mich., than Colorado Springs, Colo. To repeat, in the NCAA’s eyes a flight is a flight. If you have to get on an airplane, it doesn’t really matter where you go. So we give North Dakota a WCHA rink to play in, one the Sioux are used to.

    Step Four

    Now we place the other 12 teams, eventually so as to avoid intraconference matchups.

    Begin by filling in each bracket by banding groups. Remember that in these bands, teams are not assigned to the regional closest to their campus sites (unless you are a host school, in which case you must be assigned to your home regional). Instead, the seeds are set such that the quarterfinals are played by No. 1 v. No. 8, No. 2 v. No. 7, No. 3 v. No. 6 and No. 4 v. No. 5.

    Therefore:

    No. 2 Seeds

    No. 7 New Hampshire goes to the Northeast Regional as the host, which is No. 2 Boston College’s Regional.
    No. 8 Wisconsin goes to No. 1 North Dakota’s Regional, which is the West Regional
    No. 6 Minnesota goes to No. 3 Maine’s Regional, which is the East Regional.
    No. 5 Michigan goes to No. 4 Minnesota-Duluth’s Regional, which is the Midwest Regional.

    No. 3 Seeds

    Making the same analysis, the first-round matchups should be No. 9 v. No. 8, No. 10 v. No. 7, etc., so:

    No. 9 Denver goes to No. 8 Wisconsin’s Regional, which is the West Regional.
    No. 10 Miami goes to No. 7 New Hampshire’s Regional, which is the Northeast Regional.
    No. 11 Ohio State goes to No. 6 Minnesota’s Regional, which is the East Regional.
    No. 12 Notre Dame goes to No. 5 Michigan’s Regional, which is the Midwest Regional.

    No. 4 Seeds

    One more time, taking No. 16 v. No. 1, No. 15 v. No. 2, etc.

    No. 16 Bemidji State goes to No. 1 North Dakota’s Regional, which is the West Regional.
    No. 15 Holy Cross goes to No. 2 Boston College’s Regional, which is the Northeast Regional.
    No. 14 St. Cloud State goes to No. 3 Maine’s Regional, which is the East Regional.
    No. 13 Colgate goes to No. 4 Minnesota-Duluth’s Regional, which is the Midwest Regional.

    The brackets as we have set them up:

    Midwest Regional:

    13 Colgate vs. 4 Minnesota-Duluth
    12 Notre Dame vs. 5 Michigan

    West Regional:

    16 Bemidji State vs. 1 North Dakota
    9 Denver vs. 8 Wisconsin

    East Regional:

    14 St. Cloud State vs. 3 Maine
    11 Ohio State vs. 6 Minnesota

    Northeast Regional:

    16 Bemidji State vs. 1 Boston College
    10 Miami vs. 7 New Hampshire

    Our first concern is avoiding intraconference matchups. We have a few matchups that we need to fix. Currently, we have CCHA foes Notre Dame vs. Michigan and the WCHA’s Denver vs. Wisconsin. There’s not much we can do here except to swap the two teams.

    Should we just make that simple swap? Let’s look at seeding integrity.

    If we swap Notre Dame and Denver, we have No. 12 overall playing No. 8 and No. 9 playing No. 5. We cannot avoid the 9-5 matchup, because there are three CCHA teams in the third band and only one in the second.

    We are left with seeds 10-12. So does it make sense to let 10 play the lowest second-band seed and have 12 play the highest second-band seed? It gives the bracket better integrity. So let’s see what we have:

    Midwest Regional:

    13 Colgate vs. 4 Minnesota-Duluth
    9 Denver vs. 5 Michigan

    West Regional:

    16 Bemidji State vs. 1 North Dakota
    10 Miami vs. 8 Wisconsin

    East Regional:

    14 St. Cloud State vs. 3 Maine
    12 Notre Dame vs. 6 Minnesota

    Northeast Regional:

    15 Holy Cross vs. 2 Boston College
    11 Ohio State vs. 7 New Hampshire

    Now let’s consider attendance issues.

    We’ve said in the past that we would love to get Denver in the West Regional. But that means taking Michigan away from Grand Rapids. We can’t do that to a higher seed.

    And last week we said that we would prefer to place Colgate in Albany because of its proximity. But we can’t swap Colgate with St. Cloud because that creates a WCHA-WCHA matchup. And as explained in previous weeks, we really don’t want to take Bemidji and Holy Cross away as opponent from the top two overall seeds.

    How about a massive swap? Let’s put Colgate into Albany, Holy Cross in Grand Rapids and send St. Cloud State over to Manchester. What does this do to the bracket?

    Midwest Regional:

    15 Holy Cross vs. 4 Minnesota-Duluth
    9 Denver vs. 5 Michigan

    West Regional:

    16 Bemidji State vs. 1 North Dakota
    10 Miami vs. 8 Wisconsin

    East Regional:

    13 Colgate vs. 3 Maine
    12 Notre Dame vs. 6 Minnesota

    Northeast Regional:

    14 St. Cloud State vs. 2 Boston College
    11 Ohio State vs. 7 New Hampshire

    Things we don’t like:

  • The number-two PWR team now plays a more difficult opponent (St. Cloud State, rather than Holy Cross), at least according to the PWR. We really don’t think that’s fair to Boston College.
  • We’re contradicting ourselves with this change, since we rearranged the CCHA teams in the third band above to preserve integrity. That’s being undone here.

    Things we do like:

  • Attendance looks good at all regionals.
  • There’s a nice distribution of conferences in all regionals, something which is nice to have.

    We have to weigh the two to come up with the bracket.

    Midwest Regional:

    13 Colgate vs. 4 Minnesota-Duluth
    9 Denver vs. 5 Michigan

    West Regional:

    16 Bemidji State vs. 1 North Dakota
    10 Miami vs. 8 Wisconsin

    East Regional:

    14 St. Cloud State vs. 3 Maine
    12 Notre Dame vs. 6 Minnesota

    Northeast Regional:

    15 Holy Cross vs. 2 Boston College
    11 Ohio State vs. 7 New Hampshire

    After further consideration, we could not make those last changes. We could compromise, but the things we found wrong outweighed the good.

    Bracketing the Frozen Four, if all four number-one seeds advance, then the top overall seed plays No. 4, and No. 2 plays No. 3. Therefore, the winners of the Midwest and West Regionals face each other in one semifinal (Minnesota-Duluth and North Dakota’s brackets), while the winners of the East and Northeast Regionals (Maine and Boston College’s brackets) play the other semifinal.

    But, we may have just wasted all our time and brainpower because…

    Bonus Time

    We know there is a bonus component to the criteria, the NCAA’s tweak to the system which rewards “good” nonconference wins.

    Without official word on the size of the bonuses, we take these numbers: .005 for a good road win, .003 for a good neutral win and .001 for a good home win, and then we break ties using the method as above.

    Does anything change? Absolutely.

    1 North Dakota
    2 Boston College
    3 Maine
    4 Minnesota-Duluth
    5 Michigan
    6 Minnesota
    7 New Hampshire
    8 Wisconsin
    9 Denver
    9 Notre Dame
    11 Miami
    12 Michigan State
    12 Ohio State
    12 Colgate
    15 St. Cloud State
    24 Holy Cross
    — Bemidji State

    Notre Dame has moved up to a tie for ninth. How did that happen? Notre Dame gets quality bonus points for beating Boston College and Wisconsin on the road, and for beating Maine at the Everblades Classic. In our world of 5-3-1, that’s an extra .013 in bonus points to the RPI.

    And Michigan State is in the tournament whereas St. Cloud State is now out! Oh, those bonus points.

    So, our new brackets, using the same logic as above:

    West Regional:

    16 Bemidji State vs. 1 North Dakota
    9 Denver vs. 8 Wisconsin

    Midwest Regional:

    13 Ohio State vs. 4 Minnesota-Duluth
    12 Michigan State vs. 5 Michigan

    East Regional:

    14 Colgate vs. 3 Maine
    11 Miami vs. 6 Minnesota

    Northeast Regional:

    15 Holy Cross vs. 2 Boston College
    10 Notre Dame vs. 7 New Hampshire

    We have to avoid two intraconference matchups in this case, and that’s a switch of Denver and Michigan State. We could also move Wisconsin and Michigan, but we’ll keep Michigan in the Midwest for two reasons: attendance and the fact that they are a higher seed and should play closer to home.

    But now we run into the same logic we had above. We have three CCHA teams in the third band. Let’s move them all so that we have integrity, i.e., the lowest third seed plays the highest second seed and the highest third seed plays the lowest second seed.

    That makes our final regionals:

    West Regional:

    16 Bemidji State vs. 1 North Dakota
    10 Notre Dame vs. 8 Wisconsin

    Midwest Regional:

    13 Ohio State vs. 4 Minnesota-Duluth
    9 Denver vs. 5 Michigan

    East Regional:

    14 Colgate vs. 3 Maine
    12 Michigan State vs. 6 Minnesota

    Northeast Regional:

    15 Holy Cross vs. 2 Boston College
    11 Miami vs. 7 New Hampshire

    And so there is our bracket with this bonus.

    3-2-1

    What if we took these numbers: .003 for a good road win, .002 for a good neutral win and .001 for a good home win?

    1 North Dakota
    2 Boston College
    3 Maine
    4 Minnesota-Duluth
    5 Michigan
    6 Minnesota
    7 New Hampshire
    8 Wisconsin
    8 Denver
    10 Miami
    11 Ohio State
    11 Notre Dame
    13 Michigan State
    13 Colgate
    15 St. Cloud State
    24 Holy Cross
    — Bemidji State

    Some subtle changes here, including the fact that Michigan State is now in the fourth band, and Ohio State in the third. St. Cloud State — sorry, Husky fans — is out in this bonus situation as well.

    With those changes, the bracket changes slightly.

    West Regional:

    16 Bemidji State vs. 1 North Dakota
    10 Miami vs. 8 Wisconsin

    Midwest Regional:

    13 Michigan State vs. 4 Minnesota-Duluth
    9 Denver vs. 5 Michigan

    East Regional:

    14 Colgate vs. 3 Maine
    12 Notre Dame vs. 6 Minnesota

    Northeast Regional:

    15 Holy Cross vs. 2 Boston College
    11 Ohio State vs. 7 New Hampshire

    Next week the regular season is over and the new RPI rule comes into effect. We’ll talk about that a little more and give you the teams we think are already in.

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