Hockey Nerd

I hope all you hockey fans had a chance to catch some absolutely awesome NCAA men's hockey action over the weekend. If you didn't, you missed some incredible finishes and great upsets.

Setting the stage. NCAA men's hockey has six conferences. Each conference winner get's an auto-bid into the field of sixteen. Ten at large bids are given to the best teams not given auto-bids as determined by Pairwise Rankings. It's not like men's basketball where there is a committee, this is done with math (some don't like Pairwise, but it's what they use). This year teams like Minnesota, Boston College and Wisconsin just barely failed to make the field of sixteen. They rank the teams and play in four regionals around the country with standard stuff like #1 plays #4 while #2 plays #3 in opening round action, then the winners play to see who makes it to the Frozen Four, to be played in Washington DC this year.

Friday sees #4 Air Force upset #1 Michigan and #3 Vermont upset #2 Yale in opening round East Region action. Also on Friday in the West Regional, #4 Miami upsets #1 Denver and in an amazing finish #2 Minn-Duluth becomes the first higher seed to win by scoring two goals in the last 40 seconds of regulation and one in OT to stun Princeton. The game tying goal came with only 0.8 seconds left in regulation.

That got me so stoked, I had to get tickets to the Midwest Region action in Grand Rapids, Michigan for Saturday night. After my son's morning skate in preparations for Nationals, we jumped in the car for the 290 mile jaunt up the interstate. We catch the last two periods of a great Cornell comeback on Northeastern, including a the game winning goal with 18 seconds remaining. But I had come for the main event. Truth be told, I had a little more than simple interest in great hockey. Almost 23 years ago I was a freshmen on the campus of Bemidji State University in northern Minnesota. I have a lot of great memories of 8th floor Tamarack, looking out over Lake Bemidji. The Bemidji State Beavers happened to be playing the Notre Dame Fightin Irish. Granted, they didn't have a chance to win, but I'm a big Notre Dame fan so it was really a win-win situation. If you didn't get a chance to see the game, you missed one to remember (apologies to Notre Dame fans). Bemidji came into the game ranked 35th in the MYHockey NCAA Mens D1 Rankings while Notre Dame comes in ranked 3rd (2nd in National Polls behind Boston University). In a great game for Bemidji fans, they scored early and relatively often to win 5-1. It showed what hustle can do. Bemidji wasn't the lowest seeded team in the tournament for no reason. They don't have the same level of overall talent as a Notre Dame. No US NTDP kids (Notre Dame has five). But they used hustle and heart. They definitely got bounces and breaks that Notre Dame could not buy, but you earn those with hard work.

In other action on Saturday, Boston U became the only #1 seed to win by beating Ohio State and New Hampshire scores with 0.3 seconds remaining in regulation to tie North Dakota and then promptly beat them in OT in a game reminding many of Minn-Duluth's come-from-behind victory over Princeton on Friday. Miami then ended Minn-Duluth's amazing run with a 2-1 victory in the West Regional Final to earn the first spot in the Frozen Four. Vermont beat Air Force in OT to earn the second spot.

In Sunday's action New Hampshire played an awesome game against heavily favored Boston University, but once again we fourth time this weekend, we have a game deciding goal in the last minute of regulation as Boston U puts one in off a New Hampshire defenseman to win 2-1. Bemidji State then did it again showing the country that they are no fluke. They beat Cornell 4-1 on hustle and heart.

Miami (OH) will play Bemidji State in a battle of the #4 seeds in Washington DC at 5pm EDT on Thursday April 9th. Boston University and Vermont will meet in the late game. The National Championship game will be at 7pm EDT on Saturday April 11th, televised on ESPN. Don't miss it!

MYHockey is preparing for the USA Hockey National Championships next week. As most of you have noticed when looking at USA ranking, I have identified all 96 peewee, bantam and midget teams that have qualified for Nationals. The action kicks off early on Wednesday, April 1st (no foolin'). The peewees will be in Charlotte, the bantams in Dallas, the Midget 16U in St Louis and the Midget 18U in Pittsburgh. I will be in Dallas (Plano) with the bantams reporting on the action daily.

The scores you can get from the USA Hockey website in a timely fashion. MYHockey will also be updating, but honestly I expect USA Hockey to be more timely than MYHockey. I plan on posting reports that are less about the numbers and more about the buzz. Keep an eye on Hockey Nerd through April 5th. If any of you would like to report on the action, don't hesitate to send me a message and I'd be more than happy to space for others to post on the action as well.

There will be great hockey next week. I hope you can find a way to get in on some of the action (one last road trip of the year), but if not, I encourage you to stay up on the action here at MYHockey and by keeping up on the USA Hockey website.

I have updated the Forums (Hockey Talk) listing. I added a New England (Mass) area board to replace the one that disappeared a month or so ago. It's going strong... I also deleted a few obsolete forums.

As always, put on your thick skin before visiting them and try to keep the garbage to a minimum. If you know of any other active boards, don't hesitate to drop me an email.