It's on.
The men's grueling start to the season begins tonight, as they take on #12 Notre Dame in the annual Icebreaker Tournament, straight outta Compton Family Ice Arena in South Bend. On Sunday, they get either Minnesota-Duluth, a team that was just barely outside of the first USCHO poll (by a single vote) or the #1 team in all the land and the pretty clear favorites for the national championship, Minnesota.
The women get their first home game on Saturday when they take on Vermont, and then they turn around and head up to Burlington on Sunday for the back-end of a home-and-home series. That makes for an even more rare men/women doubleheader on a Sunday.
Hockey is fully back, and it's time to get flying.
Showing posts with label minnesota-duluth. Show all posts
Showing posts with label minnesota-duluth. Show all posts
Friday, October 10, 2014
Thursday, May 22, 2014
Know Your Enemy: Minnesota-Duluth
When we put together this Know Your Enemy series, typically the longest ones to do are teams that the Engineers haven't played in a while (or at least haven't played since the 2010-11 season, when we first started doing these), because our first time visiting a specific team we like to talk about the full history of the program, how it got started, its glory years (if they exist), its tough stretches (if they exist), and how they've been doing recently. This year, RPI's schedule only has three teams we haven't touched on in the past here at WaP, and this week is our first of those three, the second potential opponent of the second game of the Icebreaker.
Minnesota-Duluth
Nickname: Bulldogs
Location: Duluth, MN
Founded: 1895
Conference: NCHC
National Championships: 1 (2011)
Last NCAA Appearance: 2012
Last Frozen Four: 2011
Coach: Scott Sandelin (15th season)
2013-14 Record: 16-16-4 (11-11-2-2 NCHC, 4th place)
Series: UMD leads, 6-3-0
First Game: December 30, 1964 (Troy, NY)
Last RPI win: January 3, 2003 (Troy, NY)
Last UMD win: January 4, 2003 (Troy, NY)
2014-15 game: October 12, 2014 (South Bend, IN - possible)
Key players: F Justin Crandall, sr.; D Derik Johnson, sr.; F Adam Krause, sr.; F Tony Cameranesi, jr.; F Cal Decowski, jr.; F Austin Farley, jr.; G Matt McNeely, jr.; D Andy Welinski, jr.; F Alex Iafallo, so.; F Kyle Osterberg, so.; D Willie Raskob, so.; D Carson Soucy, so.; F Dominic Toninato, so.; F Brett Boehm, fr.; F Karson Kuhlman, fr.; F Blake Young, fr.
Interesting little tidbit before we get started - RPI fans may remember that the Engineers had a defenseman named Matt McNeely, Class of 2005. He was from Ontario, UMD's McNeely is from Minnesota. Ultimately, just another item that links RPI and UMD, as you'll soon see.
Hockey at Duluth got underway in 1931, at a time when many college teams around the country were folding or suspending due to the Great Depression. Duluth State Teachers College, as the school was known at the time, began fielding teams under the tutelage of Frank Kovach, who was also the school's football and men's basketball coach. These teams competed entirely against local high schools and junior colleges in 1931 and 1932, losing their first eight contests before winning their final two in 1932 against a pair of Duluth-area high schools.
The sport went dormant after those two wins in 1932 as the realities of the Depression took hold. As with other schools, the end of World War II brought with it a surge in enrollment at the school, and in 1947 Duluth State Teachers College was added to the University of Minnesota system, gaining its present name a year after the moribund hockey program at the school was re-established. After a few seasons as independents, the Bulldogs joined the Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference in 1950, a lower-level conference that today competes in Division III.
Throughout the 1950s, UMD was frequently one of the top teams in the MIAC. They scored league titles in eight of nine consecutive seasons from 1953 through 1961, frequently playing top-level teams as part of their non-conference schedule. By 1957, the Bulldogs were notching victories against established programs like Michigan Tech, Harvard, and Dartmouth, among others.
The relative ease with which UMD was winning titles in the MIAC and the competitiveness they showed against top-level programs resulted in the team going independent in 1961 under head coach Ralph Romero, and compiling schedules that included some of the very best teams in the nation, including Minnesota, Michigan State, and Denver. Those schools would eventually be opponents in the WCHA when the Bulldogs joined the conference as its first expansion program in 1966.
UMD struggled early on in their new conference. After season after season of domination in the MIAC, the Bulldogs failed to notch winning records in 11 of their first 13 years in the WCHA. With the exceptions of 1972 (5th of 10) and 1979 (4th of 10), UMD never finished in the top half of the league prior to the arrival of Mike Sertich behind the bench in 1982.
During that stretch, the team did earn a few bits of fame. In 1974, UMD won the first (and only) College Hockey NIT tournament. The four-team tournament was hosted in Duluth, and ended with the Bulldogs defeating Vermont 7-4 to cap the program's first ever 20-win season. The 1979 team, meanwhile, started the season 11-0-2 and was tabbed in January of that year as the top team in the nation in an early media poll. However, the Bulldogs could not keep up their hot streak and proceeded to finish the year 11-14-2, missing out on NCAA glory. That team was lead by All-American Mark Pavelich, who would go on the next year to star on the US Olympic Team that won the gold medal in Lake Placid.
Sertich's arrival changed things quickly for the Bulldogs. In the 1982-83 season, UMD finished just 4th in the eight-team WCHA, but absolutely tore through its non-conference schedule, going undefeated outside of their league to earn the school's first ever NCAA bid. The Bulldogs fell in a two-game series at the ECAC's Providence, but bigger things were right around the corner.
The 1984 Bulldogs stormed through their conference, capturing its first ever WCHA regular season title by a comfortable margin over North Dakota, then winning the WCHA championship for the first time, annihilating the Fighting Sioux 8-1 in the first game of the two-game championship series to make the second game practically meaningless (they lost 5-4, but easily won on total goals). After squeezing by a game Clarkson team 9-8 on total goals in the first round of the NCAA tournament, UMD qualified for its first Frozen Four, held in Lake Placid that season.
Meeting back up with a North Dakota team that had ridden a hot goaltender to a first-round upset of RPI, UMD required overtime to advance to the national championship game with a goal off the stick of sophomore Bill Watson. The next day, senior defenseman Tom Kurvers became the first of five Duluth players to win the Hobey Baker Award - more than any other school in the nation.
Bowling Green was the opponent in the 1984 national championship game, which turned into two games when one considers that the contest went well into the Adirondack night, going four 10-minute overtimes for what was at the time the longest game in the history of the NCAA tournament, a title it would hold for over a decade. Gino Cavallini broke the deadlock at 97:11, crushing Duluth's national crown hopes.
Despite the setback, the Bulldogs were not done. As dominant as their 1984 team had been, their 1985 team had seemed to be a team of destiny. With the addition of freshman Brett Hull, son of NHL legend Bobby Hull, the Bulldogs demolished the WCHA (and Hockey East, as the leagues had interlocking schedules that season) on their way to a second consecutive regular season and tournament sweep and a third straight NCAA bid. That team ended with 36 victories, still the most in any season by a UMD team by seven.
After quickly dispatching Harvard in the first round of the NCAA tournament, the Bulldogs found themselves drawn with the team from the east that had been doing largely the same thing they'd been doing in the west: RPI. Hours before the teams clashed in Detroit, Watson was awarded the Hobey Baker - UMD's second in as many years. Legend has it that the ceremony provided a bit of additional motivation for the Engineers, who felt that their own Adam Oates had been unjustly snubbed (Watson did have 108 points on the season at the time, then an NCAA record), and RPI's Pierre Langevin got the team going by putting Watson into the boards early in the contest.
But like the previous season, UMD's quest for a national championship would end following a lot of extra hockey. The 1985 edition of Gino Cavellini came in the form of John Carter, whose goal in the third overtime propelled the Engineers to what would eventually be the school's second national title, and forced UMD to ponder another Frozen Four of "what if."
The 1985 team was the pinnacle of the Bulldogs' success under Sertich. With "The Golden Brett" hanging around for one more season, UMD completed their fourth straight 20-win season in 1986, but brought home no hardware and missed the NCAA tournament. Following Hull's departure at the end of the season, the good times ended in Duluth for quite some time. Five of the next six campaigns saw the Bulldogs finish under .500, and back in their previously "usual" position in the bottom half of the WCHA standings.
In 1993, with a team that featured eventual Hobey Baker winner Chris Marinucci, UMD returned to the top of the WCHA with a 27 win season, but were upset in the WCHA tournament by Northern Michigan and stopped short of the Frozen Four with a loss to defending national champions Lake Superior State.
The rest of Sertich's squads in the 1990s were middling to mediocre, putting up 20-win seasons in 1996 and 1998, but bottoming out in 1999 with a 7-win campaign that was the fewest UMD had managed since a 6-win year in 1969. After tough campaign in 2000, Sertich's tenure in Duluth ended after 18 seasons with his resignation.
Scott Sandelin replaced Sertich in 2000, tasked with returning the Bulldogs to competitiveness within the WCHA. His first season was the team's second 7-win campaign out of three, but UMD began to show improvement in his second and third years, breaking out in 2004 with 28 wins and the team's first NCAA bid in 11 years. After a somewhat surprising 5-0 whitewash of Michigan State (in Grand Rapids, MI no less), the Bulldogs upset Minnesota 3-1 to advance to their first Frozen Four in 19 years.
In Boston against WCHA rivals Denver, UMD led 2-0 after one and 3-1 after two, but suffered a 3rd period collapse in which the Pioneers scored four goals, including an empty netter, to come back for a 5-3 win en route to the national championship, the third time in as many Frozen Fours that the Bulldogs had lost to the eventual champs. Still, Duluth forward Junior Lessard nabbed the school's fourth Hobey Baker Award the next day.
The heartbreaking manner in which the Bulldogs were ushered out of the Frozen Four in 2004 solidified UMD's reptuation for being unable to get over the hump, especially after four losing seasons that followed Duluth's loss in Boston. Amid rumors in 2009 that Sandelin's job may soon be in jeopardy, he and his team spearheaded an impressive, never-before-seen run to the WCHA championship, becoming the first team in the history of the league's Final Five tournament to win the Thursday play-in game, then knock off the top team in the tournament on Friday and win the title on Saturday, downing Minnesota, North Dakota, and Denver by a combined 9-1 score after sweeping a road series at Colorado College to reach the Final Five. After a 5-4 win over Princeton, UMD fell 2-1 against Miami, but Sandelin's job was no longer in question.
The 2010 Bulldogs completed a second straight 20-win season, but saw their season end in the WCHA play-in game. That set the table for what would prove to be a magical 2011 campaign. In December, the team moved into a new arena in the middle of another solid season. Though WCHA honors would again elude UMD, they did enough to earn an NCAA bid, though they had a rough draw having to go through top-ranked Yale and ECAC regular season champions Union in Connecticut. The Bulldogs proceeded to shutout Union 2-0 and use a 2nd period surge of goals to grab a 5-1 edge against Yale that turned into a 5-3 win.
The 2011 Frozen Four was being held on friendly turf at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul, but the path to glory was hardly easy. Against Notre Dame in the semifinals, UMD had to fight back from two first-period deficits and then hang on in the third-period in which they were badly outshot to pick up a 4-3 win and advance to their second national championship game. There against Michigan, the Bulldogs went into the dreaded overtime period, but there would be no Cavellini or Carter redux this time - Kyle Schmidt scored the biggest goal in UMD history 3:22 into the first overtime to bring Duluth its very first national championship.
The Bulldogs went back to the NCAA tournament in 2012, but were taken down by eventual champions Boston College just one step away from the Frozen Four. That season, Jack Connelly became UMD's fifth Hobey winner. In 2013, the school's final year in the WCHA, the Bulldogs finished with a losing record for the first time in five years, then last season in the new NCHC improved to an even .500 as a mid-pack team in the stacked conference.
Last year's UMD squad was quite young - in fact, it graduated just four seniors, only one of whom was among the team's top 10 scorers. Those seniors were the last remnants of the national championship team, they were freshmen when the Bulldogs won it all. They bring back five NHL draft picks this season and three of four of its players from last season who notched 10 or more goals - Crandall, Osterberg, and Iafallo. The biggest change is in net as McNeely takes over as the top choice netminder from the graduated Aaron Crandall, but this won't be a new assignment for him as he played the majority of UMD's minutes between the pipes during his freshman year.
As mentioned last week, the Bulldogs are, all things being equal, RPI's more likely opponent on the Sunday of Icebreaker weekend and they too present a solid challenge. They have the scoring ability to challenge the RPI defense, and they return enough solid defensemen and a well-seasoned goaltender to cause problems for an offense that didn't have a lot of parity to it last season. Expect a strong season for UMD and an entertaining, well-matched game should the Engineers and Bulldogs do battle once again.
Minnesota-DuluthNickname: Bulldogs
Location: Duluth, MN
Founded: 1895
Conference: NCHC
National Championships: 1 (2011)
Last NCAA Appearance: 2012
Last Frozen Four: 2011
Coach: Scott Sandelin (15th season)
2013-14 Record: 16-16-4 (11-11-2-2 NCHC, 4th place)
Series: UMD leads, 6-3-0
First Game: December 30, 1964 (Troy, NY)
Last RPI win: January 3, 2003 (Troy, NY)
Last UMD win: January 4, 2003 (Troy, NY)
2014-15 game: October 12, 2014 (South Bend, IN - possible)
Key players: F Justin Crandall, sr.; D Derik Johnson, sr.; F Adam Krause, sr.; F Tony Cameranesi, jr.; F Cal Decowski, jr.; F Austin Farley, jr.; G Matt McNeely, jr.; D Andy Welinski, jr.; F Alex Iafallo, so.; F Kyle Osterberg, so.; D Willie Raskob, so.; D Carson Soucy, so.; F Dominic Toninato, so.; F Brett Boehm, fr.; F Karson Kuhlman, fr.; F Blake Young, fr.
Interesting little tidbit before we get started - RPI fans may remember that the Engineers had a defenseman named Matt McNeely, Class of 2005. He was from Ontario, UMD's McNeely is from Minnesota. Ultimately, just another item that links RPI and UMD, as you'll soon see.
Hockey at Duluth got underway in 1931, at a time when many college teams around the country were folding or suspending due to the Great Depression. Duluth State Teachers College, as the school was known at the time, began fielding teams under the tutelage of Frank Kovach, who was also the school's football and men's basketball coach. These teams competed entirely against local high schools and junior colleges in 1931 and 1932, losing their first eight contests before winning their final two in 1932 against a pair of Duluth-area high schools.
The sport went dormant after those two wins in 1932 as the realities of the Depression took hold. As with other schools, the end of World War II brought with it a surge in enrollment at the school, and in 1947 Duluth State Teachers College was added to the University of Minnesota system, gaining its present name a year after the moribund hockey program at the school was re-established. After a few seasons as independents, the Bulldogs joined the Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference in 1950, a lower-level conference that today competes in Division III.
Throughout the 1950s, UMD was frequently one of the top teams in the MIAC. They scored league titles in eight of nine consecutive seasons from 1953 through 1961, frequently playing top-level teams as part of their non-conference schedule. By 1957, the Bulldogs were notching victories against established programs like Michigan Tech, Harvard, and Dartmouth, among others.
The relative ease with which UMD was winning titles in the MIAC and the competitiveness they showed against top-level programs resulted in the team going independent in 1961 under head coach Ralph Romero, and compiling schedules that included some of the very best teams in the nation, including Minnesota, Michigan State, and Denver. Those schools would eventually be opponents in the WCHA when the Bulldogs joined the conference as its first expansion program in 1966.
UMD struggled early on in their new conference. After season after season of domination in the MIAC, the Bulldogs failed to notch winning records in 11 of their first 13 years in the WCHA. With the exceptions of 1972 (5th of 10) and 1979 (4th of 10), UMD never finished in the top half of the league prior to the arrival of Mike Sertich behind the bench in 1982.
During that stretch, the team did earn a few bits of fame. In 1974, UMD won the first (and only) College Hockey NIT tournament. The four-team tournament was hosted in Duluth, and ended with the Bulldogs defeating Vermont 7-4 to cap the program's first ever 20-win season. The 1979 team, meanwhile, started the season 11-0-2 and was tabbed in January of that year as the top team in the nation in an early media poll. However, the Bulldogs could not keep up their hot streak and proceeded to finish the year 11-14-2, missing out on NCAA glory. That team was lead by All-American Mark Pavelich, who would go on the next year to star on the US Olympic Team that won the gold medal in Lake Placid.
Sertich's arrival changed things quickly for the Bulldogs. In the 1982-83 season, UMD finished just 4th in the eight-team WCHA, but absolutely tore through its non-conference schedule, going undefeated outside of their league to earn the school's first ever NCAA bid. The Bulldogs fell in a two-game series at the ECAC's Providence, but bigger things were right around the corner.
The 1984 Bulldogs stormed through their conference, capturing its first ever WCHA regular season title by a comfortable margin over North Dakota, then winning the WCHA championship for the first time, annihilating the Fighting Sioux 8-1 in the first game of the two-game championship series to make the second game practically meaningless (they lost 5-4, but easily won on total goals). After squeezing by a game Clarkson team 9-8 on total goals in the first round of the NCAA tournament, UMD qualified for its first Frozen Four, held in Lake Placid that season.
Meeting back up with a North Dakota team that had ridden a hot goaltender to a first-round upset of RPI, UMD required overtime to advance to the national championship game with a goal off the stick of sophomore Bill Watson. The next day, senior defenseman Tom Kurvers became the first of five Duluth players to win the Hobey Baker Award - more than any other school in the nation.
Bowling Green was the opponent in the 1984 national championship game, which turned into two games when one considers that the contest went well into the Adirondack night, going four 10-minute overtimes for what was at the time the longest game in the history of the NCAA tournament, a title it would hold for over a decade. Gino Cavallini broke the deadlock at 97:11, crushing Duluth's national crown hopes.
Despite the setback, the Bulldogs were not done. As dominant as their 1984 team had been, their 1985 team had seemed to be a team of destiny. With the addition of freshman Brett Hull, son of NHL legend Bobby Hull, the Bulldogs demolished the WCHA (and Hockey East, as the leagues had interlocking schedules that season) on their way to a second consecutive regular season and tournament sweep and a third straight NCAA bid. That team ended with 36 victories, still the most in any season by a UMD team by seven.
After quickly dispatching Harvard in the first round of the NCAA tournament, the Bulldogs found themselves drawn with the team from the east that had been doing largely the same thing they'd been doing in the west: RPI. Hours before the teams clashed in Detroit, Watson was awarded the Hobey Baker - UMD's second in as many years. Legend has it that the ceremony provided a bit of additional motivation for the Engineers, who felt that their own Adam Oates had been unjustly snubbed (Watson did have 108 points on the season at the time, then an NCAA record), and RPI's Pierre Langevin got the team going by putting Watson into the boards early in the contest.
But like the previous season, UMD's quest for a national championship would end following a lot of extra hockey. The 1985 edition of Gino Cavellini came in the form of John Carter, whose goal in the third overtime propelled the Engineers to what would eventually be the school's second national title, and forced UMD to ponder another Frozen Four of "what if."
The 1985 team was the pinnacle of the Bulldogs' success under Sertich. With "The Golden Brett" hanging around for one more season, UMD completed their fourth straight 20-win season in 1986, but brought home no hardware and missed the NCAA tournament. Following Hull's departure at the end of the season, the good times ended in Duluth for quite some time. Five of the next six campaigns saw the Bulldogs finish under .500, and back in their previously "usual" position in the bottom half of the WCHA standings.
In 1993, with a team that featured eventual Hobey Baker winner Chris Marinucci, UMD returned to the top of the WCHA with a 27 win season, but were upset in the WCHA tournament by Northern Michigan and stopped short of the Frozen Four with a loss to defending national champions Lake Superior State.
The rest of Sertich's squads in the 1990s were middling to mediocre, putting up 20-win seasons in 1996 and 1998, but bottoming out in 1999 with a 7-win campaign that was the fewest UMD had managed since a 6-win year in 1969. After tough campaign in 2000, Sertich's tenure in Duluth ended after 18 seasons with his resignation.
Scott Sandelin replaced Sertich in 2000, tasked with returning the Bulldogs to competitiveness within the WCHA. His first season was the team's second 7-win campaign out of three, but UMD began to show improvement in his second and third years, breaking out in 2004 with 28 wins and the team's first NCAA bid in 11 years. After a somewhat surprising 5-0 whitewash of Michigan State (in Grand Rapids, MI no less), the Bulldogs upset Minnesota 3-1 to advance to their first Frozen Four in 19 years.
In Boston against WCHA rivals Denver, UMD led 2-0 after one and 3-1 after two, but suffered a 3rd period collapse in which the Pioneers scored four goals, including an empty netter, to come back for a 5-3 win en route to the national championship, the third time in as many Frozen Fours that the Bulldogs had lost to the eventual champs. Still, Duluth forward Junior Lessard nabbed the school's fourth Hobey Baker Award the next day.
The heartbreaking manner in which the Bulldogs were ushered out of the Frozen Four in 2004 solidified UMD's reptuation for being unable to get over the hump, especially after four losing seasons that followed Duluth's loss in Boston. Amid rumors in 2009 that Sandelin's job may soon be in jeopardy, he and his team spearheaded an impressive, never-before-seen run to the WCHA championship, becoming the first team in the history of the league's Final Five tournament to win the Thursday play-in game, then knock off the top team in the tournament on Friday and win the title on Saturday, downing Minnesota, North Dakota, and Denver by a combined 9-1 score after sweeping a road series at Colorado College to reach the Final Five. After a 5-4 win over Princeton, UMD fell 2-1 against Miami, but Sandelin's job was no longer in question.
The 2010 Bulldogs completed a second straight 20-win season, but saw their season end in the WCHA play-in game. That set the table for what would prove to be a magical 2011 campaign. In December, the team moved into a new arena in the middle of another solid season. Though WCHA honors would again elude UMD, they did enough to earn an NCAA bid, though they had a rough draw having to go through top-ranked Yale and ECAC regular season champions Union in Connecticut. The Bulldogs proceeded to shutout Union 2-0 and use a 2nd period surge of goals to grab a 5-1 edge against Yale that turned into a 5-3 win.
The 2011 Frozen Four was being held on friendly turf at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul, but the path to glory was hardly easy. Against Notre Dame in the semifinals, UMD had to fight back from two first-period deficits and then hang on in the third-period in which they were badly outshot to pick up a 4-3 win and advance to their second national championship game. There against Michigan, the Bulldogs went into the dreaded overtime period, but there would be no Cavellini or Carter redux this time - Kyle Schmidt scored the biggest goal in UMD history 3:22 into the first overtime to bring Duluth its very first national championship.
The Bulldogs went back to the NCAA tournament in 2012, but were taken down by eventual champions Boston College just one step away from the Frozen Four. That season, Jack Connelly became UMD's fifth Hobey winner. In 2013, the school's final year in the WCHA, the Bulldogs finished with a losing record for the first time in five years, then last season in the new NCHC improved to an even .500 as a mid-pack team in the stacked conference.
Last year's UMD squad was quite young - in fact, it graduated just four seniors, only one of whom was among the team's top 10 scorers. Those seniors were the last remnants of the national championship team, they were freshmen when the Bulldogs won it all. They bring back five NHL draft picks this season and three of four of its players from last season who notched 10 or more goals - Crandall, Osterberg, and Iafallo. The biggest change is in net as McNeely takes over as the top choice netminder from the graduated Aaron Crandall, but this won't be a new assignment for him as he played the majority of UMD's minutes between the pipes during his freshman year.
As mentioned last week, the Bulldogs are, all things being equal, RPI's more likely opponent on the Sunday of Icebreaker weekend and they too present a solid challenge. They have the scoring ability to challenge the RPI defense, and they return enough solid defensemen and a well-seasoned goaltender to cause problems for an offense that didn't have a lot of parity to it last season. Expect a strong season for UMD and an entertaining, well-matched game should the Engineers and Bulldogs do battle once again.
Thursday, December 20, 2012
What If: Whistle Blown for Offsides
* March 1985: George Servinis scores a disputed goal to put RPI ahead 2-0 in the national championship game
Tears for Fears - Everybody Wants to Rule the World
The hard part was supposed to have been beating Bill Watson, Brett Hull, and Minnesota-Duluth. That was plenty hard, considering how long it took to get it done. But after three overtimes, John Carter finally potted the game winner to give UMD its second consecutive long-game heartbreaker and lift the Engineers to a place they hadn't been since 1954 - the national championship game.
Providence wasn't even supposed to be there. Their run was supposed to have ended against BU in Hockey East's first ever semifinals. After a 5-2 upset, it was supposed to have ended to Hockey East's first ever regular-season champions, Boston College. With a little home cooking - the neutral site for Hockey East's first tournament was the Providence Civic Center - the Friars earned the nascent league's inaugural title with a 2-1 double overtime win. Then they weren't going to survive a two-game, total goals set at CCHA champions Michigan State. They did. Surely they wouldn't survive BC a second time in the Frozen Four. Once again, an overtime winner. The Providence Friars were into the national championship game, against all odds.
Friar netminder Chris Terreri earned himself the nickname "the Extra Terreri-al" with out of this world goaltending, and he was perhaps some of the best proof you'll ever find that a team can ride a hot goaltender pretty far. But there was no doubt he was in for a real test facing down an RPI team that was one of the greatest offensive juggernauts in the history of college hockey. Three goals was a bare minimum for the Engineers in 1985.
RPI looked to be on their way to three with a power play goal just 4:29 into the contest off the stick of sophomore Neil Hernberg. The Friars then had to survive two more RPI power plays in the first period, and Terreri made 13 saves to keep the score 1-0 after one period.
Perhaps Providence's most golden opportunity to put themselves in position to tie things up came early in the second. Mark Jooris' hooking penalty 38 seconds in was compounded by a cross-checking call against captain Mike Sadeghpour, giving the Friars a two-man advantage for 32 seconds. RPI killed Jooris' penalty, but still had 25 seconds left to kill on Sadeghpour's minor when a faceoff came in the RPI end. Providence won the faceoff, but a blue line pass by Peter Taglianetti was stolen by George Servinis, who immediately went on a breakaway, faked Terreri down and put the puck into an empty net to give RPI a 2-0 lead. The picture of Servinis shooting past a splayed out Terreri is one of the most famous pictures in RPI's hockey history.
There was just one minor problem. Servinis was in a position to intercept the pass, in part, because he appeared to have skated into the faceoff circle just before the puck was dropped, which made him offside. That's not supposed to be legal, but the goal counted anyway - one wonders how the linesman who was dropping the puck missed the movement into the circle.
The rest is history - Providence provided some drama with a power play goal midway through the third period, but it was as close as they would get as Terreri put up a brilliant effort with 40 saves, stifling the RPI offense as no other goaltender had all season by allowing just two goals, but the Engineers skated away with their second national championship.
How would things have been different if Servinis' goal had been called back? Tough to say for sure. Obviously, both teams scored one legitimate goal each, but we can't calculate how the teams played differently in the second period and the first half of the third with RPI holding a 2-0 lead as opposed to a 1-0 lead. The Engineers certainly had their opportunities to add to their advantage with three more power play chances before Providence's Paul Cavallini made it 2-1, but a combination of brilliant play by Terreri and tired legs from having played a three-overtime contest the night before made for a bit of a power outage by the awesome RPI offense. The Engineers were 1-for-7 on the man advantage.
We'd like to think the 1-0 edge might have produced some added urgency for the RPI power play on those final three opportunities. The Engineers didn't face much adversity in that championship season, but when the game was tight they put things together, bouncing back from a 3-2-0 start to the season to go undefeated the rest of the way and winning overtime games against a less than stellar Brown team in Providence and against Division III Union in Schenectady (albeit a Division III team that had played for the national championship a season earlier).
Providence, remember, had plenty of time to get themselves back into the game, but could only manage the one goal thanks to RPI's outstanding defense led by Daren Puppa, Ken Hammond, and Mike Dark, not to mention some good discipline after the Sadeghpour penalty ended, as they allowed only two more power plays from there on out (including John Carter's hooking call which helped get the Friars on the board).
So maybe it's just us being homers here, but if it hadn't been George Servinis on a disputed call, we think it probably would have been someone else over the course of 35 minutes of game play that would have collected a memory for the ages.
Tears for Fears - Everybody Wants to Rule the World
The hard part was supposed to have been beating Bill Watson, Brett Hull, and Minnesota-Duluth. That was plenty hard, considering how long it took to get it done. But after three overtimes, John Carter finally potted the game winner to give UMD its second consecutive long-game heartbreaker and lift the Engineers to a place they hadn't been since 1954 - the national championship game.
Providence wasn't even supposed to be there. Their run was supposed to have ended against BU in Hockey East's first ever semifinals. After a 5-2 upset, it was supposed to have ended to Hockey East's first ever regular-season champions, Boston College. With a little home cooking - the neutral site for Hockey East's first tournament was the Providence Civic Center - the Friars earned the nascent league's inaugural title with a 2-1 double overtime win. Then they weren't going to survive a two-game, total goals set at CCHA champions Michigan State. They did. Surely they wouldn't survive BC a second time in the Frozen Four. Once again, an overtime winner. The Providence Friars were into the national championship game, against all odds.
Friar netminder Chris Terreri earned himself the nickname "the Extra Terreri-al" with out of this world goaltending, and he was perhaps some of the best proof you'll ever find that a team can ride a hot goaltender pretty far. But there was no doubt he was in for a real test facing down an RPI team that was one of the greatest offensive juggernauts in the history of college hockey. Three goals was a bare minimum for the Engineers in 1985.
RPI looked to be on their way to three with a power play goal just 4:29 into the contest off the stick of sophomore Neil Hernberg. The Friars then had to survive two more RPI power plays in the first period, and Terreri made 13 saves to keep the score 1-0 after one period.
Perhaps Providence's most golden opportunity to put themselves in position to tie things up came early in the second. Mark Jooris' hooking penalty 38 seconds in was compounded by a cross-checking call against captain Mike Sadeghpour, giving the Friars a two-man advantage for 32 seconds. RPI killed Jooris' penalty, but still had 25 seconds left to kill on Sadeghpour's minor when a faceoff came in the RPI end. Providence won the faceoff, but a blue line pass by Peter Taglianetti was stolen by George Servinis, who immediately went on a breakaway, faked Terreri down and put the puck into an empty net to give RPI a 2-0 lead. The picture of Servinis shooting past a splayed out Terreri is one of the most famous pictures in RPI's hockey history.
There was just one minor problem. Servinis was in a position to intercept the pass, in part, because he appeared to have skated into the faceoff circle just before the puck was dropped, which made him offside. That's not supposed to be legal, but the goal counted anyway - one wonders how the linesman who was dropping the puck missed the movement into the circle.
The rest is history - Providence provided some drama with a power play goal midway through the third period, but it was as close as they would get as Terreri put up a brilliant effort with 40 saves, stifling the RPI offense as no other goaltender had all season by allowing just two goals, but the Engineers skated away with their second national championship.
How would things have been different if Servinis' goal had been called back? Tough to say for sure. Obviously, both teams scored one legitimate goal each, but we can't calculate how the teams played differently in the second period and the first half of the third with RPI holding a 2-0 lead as opposed to a 1-0 lead. The Engineers certainly had their opportunities to add to their advantage with three more power play chances before Providence's Paul Cavallini made it 2-1, but a combination of brilliant play by Terreri and tired legs from having played a three-overtime contest the night before made for a bit of a power outage by the awesome RPI offense. The Engineers were 1-for-7 on the man advantage.
We'd like to think the 1-0 edge might have produced some added urgency for the RPI power play on those final three opportunities. The Engineers didn't face much adversity in that championship season, but when the game was tight they put things together, bouncing back from a 3-2-0 start to the season to go undefeated the rest of the way and winning overtime games against a less than stellar Brown team in Providence and against Division III Union in Schenectady (albeit a Division III team that had played for the national championship a season earlier).
Providence, remember, had plenty of time to get themselves back into the game, but could only manage the one goal thanks to RPI's outstanding defense led by Daren Puppa, Ken Hammond, and Mike Dark, not to mention some good discipline after the Sadeghpour penalty ended, as they allowed only two more power plays from there on out (including John Carter's hooking call which helped get the Friars on the board).
So maybe it's just us being homers here, but if it hadn't been George Servinis on a disputed call, we think it probably would have been someone else over the course of 35 minutes of game play that would have collected a memory for the ages.
Wednesday, December 19, 2012
What If: Lake Placid in March
* March 1984: Jon Casey leads North Dakota to a 9-6 series upset over home-standing RPI in the NCAA tournament
Van Halen - Jump
Something was certainly afoot in Troy in 1983, and it made the entire college hockey world stand up and take notice of RPI in ways it hadn't for at least 20 years dating back to its last NCAA tournament appearance and perhaps even 30 years dating back to Gordie Peterkin and the goal that shocked the college hockey world.
The 1983-84 Engineers were beastly. Practically able to score at will, RPI dominated scoreboards night in and night out, beatable only when held under three goals in a game (they were 1-4 in those games during the regular season, all five were one-goal games). Furthermore, they were unbeatable at home with a perfect 17-0 record at Houston Field House, winners of 23 straight in Troy dating back to a December 11, 1982 loss to Clarkson by the time the 1984 NCAA tournament began. During that run, they outscored opponents at home 177-84, averaging over seven goals per game.
So when North Dakota, runners-up to Minnesota-Duluth (in both the regular season and the tournament) in the 6-team WCHA came to Troy for the quarterfinal round of the NCAA tournament, there weren't too many giving the Fighting Sioux a fighting chance. While RPI was busy dominating all comers in the east down the stretch to the tune of 15 wins in their last 16 games on their way to the ECAC title (mostly - Clarkson proved more than game in both RPI's only loss and in the ECAC semifinal), North Dakota had limped to a 6-6-2 record in the same stretch, their final win a 5-4 "victory" in the back end of a two-game series with Duluth in the WCHA playoffs that followed an 8-1 loss that had the Bulldogs in cruise mode.
Truly, the Engineers had a date with destiny in front of what was sure to be a favorable crowd at the Frozen Four in Lake Placid. North Dakota senior Jon Casey had other plans.
With some of the greatest names ever to don the Cherry and White blasting away at him, Casey put on a display of brilliance in net that propelled North Dakota to an upset of the ECAC champions and into the Frozen Four themselves. The netminder faced a total of 93 shots in a two-game, total goal series at Houston Field House, and managed to emerge victorious on the other end. In game one, Casey allowed the Engineers four goals, but the RPI defense, frequently able to bend significantly due to the usual higher output from the offense, allowed five, giving the Fighting Sioux a one-goal edge heading into the back end of the series.
The Engineers couldn't have been overly concerned about falling out of the tournament at that point, after all, they had put together a barrage and were still just one goal down. Another similar effort the next night offensively combined with a boost defensively would surely still see them through. But as good as Casey had been on Friday night, he was even more effective on Saturday night, limiting RPI's freakish offense to only two goals, while the Sioux were able to pump in four of their own. Despite being outshot 93-52, the total score was 9-6, and it was North Dakota, on the back of an incredible performance by their goaltender (with a save percentage of .935, good by today's standards and unheard of at the time), who was off to Lake Placid, leaving the Engineers to wonder about what could have been.
Mike Addesa and some of his charges were critical of the officiating in the series (which had featured western referees), but at the end of the day, officiating can't accomplish what Casey did in net - the numbers simply don't lie.
But what if Jon Casey hadn't been Superman that weekend in March? What if the heavy favorites from that school with the funny name had gotten the job done and moved on to the Frozen Four for the first time in 20 years?
Presuming that the heavy favorites had found a way to continue their usual goal scoring ways and had gotten themselves past Casey and North Dakota, the Engineers would have been the lone eastern team in the 1984 Frozen Four at Lake Placid, which actually ended up being an all-western affair. RPI was not the only team that could have been local in Lake Placid - Clarkson, it should be noted, came within a goal of forcing a Game 2 overtime at Minnesota-Duluth. Boston University, meanwhile, did face overtime in its Game 2 while hosting Bowling Green, the odd sight of a 4-1 game going into overtime thanks to a 4-1 BU win the night before ended with a goal for the Falcons, sending the CCHA regular season champs to the Frozen Four.
But leaving everything else alone, RPI would have gone to Lake Placid with Minnesota-Duluth, Michigan State, and Bowling Green as the other three teams. North Dakota faced off with the Bulldogs, leading to the possibility that an RPI win over North Dakota would have created the classic RPI-UMD matchup that graced the 1985 tournament, just one year sooner.
The 1984 Duluth squad, as one would expect, was largely the same as the 1985 team, with one major exception - Brett Hull was still a year away from matriculating. Both teams included 1985 Hobey Baker winner Bill Watson as the top scorer, both included Norm Maciver, who went on to a long NHL career, and both featured Rick Kosti in net. The 1984 team, in place of Hull, really, had defenseman Tom Kurvers, who had won the 1984 Hobey Baker.
UMD defeated North Dakota to advance to the national championship game, but it wasn't for lack of effort by Jon Casey, who continued his amazing performance to limit a team with two eventual Hobey Baker winners to just one goal in regulation. The Bulldogs advanced in overtime, 2-1. Would RPI have done any better? It's almost impossible to know for sure. To their advantage, they would have been closer to home, but RPI did end up with a 1-3 record against WCHA teams in 1983-84 in real life, coupling the two losses to North Dakota with a split against Wisconsin in Madison. It certainly would have been a very, very good game, probably quite similar to the 1985 classic (especially since UMD went to four overtimes in the 1984 national championship).
We're probably assuming a lot by pondering further, but the Engineers would likely have been favorites against Bowling Green in the national championship had they advanced that far. The Falcons had a number of players who had long NHL careers, including Garry Galley, Dave Ellett, and Gino Cavallini, and they were coached by Jerry York, who was in search of his first national championship. They had overachieved a bit on their way to what would eventually be that first national championship.
The question really isn't whether RPI could have beaten Bowling Green here, because it presumes an answer to the previous situation. The question really is this: if RPI had won the 1984 national championship - certainly a happening that would not have been outside the realm of possibility - what would have changed?
Would the professional exodus that took place after the 1985 championship have taken place? Possibly. Daren Puppa probably would have stuck around since he'd just finished his freshman season, but would sophomore Adam Oates have stayed? Hard to say for sure, but probably just as hard to see them staying. It's certainly not a given that the Engineers would have been in a position to go back to back, especially if they'd run into a UMD team with extra motivation to beat RPI in 1985.
Outside of RPI, one wonders if Jerry York would have caught on at his alma mater in 1994 without the national championship win in his back pocket from a decade prior. That seems pretty likely, but if not, what becomes of the current Boston College dynasty? Just a ponderance.
All in all, it's hard to see exactly what RPI would have gone on to accomplish if they had lived up to expectations in the first round of the NCAA tournament, but it certainly underscores the speed with which Mike Addesa was able to build a national contender in Troy.
Van Halen - Jump
Something was certainly afoot in Troy in 1983, and it made the entire college hockey world stand up and take notice of RPI in ways it hadn't for at least 20 years dating back to its last NCAA tournament appearance and perhaps even 30 years dating back to Gordie Peterkin and the goal that shocked the college hockey world.
The 1983-84 Engineers were beastly. Practically able to score at will, RPI dominated scoreboards night in and night out, beatable only when held under three goals in a game (they were 1-4 in those games during the regular season, all five were one-goal games). Furthermore, they were unbeatable at home with a perfect 17-0 record at Houston Field House, winners of 23 straight in Troy dating back to a December 11, 1982 loss to Clarkson by the time the 1984 NCAA tournament began. During that run, they outscored opponents at home 177-84, averaging over seven goals per game.
So when North Dakota, runners-up to Minnesota-Duluth (in both the regular season and the tournament) in the 6-team WCHA came to Troy for the quarterfinal round of the NCAA tournament, there weren't too many giving the Fighting Sioux a fighting chance. While RPI was busy dominating all comers in the east down the stretch to the tune of 15 wins in their last 16 games on their way to the ECAC title (mostly - Clarkson proved more than game in both RPI's only loss and in the ECAC semifinal), North Dakota had limped to a 6-6-2 record in the same stretch, their final win a 5-4 "victory" in the back end of a two-game series with Duluth in the WCHA playoffs that followed an 8-1 loss that had the Bulldogs in cruise mode.
Truly, the Engineers had a date with destiny in front of what was sure to be a favorable crowd at the Frozen Four in Lake Placid. North Dakota senior Jon Casey had other plans.
With some of the greatest names ever to don the Cherry and White blasting away at him, Casey put on a display of brilliance in net that propelled North Dakota to an upset of the ECAC champions and into the Frozen Four themselves. The netminder faced a total of 93 shots in a two-game, total goal series at Houston Field House, and managed to emerge victorious on the other end. In game one, Casey allowed the Engineers four goals, but the RPI defense, frequently able to bend significantly due to the usual higher output from the offense, allowed five, giving the Fighting Sioux a one-goal edge heading into the back end of the series.
The Engineers couldn't have been overly concerned about falling out of the tournament at that point, after all, they had put together a barrage and were still just one goal down. Another similar effort the next night offensively combined with a boost defensively would surely still see them through. But as good as Casey had been on Friday night, he was even more effective on Saturday night, limiting RPI's freakish offense to only two goals, while the Sioux were able to pump in four of their own. Despite being outshot 93-52, the total score was 9-6, and it was North Dakota, on the back of an incredible performance by their goaltender (with a save percentage of .935, good by today's standards and unheard of at the time), who was off to Lake Placid, leaving the Engineers to wonder about what could have been.
Mike Addesa and some of his charges were critical of the officiating in the series (which had featured western referees), but at the end of the day, officiating can't accomplish what Casey did in net - the numbers simply don't lie.
But what if Jon Casey hadn't been Superman that weekend in March? What if the heavy favorites from that school with the funny name had gotten the job done and moved on to the Frozen Four for the first time in 20 years?
Presuming that the heavy favorites had found a way to continue their usual goal scoring ways and had gotten themselves past Casey and North Dakota, the Engineers would have been the lone eastern team in the 1984 Frozen Four at Lake Placid, which actually ended up being an all-western affair. RPI was not the only team that could have been local in Lake Placid - Clarkson, it should be noted, came within a goal of forcing a Game 2 overtime at Minnesota-Duluth. Boston University, meanwhile, did face overtime in its Game 2 while hosting Bowling Green, the odd sight of a 4-1 game going into overtime thanks to a 4-1 BU win the night before ended with a goal for the Falcons, sending the CCHA regular season champs to the Frozen Four.
But leaving everything else alone, RPI would have gone to Lake Placid with Minnesota-Duluth, Michigan State, and Bowling Green as the other three teams. North Dakota faced off with the Bulldogs, leading to the possibility that an RPI win over North Dakota would have created the classic RPI-UMD matchup that graced the 1985 tournament, just one year sooner.
The 1984 Duluth squad, as one would expect, was largely the same as the 1985 team, with one major exception - Brett Hull was still a year away from matriculating. Both teams included 1985 Hobey Baker winner Bill Watson as the top scorer, both included Norm Maciver, who went on to a long NHL career, and both featured Rick Kosti in net. The 1984 team, in place of Hull, really, had defenseman Tom Kurvers, who had won the 1984 Hobey Baker.
UMD defeated North Dakota to advance to the national championship game, but it wasn't for lack of effort by Jon Casey, who continued his amazing performance to limit a team with two eventual Hobey Baker winners to just one goal in regulation. The Bulldogs advanced in overtime, 2-1. Would RPI have done any better? It's almost impossible to know for sure. To their advantage, they would have been closer to home, but RPI did end up with a 1-3 record against WCHA teams in 1983-84 in real life, coupling the two losses to North Dakota with a split against Wisconsin in Madison. It certainly would have been a very, very good game, probably quite similar to the 1985 classic (especially since UMD went to four overtimes in the 1984 national championship).
We're probably assuming a lot by pondering further, but the Engineers would likely have been favorites against Bowling Green in the national championship had they advanced that far. The Falcons had a number of players who had long NHL careers, including Garry Galley, Dave Ellett, and Gino Cavallini, and they were coached by Jerry York, who was in search of his first national championship. They had overachieved a bit on their way to what would eventually be that first national championship.
The question really isn't whether RPI could have beaten Bowling Green here, because it presumes an answer to the previous situation. The question really is this: if RPI had won the 1984 national championship - certainly a happening that would not have been outside the realm of possibility - what would have changed?
Would the professional exodus that took place after the 1985 championship have taken place? Possibly. Daren Puppa probably would have stuck around since he'd just finished his freshman season, but would sophomore Adam Oates have stayed? Hard to say for sure, but probably just as hard to see them staying. It's certainly not a given that the Engineers would have been in a position to go back to back, especially if they'd run into a UMD team with extra motivation to beat RPI in 1985.
Outside of RPI, one wonders if Jerry York would have caught on at his alma mater in 1994 without the national championship win in his back pocket from a decade prior. That seems pretty likely, but if not, what becomes of the current Boston College dynasty? Just a ponderance.
All in all, it's hard to see exactly what RPI would have gone on to accomplish if they had lived up to expectations in the first round of the NCAA tournament, but it certainly underscores the speed with which Mike Addesa was able to build a national contender in Troy.
Friday, March 25, 2011
Low-Seeded and Rusty
So, the Engineers are a #4 seed. They also didn't play last week (or the week before that, but that's beside the point). Some would say... well, they're going to be rusty and they're a low seed, so they're going to get bounced with no problem. And maybe they're right.
But... maybe neither of those are particularly relevant, either.
How have #4 seeds and teams that have had extra rest fared in the tournament lately? Well... pretty good actually. #4 seeds are in bold, teams playing with extra rest are in italics.
2006
Bemidji State - Lost to Wisconsin
Colorado College - Lost to Cornell
Holy Cross - Defeated Minnesota, lost to North Dakota
Nebraska-Omaha - Lost to Boston University
New Hampshire - Lost to Michigan
2007
Air Force - Lost to Minnesota
Alabama-Huntsville - Lost to Notre Dame (2 OT)
Maine - Defeated St. Cloud State, defeated UMass, lost to Michigan State
Miami - Defeated New Hampshire, lost to Boston College
UMass - Defeated Clarkson, lost to Maine
2008
Air Force - Lost to Miami
Clarkson - Defeated St. Cloud State, lost to Michigan
Michigan State - Defeated Colorado College, lost to Notre Dame
Niagara - Lost to Michigan
Notre Dame - Defeated New Hampshire, defeated Michigan State, defeated Michigan, lost to Boston College
Princeton - Lost to North Dakota
Wisconsin - Defeated Denver, lost to North Dakota
2009
Air Force - Defeated Michigan, lost to Vermont
Bemidji State - Defeated Notre Dame, defeated Cornell, lost to Miami
Miami - Defeated Denver, defeated Minnesota-Duluth, defeated Bemidji State, lost to Boston University
New Hampshire - Defeated North Dakota, lost to Boston University
Ohio State - Lost to Boston University
Vermont - Defeated Yale, defeated Air Force, lost to Boston University
2010
Alabama-Huntsville - Lost to Miami
Alaska - Lost to Boston College
Bemidji State - Lost to Michigan
New Hampshire - Defeated Cornell, lost to RIT
RIT - Defeated Denver, defeated New Hampshire, lost to Wisconsin
Yale - Defeated North Dakota, lost to Boston College
Vermont - Lost to Wisconsin
2011
Air Force
Colorado College
Nebraska-Omaha
New Hampshire
RPI
Union
#4 seeds are 8-12 in the first round since 2006, while teams that were off the previous week are 10-9 in the same stretch. Meanwhile, at least one #4 seed has won in the opening round in every tournament since 2006, and at least two supposedly "rusty" teams have won in the opening round against a team fresh from the fight in each of the last four years - not to mention that North Dakota has suffered losses to such teams in each of the last two tournaments (though neither were as a #1 seed).
Oh, and we've had at least one team in the Frozen Four for the last four years running that were either a #4 seed or were rested heading into the tournament (or both).
Hockey isn't basketball - a low seed isn't necessarily a killer. We'll see what happens tomorrow, we're just over 24 hours to go until we tangle with the Sioux.
-----
Today, games get underway in the East and West regionals in Bridgeport and St. Louis. There's the potential for an all-ECAC final in Bridgeport if Yale and Union, the higher seeds, win their games. Yale and Air Force have met once before this season, and it ended in Yale's first loss out in Colorado in a game they were winning 3-0 with 15 minutes left to play. Now in their backyard, I don't see this ending the same way. Meanwhile, Union and Minnesota-Duluth provides one of the truest toss-up games of the first round, as 8/9 matchups frequently do. This one's probably anyone's game, the Dutchmen have the stronger team while Duluth has the stronger individual players.
Out in St. Louis, it's Boston College and Colorado College in an interesting high/low matchup. The Eagles are certainly favored, but the Tigers seem like they could at least provide an interesting game if nothing more. Finally, there's Michigan and Nebraska-Omaha. Michigan shows up every year, but they rarely have been bringing home the national championship, with their only two championships during their long stretch of NCAA tournament appearances coming in 1996 and 1998. Omaha, meanwhile, had a pretty decent season overall but simply could not beat Bemidji State to save their lives this year (fully 1/3 of their losses this year are to the Beavers, including two in the WCHA playoffs). Dean Blais vs. Red Berenson has all the makings of a barnburner in this matchup between teams that were CCHA rivals just last year.
But... maybe neither of those are particularly relevant, either.
How have #4 seeds and teams that have had extra rest fared in the tournament lately? Well... pretty good actually. #4 seeds are in bold, teams playing with extra rest are in italics.
2006
Bemidji State - Lost to Wisconsin
Colorado College - Lost to Cornell
Holy Cross - Defeated Minnesota, lost to North Dakota
Nebraska-Omaha - Lost to Boston University
New Hampshire - Lost to Michigan
2007
Air Force - Lost to Minnesota
Alabama-Huntsville - Lost to Notre Dame (2 OT)
Maine - Defeated St. Cloud State, defeated UMass, lost to Michigan State
Miami - Defeated New Hampshire, lost to Boston College
UMass - Defeated Clarkson, lost to Maine
2008
Air Force - Lost to Miami
Clarkson - Defeated St. Cloud State, lost to Michigan
Michigan State - Defeated Colorado College, lost to Notre Dame
Niagara - Lost to Michigan
Notre Dame - Defeated New Hampshire, defeated Michigan State, defeated Michigan, lost to Boston College
Princeton - Lost to North Dakota
Wisconsin - Defeated Denver, lost to North Dakota
2009
Air Force - Defeated Michigan, lost to Vermont
Bemidji State - Defeated Notre Dame, defeated Cornell, lost to Miami
Miami - Defeated Denver, defeated Minnesota-Duluth, defeated Bemidji State, lost to Boston University
New Hampshire - Defeated North Dakota, lost to Boston University
Ohio State - Lost to Boston University
Vermont - Defeated Yale, defeated Air Force, lost to Boston University
2010
Alabama-Huntsville - Lost to Miami
Alaska - Lost to Boston College
Bemidji State - Lost to Michigan
New Hampshire - Defeated Cornell, lost to RIT
RIT - Defeated Denver, defeated New Hampshire, lost to Wisconsin
Yale - Defeated North Dakota, lost to Boston College
Vermont - Lost to Wisconsin
2011
Air Force
Colorado College
Nebraska-Omaha
New Hampshire
RPI
Union
#4 seeds are 8-12 in the first round since 2006, while teams that were off the previous week are 10-9 in the same stretch. Meanwhile, at least one #4 seed has won in the opening round in every tournament since 2006, and at least two supposedly "rusty" teams have won in the opening round against a team fresh from the fight in each of the last four years - not to mention that North Dakota has suffered losses to such teams in each of the last two tournaments (though neither were as a #1 seed).
Oh, and we've had at least one team in the Frozen Four for the last four years running that were either a #4 seed or were rested heading into the tournament (or both).
Hockey isn't basketball - a low seed isn't necessarily a killer. We'll see what happens tomorrow, we're just over 24 hours to go until we tangle with the Sioux.
-----
Today, games get underway in the East and West regionals in Bridgeport and St. Louis. There's the potential for an all-ECAC final in Bridgeport if Yale and Union, the higher seeds, win their games. Yale and Air Force have met once before this season, and it ended in Yale's first loss out in Colorado in a game they were winning 3-0 with 15 minutes left to play. Now in their backyard, I don't see this ending the same way. Meanwhile, Union and Minnesota-Duluth provides one of the truest toss-up games of the first round, as 8/9 matchups frequently do. This one's probably anyone's game, the Dutchmen have the stronger team while Duluth has the stronger individual players.
Out in St. Louis, it's Boston College and Colorado College in an interesting high/low matchup. The Eagles are certainly favored, but the Tigers seem like they could at least provide an interesting game if nothing more. Finally, there's Michigan and Nebraska-Omaha. Michigan shows up every year, but they rarely have been bringing home the national championship, with their only two championships during their long stretch of NCAA tournament appearances coming in 1996 and 1998. Omaha, meanwhile, had a pretty decent season overall but simply could not beat Bemidji State to save their lives this year (fully 1/3 of their losses this year are to the Beavers, including two in the WCHA playoffs). Dean Blais vs. Red Berenson has all the makings of a barnburner in this matchup between teams that were CCHA rivals just last year.
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