I realize this might be another hockey thread where I talk to myself, but in case anyone is interested the Frozen Four selection was last night.
I think it's time they expand this from 16 to 32. So many good teams and only 10 at-large bids.
Teams not in...Michigan, BC, BU, Minnesota. On the show last night they said I believe you need to go back to 1970 to find a year when none of those schools were in the tournament.
My alma mater, Quinnipiac makes it for the 5th time in 7 years, they face upstart Arizona State in the first round. QU is trending down though being swept by Brown in the ECAC tournament.
Other interesting matchups.
Overall #1 St. Cloud State vs AIC (1st time in tourney), will Ryan Poehling play? he suffered a head injury in the NCHC semis.
Umass (overall #4) vs Harvard. Best player in the country (IMO) is on Umass. Cale Makar (Av's prospect), and one of the next best D prospects: Adam Fox (Flames prospect) is on Harvard.
Minnesota State (overall #3) gets hosed and goes to Providence to face....Providence.
Minnesota Duluth (overall #2) looking to defend their title
vs a very good Bowling Green team.
I think something like the past 6 years a #1 seed has lost in the 1st round.
1st round games are Friday/Saturday and 2nd round is Saturday/Sunday. All games are one of the ESPN family of channels.
There only a few years old. Play as an independent.
Went D1 a few years ago and players like Auston Matthews (from Scottsdale, Arizona) sprung up a ton of hockey interest.
This year they had some good wins. Split with Harvard, Penn State, BU, tied Minnesota State, swept a series with BC and AIC, close games with Ohio State (but lost both).
They can easily beat Quinnipiac (but it's hockey, any of these teams can lose).
I went to RPI for undergrad, so always followed the ECAC. Despite RPI being completely awful with no hope of improvement, I still follow the conference. Clarkson is RPI's rival, and I'm a bit jealous that they've been able to build a nationally relevant program (Union has done the same, even better, too) while RPI keeps making the same excuses.
Basically rooting for (1) ND, and (2) ECAC teams.
I liked RPI when I was a kid and Adam Oates was there and they won the National Championship. Oates was one of my favorite players as a kid - mainly because coaches said he was good.
loved him as a pro too. Such a smart player.
Not two ECAC teams.
sorry.
tough draw with the #1 overall seed and Denver in their bracket.
they have a really good goalie though, so you know how that sometimes goes.
Keith Primeau's son Cayden is their goalie (habs draft pick), he's awesome.
on a side note, one of my kids is looking at Northeastern (she's a junior in HS). Holy shit that school changed. When I was growing up it was everyone's safety school, you barely needed a pulse to get in. Now it's harder in many cases than BU and BC.
Going to the Beanpot is a blast if you've never been.
Going to the Beanpot is a blast if you've never been.
I try and go to the beanpot every year. great event. I missed this year.
I'm trying to convince her to go to Umass (to save $$$), but of course she wants Northeastern (or Brown as a stretch).
For that matter, where is AIC even located??
For that matter, where is AIC even located??
Springfield, MA.
They used to be D3. When I was at Quinnipiac they were D3 (as were we). Moved to D1 in the Atlantic Conference (Army, Air Force, Holy Cross, Bentley, etc.)
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even had hockey teams.
For that matter, where is AIC even located??
Springfield, MA.
They used to be D3. When I was at Quinnipiac they were D3 (as were we). Moved to D1 in the Atlantic Conference (Army, Air Force, Holy Cross, Bentley, etc.)
Thanks...Air Force in the Atlantic Conference? Sounds like the same people deciding hockey conferences were in charge of the old NFL divisions (Dallas and Phoenix in east, Atlanta in west, etc.)
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In comment 14356273 lawguy9801 said:
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even had hockey teams.
For that matter, where is AIC even located??
Springfield, MA.
They used to be D3. When I was at Quinnipiac they were D3 (as were we). Moved to D1 in the Atlantic Conference (Army, Air Force, Holy Cross, Bentley, etc.)
Thanks...Air Force in the Atlantic Conference? Sounds like the same people deciding hockey conferences were in charge of the old NFL divisions (Dallas and Phoenix in east, Atlanta in west, etc.)
More like the NCAA conferences with Uconn, SMU, Houston, etc.
in hockey there are just fewer options so I get it.
Here are the overall tourney seeds (look how low the Big 10 champ is seeded, not a strong conference this year):
2019 NCAA Tournament Bracketology
T-1. St. Cloud State
T-1. Minnesota Duluth (NCHC)
3. Minnesota State (WCHA)
4. Massachusetts
5. Clarkson (ECAC)
6. Northeastern (Hockey East)
7. Quinnipiac
8. Denver
9. Ohio State
10. Arizona State
11. Cornell
T-12. Notre Dame (Big Ten)
T-12. Harvard
14. Providence
15. Bowling Green
31. American International (Atlantic Hockey)
Schools that won this weekend’s conference tournaments to earn an automatic bid are noted with the conference in parenthesis.
Atlantic Hockey champion American International is the only automatic bid outside the top 16. The Yellow Jackets take the place of Penn State as the 16th overall seed.
Basically rooting for (1) ND, and (2) ECAC teams.
I was Sports Director for my college radio station and got to do the Beanpot a couple of times, think they were in Boston Garden and for some reason one year was in MSG where BC was playing I forget whom. Heading up to Clarkson, Cornell and RPI for road games in the winter was always fun...long bus rides in the dark coming home. I'd get to our assigned booth, look for the feed (simple twisted pair telephone wire with tape identifying my station), hook it up to the transceiver remote, off air make sure we were live with the station, and wait for game time. Loved that s..t.
ASU, AIC? Things are a changing, and Minn. St. was not a big name back then.
Now though it's much more than that.
Like I said, Quinnipiac was D3 when I was there, floundering against powerhouses like Stonehill, Iona and St. Mike's.
they went D1 in 1998 and have since played in two national title games. That is a quick turnaround IMO. Yes, it's been 20 years, but some teams have never been to a National title game.
and the popularity of hockey is growing in youth hockey too and the girls game is growing even faster.
AIC (Springfield MA) with the shocker over St. Cloud. St. Cloud loses to the 16th seeded team for the 2nd year in a row!.
ND/Clarkson was the best game of the night IMO. ND down 2-1 ties it up with around 2 minutes to play and wins in overtime. Some controversy as Clarkson's best player was ejected for a 5 min boarding. Close call but IMO I did not think it deserved an ejection. That being said he was not having a great game up to the point of the penalty.
I didnt watch much of the Denver Ohio State game as it was on the same time as the UMass game but Denver's goaltender is hot right now and that school has a history of doing well in the tournament. Wouldnt be surprised to see Denver in the Final 4 or Championship round. Good goaltender and a solid all around team.
great testament to them not giving up, and it was fun to watch, but I still think Minn St got hosed as a #1 seed playing Providence in Providence.
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... with the upset over Minn. St. Down 3-0 just 11 minutes in, actually 4 but Minn was offsides on the replay on the 4th goal. Providence comes back and scores 6 unanswered.
great testament to them not giving up, and it was fun to watch, but I still think Minn St got hosed as a #1 seed playing Providence in Providence.
Oh for sure. I can't believe that game was played at the Dunk, that place was rockin... lol. Of course my daughter pitched a club softball game at Sacred Heart today and had to miss it, but friends were face-timing her doing the game, it was pretty well packed and rocking.
Umass the only team there so far.
Denver vs AIC right now for the West region.
and other than Quinnipiac vs Minn Duluth you have Providence and Cornell tomorrow for the other two in the final 4.
Anyway, guess I’ll root for Quinni as I have ties to Hamden. Can’t believe that school has grown so much, but Southern Ct youth hockey has always been really strong.
Much different now...only took 20 Years
Anyway, guess I’ll root for Quinni as I have ties to Hamden. Can’t believe that school has grown so much, but Southern Ct youth hockey has always been really strong.
There is one or two CT kids at Quinnipiac. What's sort of ironic is when I went there (still a D3 school) the head coach was my mite coach. I only played Freshman year, but that was because I was pretty close to failing out of school as a Freshman and I pretty much had to pick hockey or school anyway, my father was talking with the former head coach one day around the time they announced the move to D1.
He said, you know they ruined one of the only places for these local kids to keep playing hockey. And of course the success of the program is much better for the school, and the town, and the athletic program, but he's right. Fewer and fewer places for borderline college players to continue playing.
First year as D1 the team was practically all 23/24 year olds from Trail, British Columbia or Moosejaw Saskatchewan trying to trade their fledgling hockey careers for an education. Now there is a lot of Americans - maybe even 65% Americans, but most are not local.
Anyway, been fun watching them (even though my college friends hated I was rooting for Yale when Quinnipiac and Yae played in the National title game a while ago).
I grew up a Yale fan, way before I went to Quinnipiac - my father was born in New Haven and dragged me to practically ever Yale football and hockey games. And then my high school coach was a former Yale coach, so we went to Ingalls (aka the Yale Whale) often to watch the Yale games. Pre-Quinnipiac days that was the best college hockey around.
So, once Quinnipiac went D1 I rooted for the school, as my alma mater I always wanted them to win, but I felt a little disconnected. I wasn't close to D1 good. So if Quinnipiac played anyone other than Yale it's a no-brainer, but that's not how it turned out as we know.
And Yale were heavy underdogs. They played 3 times that year before the National title game and Quinnipiac swept Yale in those games with something like a 12 - 2 goal spread in the three games.
they face the winner of Minn-Duluth/Quinnipiac.
Minn-Duluth vs Providence
and
Umass vs Denver
should be good games.
Only positive take away for Quinnipiac who was never really in this game, is they had 10 freshman dressed for the game, and a few sophomores. Only 2 or 3 seniors on this team.
Interesting, I posted that speculation earlier in the NHL playoff thread I believe.
I read he wanted to be a Ranger, so we'll see if Carolina tries to trade him to NY and/if NY waits it out until he's a FA.
So smooth with the puck, he's not Cale Makar, but he's close maybe a better comp is Torey Krug IMO. Maybe even better defensively. I like him more than Will Butcher.
Drafting anyone from Harvard is dicey IMO, it's the rare school where the degree might be as valuable post-career as the hockey career. We saw Donato leave school and flame out (though I still like him) and he probably only even went to Harvard because his father is the coach. Otherwise I'd have to discount a player in some cases who is committed to Harvard. I think Fox was a 3rd round pick, so maybe that's partly why. And it probably has to do with CAL including him in the trade for Hanifin.
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I think every team in the NHL will make him an offer. I hope the Devils have a shot since they have a huge need at right defenseman and they also drafted his Harvard teammate and friend Reilly Walsh who might sign with the Devils this offseason.
Drafting anyone from Harvard is dicey IMO, it's the rare school where the degree might be as valuable post-career as the hockey career. We saw Donato leave school and flame out (though I still like him) and he probably only even went to Harvard because his father is the coach. Otherwise I'd have to discount a player in some cases who is committed to Harvard. I think Fox was a 3rd round pick, so maybe that's partly why. And it probably has to do with CAL including him in the trade for Hanifin.
I hope Fox doesn't influence Reilly Walsh to go back to school for two more years in order to hit free agency.
Are they allowed to speak with him with Carolina's permission?
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