The Mason Cup is back.
After a nine-year absence, the CCHA will award the championship trophy once again to the winner of its conference tournament, which begins with quarterfinal action this week. The trophy, named after famed Bowling Green, Lake Superior State and Michigan State coaching legend Ron Mason, was created in 2001.
“We were excited to be back in the CCHA and now we’re excited to compete for the Mason Cup again,” Bowling Green coach Ty Eigner said.
The Mason Cup holds a special place in the hearts of the Falcon faithful because although BGSU has never won that specific trophy they did win the CCHA tournament championship three times from 1977-79 when Mason was behind the Falcon bench.
“For Bowling Green, as a founding member of the CCHA, and having coach Mason as a member of our athletics hall of fame here, we know what he’s done and what he meant to the CCHA during his career, it’s a big deal,” Eigner said. “To have the opportunity to compete for it again is great.”
In the previous incarnation of the CCHA, the cup was won by six different teams. However, none of the teams in the current conference have ever won the trophy, so whichever team wins this year’s CCHA tournament will be making some history.
“Coach Mason started the program here, so there’s a little extra investment in coach Mason and the Mason Cup,” said Lake Superior State coach Damon Whitten, who played at Michigan State under Mason along with Lakers assistant Mike York. “It’s a goal for our program, and it would be something special for us, but the bigger picture is having our team ready to play.”
Of course, everybody in the league would like to win the conference tournament title no matter what the trophy was called, as it means an automatic berth to the NCAA tournament. The Lakers are looking to win their second-consecutive conference tournament title after winning the final WCHA playoff championship a year ago.
This year’s favorite, unsurprisingly, is top-ranked and top-seeded Minnesota State, who are fresh off the backs of their fifth consecutive MacNaughton Cup title and are a lock for the NCAA tournament. The Mavericks, who take on No. 8 seeded St. Thomas in their first-round matchup, are gunning for the No. 1 overall seed in the NCAAs.
“I think they’ve won five straight regular-season titles, and that’s not nothing,” Eigner said of the Mavericks. “That’s a culmination of a 26-game schedule and the travel that comes with our league. You’ve got to be a very good team, you’ve got to have great depth, you have to be well-coached, all those things play into that and for Minnesota State to have won five straight regular season championships says a lot.”
The matchup between the Mavericks (31-5-0, 23-3-0 CCHA) and Tommies (3-30-1, 3-22-1) has been official for a few weeks, as is the quarterfinal between second-seeded Michigan Tech (19-11-3, 16-8-2) and seventh-seeded Ferris State (11-22-1, 916-1).
The Huskies, who are currently No. 12 in the Pairwise, are hoping to shore up their position for an at-large bid to the NCAA tournament and a sweep of the Bulldogs, combined with a win in the semifinals next week, would probably do the trick. However, the teams met one another earlier this month and the Bulldogs gave the Huskies all they could handle. Both games in Big Rapids went to overtime, and the Huskies won one in 3-on-3 and needed a shootout to win the other game.
Matchups in the middle
But perhaps the most interesting matchups this weekend will be the ones involving the four teams that finished mid-table. Third-seeded Bemidji State (16-18-0, 14-12-0) hosts sixth-place Bowling Green (14-17-3, 11-14-1) while fourth-seeded Lake Superior State (17-16-1, 13-13-0) will take on fifth-seeded Northern Michigan (18-14-1, 12-13-1).
“It’s going to be really difficult for all the matchups,” Whitten said of the tight CCHA standings this season. “When playoff positioning comes down to the final games of the season for multiple spots, that shows the parity and depth and the talent across teams, so I think it’s going to be an awesome weekend of playoff hockey.”
The four teams were separated in the standings by just nine points, and before last weekend any of the four teams could have finished third. As it turned out, Bemidji State took five points from St. Thomas while Lake Superior swept Bowling Green to earn home-ice advantage in the quarterfinal round.
“I think going into the last month, I think you could have taken Bemidji, Lake, Northern and BG and pulled them out of a hat and at any point somebody would have felt like they were playing pretty good and at any point somebody would have felt like they were struggling,” Eigner said of the parity between the middle of the table.
Eigner’s Falcons split the season series with the Beavers, with each team splitting the series on home ice.
“You take a look at the games we had with them this year, three one-goal games and another two-goal game,” Bemidji State head coach Tom Serratore said. “We expect nothing different this weekend. We’ve had a great rivalry with Bowling Green and these games are going to be tight, no question.”
Meanwhile, in Sault Ste. Marie, the Lakers get to host a Wildcats team they have already defeated three times in four games. LSSU outscored NMU 18-6 in the four games. Both teams should be mostly fully healthy for this playoff series.
“We’re facing an explosive offensive team, their top scorers have had outstanding years and they’re extremely dangerous and talented,” Whitten said of the Wildcats, who have two of the league’s top scorers in Hank Crone and AJ Vanderbeck. “But I think it’s going to be an interesting matchup. If you look at us, since Christmas, even strength we haven’t given much up and we’ve been really good defensively so that’s going to be key.”
Whitten said his team seems to be finding its consistency at exactly the right time. The Lakers have won five of their last six games coming into the playoffs and have been led by solid play in goal with their tandem of Ethan Langenegger, who went 3-0-0 in three starts and had a 0.67 GAA, and Seth Eisel, who stated the other three games and went 2-1 with a 2.00 GAA and .920 save percentage.
“I think what we like is continuity,” he said. “We haven’t had a lot of that, whether it’s been COVID disruptions, injuries, guys not available, it’s been really challenging to have enough players to have our best lineup at times, so I like that part about how we’re playing. We’re mostly healthy and we have nearly our full allotment of players and we haven’t had that very often, so we’re showing a little bit of what we can be at the right time.”
All four quarterfinal matchups will be best-of-three series, while next weekend’s semifinals will be a single-game matchups hosted by the top two remaining seeds. The CCHA title game will be played Saturday, March 19, also on the home ice of the top remaining seed.
