Each week during the season, we look at the big events and big games around Division I men’s college hockey in Tuesday Morning Quarterback.
Dan: Well, Paula, after six months and countless hours spent covering college hockey’s turbulent regular season, we’ve finally reached our 16-team conclusion after the six Division I conferences crowned their postseason champions.
At the risk of hyperbole, the thousands of shifts and hundreds of hours spent around ice rinks sent this sport into its final act after Selection Sunday slotted its teams into the four different regionals, all of which was intent on delivering us to Minnesota and the State of Hockey’s Frozen Four.
The weekend wasn’t the demolition derby drama that we might’ve hoped, but we still saw enough upsets to generate wide-eyed conversation. From the eastern vantage point, though, nearly everything fell into place after No. 1 Boston College, which already clinched the top spot in the national tournament, won its first Hockey East championship in 12 years by beating second-ranked BU in the battle of the nation’s top two teams while top-seeded and nationally-ranked RIT won Atlantic Hockey with a decisive victory over AIC. Even ECAC, which saw Cornell win the title, went according to its usual storyboard when top-seeded Quinnipiac lost in the semifinal (I make that comment knowing the Bobcats are more than capable of winning the big one…see also: championship, national).
Before we dive into the tournament field as a whole, what stood out to you from the weekend, and were you at all satisfied with the outcome?
Paula: “Satisfied” is an interesting word, Dan.
I was already thrilled heading into the weekend because of the all-Michigan Big Ten final. I couldn’t have been happier than to see Michigan take on Michigan State for that title – so happy for Adam Nightingale and his staff, so happy to see Michigan sustain success under Brandon Naurato and his staff – and the game itself didn’t disappoint.
In my Big Ten column last week, I argued that this specific matchup was good for college hockey as a whole, just like the BU-BC final was. The interest in those games was off the hook, and in the case of the Big Ten championship game, a rivalry with an intensity and relevance that has been absent for some time was platformed nationwide on the Big Ten network. I don’t have the numbers for viewership of that game, but anecdotally I heard from a lot of hockey fans watching all over North America.
So, yes, I guess in that regard, “satisfied” is an apt word. I like it when the sport we love generates interest.
I’m also thrilled that with Michigan Tech’s CCHA championship, my adopted home state of Michigan has four representatives in the NCAA tournament.
I’m not so thrilled, however, that three of those teams – Michigan State, Michigan and Western Michigan – are all playing in the same regional.
The Huskies are sneaky good. With an 8-2-0 record in their last ten, Michigan Tech rides a five-game win streak into their game against Boston College. A win against the Eagles is a longshot – BC is so dialed in right now – but if Blake Pietila remains as hot in goal as he has been, the Huskies have an outside chance to pull off an upset. Yes, I know it’s a small, teeny tiny chance, but we all know what can happen in one-and-done situations.
And I’m pulling for Maine to emerge from the Springfield regional. When the Black Bears were playing the Terriers Friday, I kept thinking about my Maine relatives who otherwise live or die with all sports things Boston cursing that city as only Mainers can.
In all, I thought it was a good weekend of hockey. I know there are some very disappointed fans of Colorado College, Providence and St. Cloud right now, but I like this field.
Looking ahead to the weekend, Dan, I don’t really see many upsets unless North Dakota winning out in Maryland Heights would be considered an upset. What possibilities for chaos in the tournament do you see?
Dan: I actually think there’s a really good chance that each of this year’s regionals produce a chaotic argument or two before they’re done because none of the top seeds are playing in a local building aside from No. 1 Boston College.
Let’s actually take a step back for a second because the rules governing the regionals got us into this situation. None of it surprised anyone who followed the possibilities and permutations over the last month, but our finalized pods took teams out of their logical settings. Boston University was sent to Sioux Falls instead of playing in Springfield, Massachusetts, a location slightly further away from Boston than Providence, and North Dakota was kept out of Sioux Falls for the Maryland Heights regional while Denver, the lone team that really could have gone anywhere, landed in Massachusetts because of the host site and non-conference requirement criteria.
The parity associated with that – whether it’s right or wrong, I’m not here to debate right now – makes the playing field more level for a tournament that’s already teeming with good teams. Even BC, which is the No. 1 overall seed and is playing closest to home, has to go through a battle-tested Michigan Tech team before getting either Wisconsin, which could have been a No. 1 seed before the Ohio State loss, or Quinnipiac, the defending national champion. That’s a pretty tough regional, in my opinion.
So it’s not just one regional for me. The list of teams that occupied No. 1 seeds at various times during the second half of the year included Quinnipiac, Maine, Wisconsin and (I think) Minnesota. I once said Michigan didn’t deserve a tournament spot until the Wolverines beat someone notable, and I ended the season thinking they were a lock to win the Big Ten. Cornell has arguably the best goalie in the tournament. Western Michigan was a top-10 team at one point. RIT is the only Atlantic Hockey team to make the Frozen Four. I watched Omaha make the Frozen Four when everyone overlooked the Mavs in 2015. Even UMass, which needed a millionth of a percentage point to get past Colorado College, has a good chance because of its run to the Hockey East semifinals and its host site status after making that run to the Hockey East semifinals.
(Let me pause for a quick story here. I read on Twitter or X or whatever it’s called that UMass head coach Greg Carvel pointed out that BC skated on TD Garden’s ice “10-12 more” times than his Minutemen, and while that wasn’t an excuse, he pointed out how, in his opinion, that experience mattered. But then UMass made the tournament and immediately got to play close to home because of its host site status. Granted, UMass didn’t play at MassMutual Center as often as it sounds on the surface level, but I still wanted to have a quick laugh about that while reiterating that I have no problem with his quote or his comment about having experience on the ice surface or anything…it just made me laugh.)
But now I have to cycle back to the conversation about the host status. I’m not sure if the regional conversation moving to campus buildings is the bigger conversation here – Ed, Jimmy, you, and I have all talked about it at various times in this space – but I do think it’s worth looking at the criteria requires teams to play at sites where they host. I do, at some point, want to talk (again) about the Pairwise itself, but are there other criteria, including the host site conversation, that we should probably review at this point?
Paula: I do think you’re talking about two things here: how to determine regional placement and how to determine tournament eligibility in the first place.
I don’t know what criteria could be reviewed at this point to make the placement process any fairer, other than what you mention in terms of the host teams and moving the regionals to campus sites – and moving the regionals to campus sites is the opposite of the kind of geographic parity that you bring up here, even though it would create much better atmosphere and solve attendance issues for some regionals.
But that, as we say, is a discussion for another time.
The truth of the matter is that every team who makes it to the Frozen Four has to go through two other really good teams that are likely at the top of their game – no matter where they’re playing.
Do I think that home ice – or friendlier confines – may help some teams? Sure. I think that was a huge advantage for the Spartans against the Wolverines in a game where the two teams were very, very evenly matched.
As for tournament selection, I don’t know if there are better criteria than RPI and head-to-head comparisons, so I honestly don’t know how to make the system work more fairly than it does. There are likely people much smarter than I am out there who have better ideas for this, but I am at a loss as to how the committee could tinker with their formula to produce any better outcome.
And let’s face it. When there are bubble teams, someone’s always going to be upset that they didn’t get in, and there’s always going to be room to grouse about it. I’m not unsympathetic – working hard all season only to come this close and stay home is difficult, but the answer is to take care of that business during the regular season.
I am sure that both Colorado College and New Hampshire, especially, are disappointed that hitting the 20-win mark this season didn’t lead to an NCAA tournament berth. Bemidji State, Holy Cross, AIC and Arizona State each had 20 or more wins, too – and they’re all watching the NCAA tournament, too.
I’m not certain there are inequities in the selection process, even though I do see massive inequity in college hockey itself. I just don’t know how things can be decided differently.
You mention experience, Dan, and that’s something I will be watching closely this weekend. I thought that Michigan had a good chance to win the B1G title because of its experience having done so on the road the previous two seasons, and I still think that Michigan’s experience of last year may give the Wolverines an edge, an advantage that Minnesota may have as well.
How much can experience matter in a single-elimination tournament, do you think? And what other factors do you think will influence this year’s field?
Dan: Well, if we’re Hockey East teams, we’ll find out, right?
I think any type of big game experience matters, and it’s all in how coaches and players draw off their performances in those games. I see two distinct groups in this regard: people who lean into the pressure and people who defuse the pressure. I’ve heard stories of coaches outlining exactly what needs to happen in which games to reach the tournament from a Pairwise perspective, and I’ve heard stories of coaches refusing to even think or look or discuss the national tournament. In both instances, they all acknowledge that it’s out there and that it’s all readily accessible in the social media era, but they also diverge into one of two different areas.
I actually like the third road that Jerry York once told me about. He used to like getting his team on the road in the early part of the season as a way to forge the team together in high-pressure situations, and he liked challenging his team over the course of the season. So I’m very much for a team that finds its way into the tournament by playing a couple of high-pressure games along the way.
To that end, I think that the conference tournament is the perfect setting to get a team battle-ready for the national tournament. Even if they didn’t make the single-elimination portion of the program, they’ve either played through or against an elimination setting and understand what that’s like. They know how to shorten benches or find what works and what doesn’t, and while Hockey East went strictly single-elimination, I think getting to the elimination game after a first game loss or getting to end a team’s season adds something to a hockey player that they’ve never experienced before.
The more you do it, the better you are. And yes, that’s basically a non-committal answer.
As always, I’m drawn to the character element of this showcase, and I’m very interested in seeing which players elevate their game on the biggest stages. Are there individuals that you see as potential X-factors – either on the ice or behind the bench?
Paula: I agree that conference tournaments can be good preparation for the national tournament, but I definitely favor tournament experience over participation on conference playoffs as a precursor to a good NCAA tournament run.
Quinnipiac’s championship last season is an example of that – and it also dovetails into your discussion of character or X-factors. The ECAC has not been a particularly deep league in recent years, but the Bobcats’ three consecutive NCAA tournament appearances in the years immediately preceding their 2024 title certainly prepped them for that moment.
Many folks remarked last year that all through that tournament, Rand Pecknold was relaxed in ways they’d never seen him previously, and that demeanor rubbed off on his team. The Bobcats were focused, all about business, but really confident and self-assured and – even more importantly, imo – they were enjoying every moment of that tournament.
I remember North Dakota’s 1997 win. Very few people thought they’d get past BU in the title game, but I saw them walking around Milwaukee – like, taking a team walk around a neighborhood away from the arena – and they were relaxed, calm, and enjoying the day. I knew then they’d win.
Same in 2007, when the Spartans won their last national championship. During their warm-up walk around the inside perimeter of the arena floor the day of the game, they were relaxed and savoring the moment. No one expected them to get past BC – and they almost didn’t. But they did, and I think early in that day, they knew they could.
I’m not saying that the underdogs are favored in the tournament, but sometimes there’s a disadvantage to being the favorite. I think one way Boston College mitigates that is built into the team – their youth. The program itself has the experience necessary to carry the Eagles to a title game, and it helps that the freshmen are so freaking talented. But sometimes a young team is too naïve to feel that kind of pressure.
We shall see. There are household names on every team in the tournament this year, players that everyone in college hockey has heard of. Several teams are mighty deep, too, but that doesn’t guarantee success.
In closing, I don’t know what will factor into success this weekend, but I do know that this field may be the best 16 teams we’ve seen in the tournament in a long, long time.
That said, I’m keeping my eye on Cornell. There’s something about this Big Red team that feels, well, due. And talking about X-factors, is there a bigger personality than Mike Schafer in all of college hockey right now? This team is making its third consecutive NCAA appearance. That’s as good a combination of intangibles and experience as any team possesses right now.
And back-to-back ECAC championships would be mighty interesting.
