UMD advances to the Frozen Four with a 5-4 win over Mercyhurst. More heartbreak for the Lakers, who led 3-2 early in the third. Mercyhurst had lost its previous three NCAA quarterfinals in triple, double, and single overtime. It was another tough ending for the six Mercyhurst seniors. UMD extends its homestand which also included … Read more
No big surprises in No. 1 Harvard’s 5-1 NCAA women’s quarterfinal win over Dartmouth. Harvard proves once again why it was the best in the ECAC this season. The attendance of 1497 was solid, but I was hoping for a little better. It was up from Harvard’s 2005 NCAA quarterfinal, the triple overtime win over … Read more
Congrats to New Hampshire, the first team into the Women’s Frozen Four with a 3-2 overtime win over St. Lawrence. One story line of this game that stands out is the play of seniors Sabrina Harbec for SLU and Sadie Wright-Ward for UNH. Both were conference players of the year as sophomores, but never quite … Read more
The National Collegiate Women’s Ice Hockey committee made two controversial decisions on Sunday. One involved selecting Dartmouth over Clarkson as the last team in the tournament. The other was to abandon the practice of avoiding intraconference play in the NCAA quarterfinal round in order to save money on travel costs. I will discuss each below. … Read more
The NCAA tournament pairings are in, and it’s a surprise. Dartmouth at No. 1 Harvard Wisconsin at No. 4 Minnesota St. Lawrence at No. 3 New Hampshire Mercyhurst at No. 2 Minnesota-Duluth All games will be Saturday. This is a departure from past precedent, as the committee had previously showed a preference in avoiding intraconference … Read more
This post begins USCHO’s blogging for the women’s National Collegiate Tournament. Be sure also to check the women’s page for recaps of both the ECAC and WCHA tournament tonight. In the coming weeks, USCHO will also have coverage from at least two of the NCAA quarterfinal sites and the NCAA Women’s Frozen Four in Duluth. … Read more
I was just thinking as I watched Michigan State celebrate its Frozen Four win over Boston College — wasn’t that exciting last year when the Wisconsin men and women both took home NCAA titles in the same season? Why was that “double” not repeated this season? The Michigan State women did not have the same … Read more
Wisconsin State Journal Capital Times Duluth News Tribune Boston Globe Adirondack Daily Enterprise New England Hockey Journal Harvard Crimson Daily Cardinal  Badger Herald And of course, check the USCHO.com women’s page for all of our tournament coverage.
For more women’s hockey coverage from around the nation. Chu wins the Kazmaier: Boston Globe Capital Times New England Hockey Journal Adirondack Daily Enterprise NCAA final game previews: Capital Times Wisconsin State Journal Duluth News Tribune
Here are some other views of the NCAA semifinals from around the nation: Boston Globe — Wisconsin-SLU Recap Boston Globe — Schaus and Stack Feature Duluth News Tribune Wisconsin State Journal New England Hockey Journal — Wisconsin-SLU New England Hockey Journal — BC-Wisconsin
USCHO will have a recap of Wisconsin’s epic quadruple overtime win over Harvard sometime today. Here are some other links in the meantime: Recapand Quotes from Wisconsin Athletics Recap from Harvard Athletics Wisconsin State Journal Wisconsin Journal Sentinel A few other thoughts: There seems to be plenty of confusion about save records out there, due … Read more
So the pairings are up: Harvard at (1) Wisconsin St. Lawrence at (4) New Hampshire Boston College at (3) Dartmouth Minnesota-Duluth at (2) Mercyhurst As mentioned in previous editions, this was the best bracket in terms of avoiding intraconference matchups, but not the best in terms of bracket integrity. This is the first time the NCAA had to … Read more
In the end, all the drama between the BC-UMD selection turned out to be irrelevant, as all the top seeds won their conference tournaments. As discussed in earlier posts, given the closeness of BC-UMD and Wisconsin-Mercyhurst, I see no reason why the NCAA committee would not swap the two teams, leaving a bracket as follows: … Read more
For anyone looking for recaps of the Hockey East Semifinals and CHA Final: From Foster’s: UNH 2, UConn 0 Providence 3, BC 2 From Erie Times-News: Mercyhurst 4, Wayne State 1 USCHO will have writers at the Hockey East and WCHA finals on Sunday.
It may seem counterintuitive that Boston College jumped Minnesota-Duluth in the Pairwise Rankings for the No. 7 spot after BC lost to a Providence and UMD lost to Minnesota, given that Minnesota is a higher-ranked team than Providence. But UMD’s lead over BC was really an aberration — a result of an advantage in Records … Read more
Now that we’re one week away from NCAA selections, I’ll go team-by-team across the top eight, and examine the best and worst each team can do in the Pairwise Rankings, which mimic the NCAA selection criteria. As mentioned last week, aside from NCAA autobids given to conference tournament winners, the top eight is set. I’ll … Read more
Much has changed since my last NCAA Selection discussion two weeks ago.The biggest development — there is now a gap between the top eight teams and everyone else. Minnesota, a top eight team for most of the season, is now in the same situation as Princeton, Ohio State, UConn — the Gophers have to win … Read more
I missed one playoff tiebreaker scenario that was realized on Saturday. Clarkson would have won the tiebreaker for sixth place in the ECACHL against Yale had Colgate stayed ahead of Princeton. However, Princeton passing Colgate meant that Yale, who beat Princeton, took the sixth seed ahead of Clarkson, who had only tied Princeton. So the ECACHL Quarterfinal … Read more
This post will contain a run-down of all the conference tiebreakers. For the ECACHL and WCHA, who conclude play next weekend, I’ll run down who would win some of the key tiebreakers for playoff seedings. I’ll wait until next week to discuss Hockey East and the CHA. ECACHL St. Lawrence vs. Harvard (2nd-3rd place) — … Read more
So here’s the current state of the PWR, with about a month left to go before the NCAA selections: Rk Team               GP W- L- T Win% Rk    RPI Rk PWR 1 Mercyhurst         28 25- 1- 2 0.9286 1 | 0.6208 1 | 16 2 Wisconsin          30 25- 1- 4 0.9000 2 | 0.6105 2 | … Read more