At first glance, it’s not clear what the Colorado College Tigers will be playing for Saturday.<\/p>\n
The obvious answer is the Broadmoor Trophy, the symbol of the WCHA playoff championship. The Tigers earned that right by beating Minnesota-Duluth 4-3 in overtime Friday, a game CC never led until Brett Sterling’s game winner 7:18 into the extra period.<\/p>\n
That propelled the WCHA’s regular-season champions into a matchup with either Minnesota State or Minnesota, the opponents in Friday’s second semifinal.<\/p>\n
But how much does the title matter? The Tigers’ win essentially guaranteed them a No. 1 seed in the NCAA tournament, a favorable position for any team with aspirations of winning it all.<\/p>\n
“We never talk about that as a team, because it’s a distraction,” CC head coach Scott Owens said. “[But] I’m thinking at this point that we’ll be No. 1 or No. 2 overall [in the NCAA selection criteria], and we’ll be rewarded with the right seed for the kind of season we’ve had.”<\/p>\n
And besides the WCHA championship itself, for the Tigers there’s still more.<\/p>\n
“We’ve never won [the Broadmoor Trophy],” said Owens, who noted that the trophy’s namesake, the historic Broadmoor Hotel in CC’s home of Colorado Springs, Colo., is a powerful motivator. Tiger hockey had its birthplace there in 1938, when the hotel turned its riding academy into an ice rink.<\/p>\n
“It would be a real honor,” he said.<\/p>\n
And with an NCAA top seed apparently sewn up, the Tigers’ fortunes could rise or fall on the performance of rival Minnesota. The Gophers, who are currently positioned for a second seed in the NCAAs, will host the West Regional at Mariucci Arena next weekend.<\/p>\n
If the status quo holds, a literal reading of the NCAA’s guidelines on seeding of the tournament suggests that Colorado College might have to face Minnesota in its own building to reach the Frozen Four.<\/p>\n
Before conspiracy theorists get up in arms, it should be noted that the alternative isn’t much better for the Tigers: a one seed at Yost Arena, home of tournament-bound Michigan. With ECAC power Cornell and at least one Hockey East team — possibly New Hampshire or Boston University — looking like top seeds as well, there’s no way the Tigers would go all the way East.<\/p>\n
Of course, this would be less relevant if CC hadn’t shown its resilience in rallying to beat UMD, which seemed to be a team possessed. The fifth-seeded Bulldogs had already pulled one upset against North Dakota Thursday. They also held a 3-2 lead after two periods, and were unbeaten in 18 games this season in that situation.<\/p>\n
But CC pulled out the win with a combination of old and new talent. The “old” was Hobey Baker finalists Tom Preissing and Peter Sejna, who combined on Preissing’s WCHA record-tying 22nd goal of the season to tie the game in the third period.<\/p>\n
The “new” was Sterling, who has outperformed expectations en route to a berth on the league’s All-Rookie team as part one of the best freshman classes in recent memory.<\/p>\n
“[Sterling] definitely knows how to score goals,” said Joe Cullen, the league’s Defensive Player of the Year. “He’s in the right place at the right time.”<\/p>\n
There was more to it than those three, of course.<\/p>\n
“There’s a certain calmness about this team,” said Owens, who praised his players’ character in the comeback.<\/p>\n
That’s a trait which will be tested again Saturday, and then next weekend in either Ann Arbor or Minneapolis.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
No. 1 CC storms toward the NCAAs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":140328,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n