Running College Hockey Thread

Number of D1 college programs is much smaller in hockey than in basketball.

 

Agreed. The comparison was more along the lines of Bemidji was the bottom seed of the 16 teams.

 

Did some research and saw it always has been single-elimination. Used to only be 12 teams with top seeds getting byes.

Congrats to Bemidji, a great story. I guess the blame falls on ND for not being ready to play on Friday. But Bemidji does have a great D-II history, so now I'm going to pull for them so the weath is spread.

Anyone have any idea why there is a 12-day break between regionals and the Frozen Four?

 

They made that move a few years ago to get away from playing the same weekend as the Final Four.

Personally, I think it sucks.

 

My best guess, so it won't have to compete against the men's and women's Final Fours.

 

I don't like the break either, but that's what I've always been told.

 

I used to be Thursday and Saturday of that week and that didn't work either; so they moved it to the following week to avoid conflict with four days of basketball.

 

I would think a Friday-Sunday setup this weekend would work. You play the Friday night doubleheader, then the title game is Sunday afternoon so as to not conflict with the women's final four games that night. But what do I know? I just think a 12-day layoff is awful. You get rusty, no momentum carries over. Still, Frozen Four will be must-watch TV.

 

It used to be Fri-Sat of Final Four weekend. It was changed totally due to the NCAA's desire to promote the women's tournament. Nothing wrong with that goal, but hockey suffers.
Of course, since the regular season is 13 months long, it could be shortened and the tournament moved up one week so the Frozen Four would be the weekend of the basketball regionals. That hasn't occurred to anyone yet.

 

They'd still get overshadowed by the basketball regionals in too many places, is my guess.

 

It will always be overshadowed by basketball, unfortunately. So I guess we hockey fans should be happy that for one weekend it gets the spotlight.

 

Until the '90s, there were only eight teams. I think it was just four back in the '70s (pre-Hockey East).
In the old days, it used to be one semifinal Thursday, the other Friday, the third-place game Saturday afternoon and the final Saturday night. Really sucked for the teams who played Friday night.
Kinda miss the mid-afternoon Thursday semi, though (it's now a straight doubleheader, 5 and 8:30 - I assume BU-Vermont's the nitecap). What if they get something for the first game like the '95 Thursday afternoon game (Maine over Michigan, with IIRC, freshman Marty Turco in the net, in triple OT)?