Lost Weekend

A few thoughts following this weekend's NCAA tourney action:

- As previously mentioned, it was a brutal weekend for prognostication. I went 6-6 and only have two of the Frozen Four teams. The good news is that I doubt if many people had a Frozen Four with BC, Notre Dame, North Dakota, and Michigan and I still could go 3-0 in Denver.

- The Gophers loss to BC on Saturday wasn't surprising. At one point in the second period with the score tied 1-1 it looked like they had the Eagles on the ropes. But following a season-long pattern, they couldn't get the big goal when they needed it. The critical sequence of the game came when Barriball, Wheeler, and Carmen (I think) came down on a three on two. It was a great chance for the Gophs to score and take the lead, but they couldn't make the play. BC then went the other way and scored on a nice two on one passing play to go up 2-1. That was pretty much all she wrote.

The good news is that the Gophers have found a goalie they can rely on and have developed a nice core of young defensemen. It forwards like White and Hoeffel can step up the scoring and the freshmen class delivers as expected, the Gophers should be back at the top of the heap next year.

- The WCHA had a record six teams in the tourney, yet only one reached the Frozen Four. Meanwhile, the CCHA has two teams going to Denver and two more that played in regional finals. Top to bottom, I still think the WCHA is a stronger conference, but I will say that the top half of the CCHA is better than the WCHA. Next year's tourney should be seven CCHA teams, seven WCHA teams, BC, and one of the ECAC teams drawn from a hat.

- The lack of television coverage is a disgrace. The opening weekend of the tourney used to be wall-to-wall college hockey. It was great to watch teams from around the country playing in venues that you don't normally get to see. This year--unless you had the Dish network--we had a total of TWO games available here in the Twin Cities. Not a good way to increase interest in the sport. Thanks NCAA.

- The fact that Wisconsin--a team that finished below .500, sixth in their conference, and lost their two WCHA playoff games--was able to play on home ice and came within an eyelash of reaching the Frozen Four is also a disgrace. I understand the Pairwise rankings and I understand the attendance needs, but it's really hard to defend the integrity of the NCAA hockey tournament when you have something like that go down. Wisconsin probably did deserve to be in the tournament, but they did not deserve home ice.