And if you're interested in the USHL

Ask and you will recieve, I was lost about the USHL and it seems I have found the perfect place for updates, a nice USHL blog. He has some great info on the league's games as well as recruiting. Why do we care? Because many of the WCHA teams (and the rest of the country as well) will draft their players and then assign them to these development leagues to mature and adjust to faster hockey. USHL is the Tier 1 league and is basically AAA for college hockey-it's a sweet deal. If you have anymore questions, I'm sure our USHL blogger will be able to help out. See his comment in my previous post about all the recruits in just this past weekends' games.

A look into some future WCHA faces

Saturday night I got the opportunity to check out the Lincoln Stars take on Sioux Falls in the 3rd game of their USHL playoff series. There were numerous players on the ice who we will be seeing in the WCHA shortly. Currently on the Stars roster are; Jason Gregoire who is listed as a 2007 recruit and will play for DU and Steve Shultz who will be joining CC in the future.
Sioux Falls also had numerous players: Nick Dineen, who will be playing for CC, Alex Kangas-a goalie who will be playing for Minnesota. There may have been more but it's hard to find an accurate and up-to-date recruiting site, thanks for the comments updating my lack-of-USHL knowledge. Also, they had a very amusing intermission show with a human slingshot and one small girl that got launched hit super hard and bounced off; fortunately I had my camera with me so take a look!

No warmup games next season

The Gazette announced (parts of) the Tiger's schedule today and it's front-loaded with some tough teams. While the D-1 football teams are pounding D-II opponets, the Tigers will be opening against WCHA regular and post-season champ Minnesota, followed by trips to New Hampshire and North Dakota. It looks like we will find out really fast just how good next year's team will be. Some other highlights include a Thanksgiving home-and-home with DU and a Jan. 19th meeting with North side rival Air Force.

Off season

I apologize to everyone for not doing more updates but between the off season and my crazy client demands for an upcoming ad pitch, I just haven't had the time nor the information to post. I assume most college hockey fans are NHL fans as well so the playoffs will give us some hockey fix. However, since the Avs aren't in the playoffs for the first time EVER, I haven't really been paying too much attention past scores. Well that, and the fact that the games are on Versus (which is not on regular cable in NE, it's "premium digital" crap). So I just watch the highlights. Check out our North Dakota friend for some fun regular off-season bits about college hockey and the NHL.

Michigan State Wins Title

The Spartans were, to me, the biggest underdog in the tournament but seemed to have the most fight of anyone. I'm sitting here watching the BC players crying on the ice and looking like little cry babies (anyone notice the BC player break his stick hitting the goal when State put in the empy netter?!!). Anyway enough of that, Michigan State fought back from 1-0 to score late in the third and take the lead with 23 seconds left in a very exciting third period. The first two were fairly uneventful as both teams fought a physical battle that took 50 minutes to really get going. It's not the WCHA but I'm happy for em, good game and good tournament. One thing of big note, Michigan State was a very gracious winning team, complimenting their opponent and enjoying the win and not getting a big head. To me, that makes me happy that they won. I'll put the links up from the game as they come in later.

ND's Duncan wins Hobey

At least one thing went right for North Dakota and the WCHA. Ryan Duncan walked away with the Hobey Baker award for the best college hockey player in the country. By the way ESPN was talking about BC's team, one would have thought their entire team would have won it! As of Thurday night, it seemed that Notre Dame's goaltender David Brown would have had it because of their steller season, sitting at #1 for the last half of the season. Notre Dame is another team that I can't stand because of their unjustified media attention that seems to follow them everywhere (in football, when was the last time they won a bowl game?!) Air Force's Eric Ehn was also one of the final three. This suprised me because, being a Coloradan, one would think I would know who he was. Nope, never had heard of his Hobey qualities. Just a hunch but maybe the voters suffered from a similar lack of knowledge like me. The National Championship is tonight, pitting evil BC against Michigan State. I'm hoping the Spartans can pull it out because I don't think I could tolerate hearing about BC being national champs all summer long!

Game over for WCHA

It was a battle until the end but the evil east knocked off the WCHA as BC used 2 empty net goals to seal the victory over North Dakota. The end of the game was the biggest moment in this one. Down 1 goal, ND had an empty net and BC cleared the puck with what appeared to be icing. Instead, a BC player (I don't really care about their names) beat the Sioux back and put it in the empty net. Seconds later, North Dakota scored and was within 1 with 16 seconds left leaving all of us to wonder what could have happened had they not be slow on the strange play earlier. BC sealed it off with another empty-netter with 3 seconds left. This leaves the champtionship to be decided between BC and Michigan State. Personally I will be going for State since it's been forever since their last title. The WCHA streak of titles is over at 5 straight. It's too bad but the future is bright for the WCHA and we will be back in force next season to take over Pepsi Center!

Spartans: 4 Bears: 2

My initial instinct and prediction about this game was wrong as Michigan State pulled out a 4-2 win against the Maine Bears. I thought that MS would show some fight and keep it close and they definately did just that. Maine pulled out to a 2-0 lead before the Spartans took over the game and finished it off. Hopefully tonight ND will take a cue from MS and beat the evil team from the East; BC

On the eve of the 'Four

Tomorrow at 2pm Mountain Time the Frozen Four will officially kick of with Maine and Michigan State then followed at 6pm by the WCHA rep. North Dakota and much hyped Boston College. As ESPN does a brief overview of the games, I would love to open it up and see what everyone thinks will happen tomorrow and then Saturday night. Personally, I will pick Maine to take out Michigan State in a close game early. The reason for this is not because I want it to happen (I don't like the east teams that have a media following) but simply because of experience. Maine is consistly in the top 10 each season and has won a National Title recently. However, State does have an experienced coach that will keep it close and I would love to see them pull it out but I think they will be slightly overmatched in this one.
Later tomorrow night I am going to pick the WCHA North Dakota Fighting ----- (they lost their appeal so who knows what they will be next year). This boils down to a hatred of all things BC on all the websites and highlights and wanting the WCHA to win it all again. Also, ND took down a rolling Minnesota team and has really come together late in the year, a team that I personally thought wouldn't even make the WCHA tournament not too long ago. BC plays a weaker schedule and I think will be worn down in a close game, but I'll take ND somewhere in the range of 5-3. I will also pick them to win it all over Maine Saturday night; they will be on a roll and Maine will be tired after beating a pesky up-and-coming Michigan State team. These are my unscientific picks, let's hear yours!

The wait until the NCAA Frozen Four is Almost Over

I know some of us are dying to watch the games this Thursday night and get some more college hockey in before summer starts. I hate how they have this large gap in the tournament but it is understandable because of the basketball madness going on. In the meantime, check out this nice article about college hockey recruiting. I follow the football side of things and thought that was nuts, but they don't sign players to contracts at 14 like the big time Canada teams do, it's crazy stuff. Let's hope the recruiting this past year helps bring CC back into the NCAA Frozen Four next year so we will be waiting the see US play and not a WCHA rival!

Game Previews

It's a little bit of a lull in the college hockey world here for a week. The Frozen Four won't get started until April 5th and with the Avalanche pretty close to dead in the NHL playoff race, hockey is officially on hold for a few days. I will just be happy to see the games on TV since college hockey gets so little exposure. I never have a chane to watch TV during the week but has anyone see any publicity on any other channels for the Frozen Four. Personally, I would make sure to have some sort of commercial on the Big 5 networks nightly to try to pull new people into hockey. It doesn't help that the basketball tourney is taking up most people's time (I personally don't follow it so I have no idea how much people get zoned in). I would love to see the day when the Frozen Four is on ABC during primetime so that everyone can see it, that would be great for the sport.
In antipication of the game, ESPN has put together some pretty good pieces regarding the matchups. BC and ND is up first

Busy Time for Lee Sweatt

During last week's Final Five in Minnesota, there was at least one CC player represented in the tournament. Lee Sweatt recieved the WCHA Most Outstanding Student Athlete of the Year Award riding a 3.8 GPA studying mathematical economics. He also gained All-WCHA Third Team recognition, helped out by his 24 points on the season.
Just as this award was sinking in, Sweatt was given the opportunity to tryout for the San Antonio Rampage, which plays in the American Hockey League and is the "farm team"/ affiliate for the Phoenix Coyotes. His course work is all completed and will walk at graduation in May and then be on his way hopefully for a professional hockey career.

Frozen Four Set

The 2007 Frozen Four is all set to begin Thursday night in St. Louis. The WCHA is left with one surviving team out of 3. North Dakota took out regular and postseason WCHA Champ Minnesota in OT on Sunday night to return to the Frozen Four once again. They are joined by Michigan State (who took out Notre Dame), Boston College and Maine. North Dakota is the clear powerhouse here with 7 national titles (all the rest each have 2) and coming out of a conference that was won the last 5 National Championships and 6 out of the last 7. BC and Maine won in 2001 and 1999 respectively. Michigan State is the underdog of the 4, last winning a title in 1986 but having been to the Frozen Four last in 2001. It will be a great final 3 games beginning Thursday afternoon at 2pm MST on ESPN2 followed by BC and ND at 6pm MST. Personally I am pulling for ND because of the WCHA conference and I hate the east coast teams, if you can believe that I could hate a team from the east haha. I'm excited that the games will be on ESPN2 and aren't going to be in the middle of the day like when CC and DU played a few years back. The final will be Saturday night at 5pm MST on ESPN and hopefully help give college hockey more exposure!

Gophers come back to spoil Falcons upset bid

Air Force came out in full force in their first ever NCAA Tournament appearence and almost got away with a win against the Minnesota Gophers at the Pepsi Center Saturday. It looked like it may happen when AF took a 3-1 lead 5 minutes into the 3rd period until the Gophers woke up and scored three goals to finish off the Falcons and avoid a 2nd straight 1st round loss in the NCAA Tournament, nonetheless to another AHA team. This was an interesting game for a fan of CO hockey simply because it pitted a home town team against the WCHA powerhouse from the north. Personally, I would have liked to see AF win since it was their first time ever in the tourney, but I really like to see the WCHA do well, even if Minnesota has dominated almost everyone this year. At least it's not DU right?!

In other conference news, St. Cloud State was eliminated in the first round, falling 4-1 to the Maine Black Bears on Friday night, leaving the WCHA with 2 surviving teams. When I wrote this entry, North Dakota was up on evil Michigan 7-5 early in the 3rd period.

NCAA Tournament Selection

With the NCAA Tournament ready to start in full force, it's always fun to look at the selection process and drama that some teams had to endure. There are a few things that I have found to be a little off about this tourney. Granted, I'm not a selection process expert and will never try to be, but I have to wonder why the WCHA was only give 3 spots since it is widely considered to be THE top conference in the country and had 5 teams finish the season strong. Based on late season play, Wisconsin should have gotten a bid and even Denver could have been given serious consideration. I know I've seen numerous articles talking about this topic. Hockey East has 5 teams from a conference that is almost universally considered a weaker conference than the WCHA. It just proves the point I have been mentioning since I started this thing; the media are fixated on the teams out east and pass over the stronger WCHA, just because it's not on the E-coast. Another thing that urked me was that two of the best teams in the tourney (North Dakota and Minnesota) are in the same bracket. Yes Denver's Pepsi Center is "WCHA Home Turf", but this bracket also ensures that at least 1 WCHA team will not make the Frozen Four. I can't help but think that is has something to do with the all WCHA Frozen Four a few years back. Seems to me we are getting the short end on this one!

NCAA Tournament Overview

WEST REGIONAL at the Pepsi Center

Semifinals | Saturday

* Minnesota vs. Air Force, 1:30 p.m.

* Michigan vs. North Dakota, 5:30 p.m.

Championship | Sunday

* Semifinal winners, 4 p.m.

NORTHEAST REGIONAL at Verizon Wireless Arena, Manchester, N.H.

Saturday

New Hampshire vs. Miami, Ohio, 11 a.m.

Boston College vs. St. Lawrence, 2:30 p.m.

REGIONAL FINAL

Sunday

Semifinal winners, 1:30 p.m.

EAST REGIONAL at Blue Cross Arena, Rochester, N.Y.

Friday

Clarkson vs. Massachusetts, 12:30 p.m.

St. Cloud St. vs. Maine, 4 p.m.

REGIONAL FINAL

Saturday

Semifinal winners, 4 p.m.

MIDWEST REGIONAL at Van Andel Arena, Grand Rapids, Mich.

Friday

Notre Dame vs. Alabama-Huntsville, 3 p.m.

Boston University vs. Michigan State, 6:30 p.m.

REGIONAL FINAL

Saturday

Semifinal winners, 6:30 p.m.

THE FROZEN FOUR at Scottrade Center, St. Louis

SEMIFINALS

Thursday, April 5

East winner vs. Midwest winner, 2 p.m.

Northeast winner vs. West winner, 6 p.m.

Championship

Saturday, April 7

Semifinal winners, 5 p.m.

Air Force Rollin' with the big dogs

The Post takes a look at AF taking on the WCHA powerhouses

Another alumn making news

Tom Preissing scored a goal for the Ottowa Senators on March 17th to mark yet another CC player making a huge contribution to his NHL team.

ESPN takes a look at the NCAA Tournament

A good look at what will be going on in the college hockey world the next few weeks

It's kind of a big deal

Air Force coach Frank Serratore is enjoying his team's historic season.