Good luck, guys! The Sioux and the Eagles are probably the two hottest teams in the nation right now. I can't wait for next Thursday!
The talent has been shifted to the west for some time now, and I don't think this weekend will be much different.
Each of the last two years, the splits among the important leagues (CCHA, ECAHL, Hockey East, WCHA) were 7-7 in the tournament and 2-2 in the Frozen Four between the eastern and western leagues. The final USCHO poll (pre-tournament) was also evenly split between East and West through the top 6, 12 and 18. The only significant trend I see this year is that CCHA hasn't seen this much post-season success in a while. They hadn't sent a team to the Frozen Four since Michigan in 2003, and if MSU beats Maine on Thursday, it will be their first representitive in the title game since 1998.
6 of the last 7 winners have come out of the wcha. Two years ago the final four was 4 wcha teams. If I pull down a list of drafted players and where they play. It's completely top heavy wcha. I looked at the players from the ND v. Minn. game, to see who had top prospects. They almost had like 20 players drafted in the first two rounds on the ice. A million years ago when I played college hockey top teams had two or three players that might make the jump to the NHL. Now in the wcha, if your not in the top half of the central scouting report coming into your freshman year your probably expected to struggle your first year. I'm not a Minnesotan but the boom of talent coming out of that state recently is giving the wcha a huge shot in the arm in recent years.
Why not? That year they had to move some teams around if I recall, to avoid intra-conference games in the opening round. Of course you don't want to see that every year, but with the no intra-conference games in round one deal, after moving seeds around, if all four regional winners are from the same league, so be it. I need to get ready to apply for seats for next year in Denver. April 1. In 2009 it's ten Metro stops from me so that's a given.
My sis lives near Denver, we'll be there. Can the Sioux make it 4 in a row? UND is in the act of renegotiating Hak's contract right now.
Best of luck to North Dakota. Even though they're one of our two big rivals, I hold a certain amount of respect for the Sioux that I will never hold for our rival to the east. True hockey school, true hockey culture....
Thanks, adam. It just hit me when I drove by the Ralph on the way to work that we are out of here tomorrow. Now I'm really excited to leave. Gotta go get the better half a new Sioux fleece pullover sometime this morning. Good thing I don't have a boss, I'm not doing much at work today.
This is an insane final 5 minutes of the UND-BC game! That was a weak call by the ref on the elbow and it's gonna cost the Sioux the game.
All I was able to watch was the 3rd period of MSU-Maine, where it seemed as if the refs had swallowed their whistles. Did they take them back out for the 2nd game?
Wow. That was our first trip to the Frozen Four......and we will be back! What a great weekend. It's fun to see fans from all over the place. Although it didn't end as we wanted to, it was great to interact with die hard hockey fans everywhere we went. I'm glad that Duncan won the Hobey. He has got to be the most humble player I have ever seen......he still won't take credit for anything that he accomplished this season.
7 outta the last 10 FFs. 5 Championship games. 1 Title. York is class all the way, shame that they came up short. It just means that Spring Football is in full swing...
I hope to be there. Bad overall day for Boston teams on Saturday. I went to Chicago to see the Revs, they lost. I got back to the hotel bar, just to see the Bs, the Cs, BC, and the Sox also all lost. Yuck.
