What did you do this weekend? Well, I had a front row seat to the NCAA Men’s Ice Hockey Northeast Regional in Worcester. I saw Alaska play BC and Yale play North Dakota on Saturday. And then saw a wild one Sunday with BC beating Yale 9-7 to advance to the Frozen Four in Detroit. Exciting enjoyable game right? Not so for me. I was writing goal descriptions for the games and ended up writing 16 for the Sunday game. 16! The most goals scored in a regional game since the tournament was laid out with 16 teams in 4 regions. Just my luck. Any way, I am rooting for RIT in the Frozen Four. Make Atlantic Hockey proud!
The NCAA Men’s Ice Hockey Championship game is on tonight between #2 BC and #4 Notre Dame. BC reaches its third championship game in as many years, while this is Notre Dame’s first, and the first 4 seed to make it this far. But what if there was another way to determine the NCAA Champion? What if it wasn’t based on play, but looks? So the first ever Ice Hockey Sweater NCAA Championships. From each regional, I will pick the best looking team and move them on to the frozen four, then decide a national champion for this year.
This was the regional that I was at and the only one I saw in its entirety. We have two power houses of college hockey, BC and Minnesota, one new national power in the making, Miami, and one team from an upstart league, Air Force. It is close between Miami wearing their whites with the red shoulder yolk, and Minnesota wearing their maroon ties-up, but Miami wins this one, Minnesota’s yellow helmets lead to their demise.
How is Notre Dame a 4 seed?!?! Well based on some weird formula, ND ended up there, but they are better than that, as shown. In this regional they will also pull the upset and make the finals against Colorado College. I like CC’s away set up, but the whites are not as good, so ND will win. Gotta love that gold dome!
This is a tough one. Wisconsin is playing at home and definitely has a home ice advantage and moves on. And in perhaps the biggest upset, Princeton takes down power house North Dakota. I just love the shield on front and the stripe that goes around the chest a la Montreal Canadians, which is why in a stunner they move onto the final.
If we were to play semifinals, barring the bracket layout and based upon my reseeding, Michigan would take on Princeton in the first. This is the game where the Tigers miracle run comes to an end when they match up against Michigan and their winged helmets. Oddly the idea for the Michigan football helmets were modeled after the Princeton football helmets. Ironic. In the other semi, Notre Dame is still running on those sweet golden helmets and passes Miami into the final. In the final, well see for yourself:
Ice Hockey Sweaters 