Parting Final Five Notes

Many Questions Abound with College Hockey Changes

Once again, the WCHA Final Five displayed high quality hockey in a great arena. The championship game, a 3-2 2OT North Dakota win, was just the crown jewel of this year’s tourney.

The absence of the Gophers and Badgers was noted in discussions about the new WCHA when Bi6 Ten hockey starts. Some will say that attendance was good and there is no need to worry, but there are some interesting questions and points that become evident when one digs deeper.

• How much of the attendance was UMTC fans who pre-purchased the Final Five “season” ticket? The crowd for Thursday’s first game was OK, and then fell off the charts for the second game. Second period of the UAA-CC game was maybe 6,000 (official attendance for Thursday’s single session was 13,131). There was never near 10,000 in the arena at one time by our estimate. 

The tournament is the cash cow for the WCHA. UND fans arguably have the greatest numbers of fans who travel to the Final Five. Can they be relied upon to carry the ticket load?

• Can a new WCHA afford to rent the Xcel Energy Center for three days? If the fans don’t come in large numbers, the league cannot possibly pay for the premier arena in Minnesota. 

A solution might include making the tournament into a traveling venue to school arenas. But that too would likely not bring in the money that the WCHA needs to run. 

Another solution would be to make the tournament smaller, a four team tournament, and add back in the third place game. Every other 12 team conference has a four team tournament, some with and some without the third place game. The third pace game ensures two games for each team and would likely increase traveling fans. 

So far the questions have centered basically around money, and that leads us to the last question:

• Who will televise the tournament and will they pay as much for the rights? Right now FSN televises the tournament which is natural because they also televise the Gopher games. Take out the Gophers and what do you have for television? It is doubtful that a network will pay as much to televise a tournament without UMTC and UW in it.

A main reason to create the Bi6 Ten is for more usage of BTN (Big Ten Network). Will the Gophers be exclusively on BTN for Bi6 Ten games? Will FSN cover college hockey anymore?

The landscape of college hockey will change when the Bi6 Ten forms. How exactly it will affect the new WCHA is still in the questions to be answered. It will be interesting to see how the WCHA morphs its identity and eventually its tournament to succeed in the new landscape.

Final Five Moves on to Broadmoor Trophy Game

Waiting and reflecting. Items on the Bulldogs fan’s to do list, along with get outside because the snow is retreating.

But the Final Five goes on with out any maroon and gold.

Some thoughts about the tournament so far:

• Anchorage outplayed and outshot CC. In the end, and where it actually counts, the Tigers scored more goals. 4-2 was the final
• Friday’s games went as expected. Denver had little trouble with Bemidji who had “67 minutes taken out of our tank” tonight according to coach Tom Serratore after Thursday’s win over UMD. North Dakota did get a lift from getting Danny Kristo back from injury and needed all of it to take down CC 4-3. Kristo scored the first goal of the game, welcome back.
• With the way things are shaking out, the WCHA could quite conceivably have five teams in the NCAA Tournament: North Dakota, Denver, Nebraska – Omaha, Minnesota – Duluth and Colorado College. That is the way PWR may have it, but the committee may not want that many from one conference. CC is likely the last entrant from the WCHA if five are taken.
• Total attendance to the new Final Five will be interesting. When the final numbers come out, we will give our opinion about where the Final Five and WCHA are headed.
• Tonight Denver takes on North Dakota for the Broadmoor Trophy. It might be good for UND to lose one, but maybe they don’t have to. Maybe they can just keep winning all the way back to Saint Paul and the National Championship. That would be 13 wins in a row, and that could prove difficult for any hockey team. So let’s keep it short and say that the Sioux will win their second straight Broadmoor Trophy.

UMD Falls Flat in Saint Paul

Bemidji State Uses Survival Hockey to Earn OT Win 3-2

Only one Minnesota team could move on in the Final Five. Unfortunately for Bulldog fans it will not be UMD, and that’s the way they played.

The Bulldogs got out to a quick start scoring two Connolly goals, Jack then Mike, with a Beaver goal sandwiched in between. Result was a 2-1 UMD lead after the first. Good omen…usually, as UMD was undefeated when winning after one period. Was.

The second period had a brutal pace to it. Both teams were missing with many turnovers and copious amounts of neutral zone play. “UMD really took it to us, but we were only down by a goal (at the end of the period),” said BSU coach Tom Serratore who referred to the Beavers as playing “survival hockey” multiple times.

The third period started out with a flurry of action for the Beavers when they scored early and kept UMD bottled up for t most of the period.

Kenny Reiter kept the Bulldogs in the game with his penalty shot stop at 15:31 of the third. But that lift was not enough to jump start the listless Bulldogs. That is until the last minute of the period when the top line for UMD swarmed and had arguably their best chances of the period. Still, they came up empty and headed to overtime, a place both teams have been many times (12 for BSU and 13 for UMD prior to tonight’s game).

Overtime didn’t bring any urgency on the part of the Bulldogs minus a first shift outburst. It looked as though both teams didn’t want to make the mistake to end the game. But it was a UMD penalty that brought on the power play that lead to the Beavers goal at 6:12 of OT.

It was pretty obvious to us watching that UMD just wasn’t hitting on all cylinders, like many times throughout the season. “we came in and did what we had to do, take the lead, got the second (goal),” said alternate UMD captain Mike Connolly who scored a short handed goal in the game. “We came out pretty flat (in the third) and we were never able to recover.” Pretty damning for a team that has aspirations of a national championship, but the most truthful comments by a player we have heard in quite a while.

So where does this leave the Bulldogs? They know that they will play next weekend in the NCAA Tournament when it is win or you are done. “The one thing about theis team all year is that when they’ve had their backs against the wall, they’ve responded the right way every time and I expect our team to do the same,” said UMD coach Scott Sandelin. “For us it gives us some time to rest a little bit.”

Rest and focus is what this Bulldog team needs at this juncture of the season. The team has to win four in a row to reach their ultimate goal, the NCAA Championship. Four wins hasn’t happened since November when the Bulldogs reeled off five straight wins against North Dakota, Michigan Tech and Wisconsin.

So let’s put out faith in a resilient team, some rest and another four game win streak.

Final Five Starts Tomorrow

Two "Play-in" Games on St. Patrick's Day

The eve of the Final Five has me scrambling tying to get ready for the games, including a preview, albeit brief.

It is difficult to remember that UMD is declared in the NCAA Tournament, so says USCHO. Final Five is an excitement time, and the Bulldogs should keep honing their skill getting ready for the next tourney. At the same time, they can lose, rest and reload for next weekend. But let’s wait until at least Friday.

As much as wonks have said Sadelin is a coach who gets his team playoff ready, the same can be said for Serratore, coach for Bemidji State.

The bottom line of this game is UMD has the scorers and the depth to win this one. The Beavers have the defense and that is usually important this time of year. In case, the Bulldogs have too much experience and fire power and will win. And let’s not put overtime out of the picture here, it is very likely.

In the second game, a surging Anchorage team faces a resurrected Colorado College.

CC is resurrected because they took the best-of-three series against Wisconsin after losing the first game. CC’s feat is a highly unlikely scenario for the WCHA playoffs, but they did it. Does it give the Tigers a lift? No, it wears on them.

In juniors, playing multiple games a week is normal, but in college that is very rare. CC playing three last weekend and coming back on Thursday will sink them. Not to diminish the Seawolves who are on their own 5-0-0 streak. UAA win in the late game.

This will be an interesting Final Five with the new six team format and the absence of UMTC and UW. What we do know is the hockey will continue to be good.

PWR Primer, Saint Cloud Devils and Fighting Sioux Re-dioux?

Looking at the calendar, we are a few days more than two months to the WCHA Final Five. That fact alone should instill a sense of urgency in all the teams wanting to make the NCAA Tournament, especially UMD after last season’s poor showing in the second half.

The Formula for Getting Into the Tournament. With sights set on the prize of a trip into the NCAA’s, we will focus on the PairWise Rankings (PWR) for the rest of the season for rankings and use the PWR at USCHO. The PWR is a mimic of the selection criteria used to pick the 16 teams for the NCAA Tournament. Keep in mind that the five conferences get an automatic bid for their tournament winner.

UMD, though idle this past weekend, moved from #6 in the PWR to #2 tied with North Dakota. Why? I don’t know, but it must have something to do with Bemidji becoming one of the Teams Under Consideration (TUC) for the NCAA Tournament. TUC are the teams in the top 25 of the Ratings Percentage Index (RPI) that ranks all Division I hockey teams. Tired of the acronyms yet? And we haven’t even gotten to the math…which is a mystery to almost everyone. And even if it wasn’t Bemidji, other teams are right on the bubble of being TUC’s and rankings may depend who is in or out of the TUC when the rankings are accessed.

Every game counts, but in the PWR system, some count more than others. From here to the end of the season, games against TUC teams are especially important. That list is long for UMD the rest of the way out and it starts this weekend with Wisconsin coming to Duluth.

The news coming out of Saint Cloud is not looking good. As it was written here, Hepp left for the pro ranks and Mosey was dismissed. It was also said here that Hepp was going to be dismissed, but was given the chance to sign. Further, newly reinstated David Eddy was going to be a healthy scratch for the series against MTU. Mosey action was reportedly for an incident at the Florida tournament, but we kept that all of the actions were for the incident. The story can be read here.

Now we learn that indeed Hepp was going to be dismissed prior to his signing. For the Eddy angle, the “third player involved” was not named, but who makes a newly reinstated player who was scoring in his first two games a healthy scratch? What is more disturbing is that the incident likely stemmed from alcohol consumption that the coaching staff had to know about as reported here. Are there any standards in Saint Cloud? I guess that they dismissed two guys and made them take the fall for lack of supervision by the coaching staff.

When will the Circle End? The Sioux name fight has gone to the government where it will again become a problem for UND and the NCAA. The Grand Forks Herald story is here.

Just give it up and save time and energy and pick a new name…or just stay North Dakota with no nickname. What is being forgotten is the other sports are still looking for a league home. The league that will take them have the condition of dropping the name. Hockey may be important, but it is not the only sport.

End of an Era: Final Five

The changes previewed this past season are now official concerning the Final Five along with some unexpected changes that start tonight.

Starting with the unexpected, at least for us here at the HighHorse, is that UMD is the last team to win the old Broadmoor Trophy. Starting tonight, a new Broadmoor Trophy will be awarded to the winner of the WCHA Tournament. The new trophy is a cast likeness of the Broadmoor Hotel which hosted 11 NCAA Ice Hockey Championships between 1948 and 1969 in their Broadmoor World Arena along with being the home ice of the Colorado College Tigers.

The main part of the announcement was to confirm the format of next year’s Final Five. The name will remain, but instead of referring to five teams, it now describes the five games in Saint Paul for the WCHA Playoff Championship. The WCHA achieves this change by adding a game to Thursday’s quarterfinals and eliminating the third place game.

The first round will not look unfamiliar from other years. All WCHA members will enter the first round and top six seeds will play at home in best-of-three weekend matches. After the first round, the Final Five will again commence at the Xcel Energy Center in Saint Paul.

Starting next year the six teams in the Final Five will be placed into brackets prior to the weekend starting. The Gopher Rule is still in place and the brackets will be made to have the Gophers playing in the late game Thursday and Friday if they make it in both rounds. The Gopher Rule was created to bolster attendance.

The new schedule at the Final Five is to have two games on Thursday tentatively starting at 4pm and the second at 7:30pm. Team #3 will play team #6 and Team #4 will play Team #5. There will be one ticket needed for both games of the session and just as other years, the losers are out of the tournament.

Friday’s games will look the same as other year’s with a 2:00pm game and a 7:00pm game. There are separate admission tickets for each of the games. New to the Friday games is that the loser of each game is done for the tournament with the elimination of the third place game.

Saturday will then only have the Broadmoor WCHA Championship game.

Additionally, representatives from the new WCHA teams, Bemidji State and Nebraska – Omaha, spoke about their excitement to join the league and to be in Saint Paul next year for the Final Five. Only time will tell who is at the X next year.

Rankings and A Prayer. Jayson Moy of USCHO stated in his blog:

If Maine wins Hockey East or Union wins the ECAC or Michigan wins the CCHA or RIT wins Atlantic Hockey or Ferris State wins, Minn.-Duluth is eliminated. Yikes.

Sacred Heart has won already tonight and Michigan is on their way to winning. With 10 minutes left in the third Michigan 2, NMU 0.

Thinking about a season wrap article…

New WCHA Preview Weekend

The Bulldog schedule rolls on outside the WCHA this weekend. The opponent is Bemidji State who will be on the UMD schedule next year as a member of the 12-member WCHA. University of Nebraska – Omaha is the other newcomer for next year. A home and home series will start tonight in Bemidji and move to the DECC Saturday.

The Bulldogs are truly on a roll after the new year. Since the start of 2010 UMD is 5-1-0 and 4-0-0 in the WCHA winning their last 5 conference games. Meanwhile the Beavers started out fast, but have run into some bumps over their last six games going 2-3-1 highlighted by being swept at home by Minnesota State University – Mankato, tying Western Michigan and losing their first CHA game last weekend to Niagara.

With the diverging routes of the two hockey teams meeting this weekend in Northern Minnesota, I have to say that UMD will sweep BSU. Until UMD shows me different, I can’t see them losing. They are on that type of roll that could go for many games. That being said, one must be guarded to not overlook the nonconference opponent (they are more than just nonconference as they are #7 in the PWR). Wisconsin is the next WCHA opponent who is also a hot team, but it is BSU first.

A Look Into the Future. An article came out this week discussing the new 12 team WCHA playoff format on USCHO. The Final Five name will live on is the current plan. So six teams in the Final Five like 11 teams in the Big Ten? It is explained that it will be the Final Five games, thus eliminating the 3rd Place Game as has been requested for years by WCHA coaches. The story goes on to say two games would be played Thursday with the top seeds getting byes to Friday when two more games will be played before the Championship is played Saturday. We will have to wait for final word, but this is likely the best for the WCHA.

Around the WCHA this Weekend:

Denver at Wisconsin: This is the marquee match-up of the weekend. Denver is trying to regain first place from the Bulldogs and Wisconsin is attempting to continue their rise in the standings. It should be a good series with teams that will likely meet again in the playoffs sometime. This time we will see a split.

Colorado College at Alaska – Anchorage: CC will get back on track this weekend with the possibility to tie UMD in the standings. This looks good for CC on paper, but with it in Alaska, this will be a 3 point weekend for CC.

Saint Cloud State and Minnesota (home and home): If SCSU wants to prove that they belong in the upper half of the WCHA, this is the weekend to make that statement. With their rival neighbor for a series, stakes and emotions will be running high. The other obstacle for the Huskies is the Gophers are on quite a streak of their own going 8-2-1 in their last 11, but those teams all are all in the lower halves of their conferences. This one has all the makings of a split, but look for each team to win on the road.

North Dakota at Cornell: It is getting late for the usual North Dakota second half push. Playing outside the WCHA may get them on the winning track, but it doesn’t help them move out of 6th place in the WCHA. The Sioux will continue the WCHA nonconference success with a sweep.