(above) Several hundred fans welcomed home Bemidji State's hockey team at 2 a.m. after they upset Notre Dame and Cornell to make the Frozen FourNCAA Frozen Four
Boston University vs. Vermont
Bemidji State vs. Miami-Ohio
Boston University vs. Vermont
Bemidji State vs. Miami-Ohio
From: Wall Street Journal
by Darren Everson
As it turns out, March Madness still exists. This manic sports month is still full of heroes and goats, of comebacks and chokes. We've just been looking for them in the wrong place. They're not in the NCAA men's basketball tournament, of course. But there was another playing field on which powers were being sent home by peons: the ice, where three of the top seeds at the NCAA hockey tournament went home.
There is arguably no major event in sports more chaotic than the Division I hockey tournament. By its nature, hockey is more capricious than basketball and football, since one player (the goalie) can have an outsized impact -- for better or worse -- on a single game's outcome.
Result: Three of the four No. 1 seeds in this year's tournament didn't even survive their first games over the weekend. Michigan fell to Air Force, 2-0, due almost entirely to the play of Falcons goaltender Andrew Volkening (Michigan took 43 shots to Air Force's 13); Denver lost to Miami University, 4-2; and Notre Dame was buried by Bemidji State, 5-1.
Denver's loss and even Michigan's actually weren't that shocking -- Air Force, which subsequently was eliminated Saturday by Vermont, came within an eyelash of first-round upsets the previous two years -- but Notre Dame's defeat was the equivalent of Radford dismissing North Carolina by double digits.
Notre Dame, which led the nation in winning percentage and goals-against average, was facing the country's 37th-best team, according to the Ratings Percentage Index ranking system. There are only 58 teams in Division I. But Notre Dame goalie Jordan Pearce got rattled early, giving up the opening goal after a strange bounce off the boards, and the chaos was underway.
There is arguably no major event in sports more chaotic than the Division I hockey tournament. By its nature, hockey is more capricious than basketball and football, since one player (the goalie) can have an outsized impact -- for better or worse -- on a single game's outcome.
Result: Three of the four No. 1 seeds in this year's tournament didn't even survive their first games over the weekend. Michigan fell to Air Force, 2-0, due almost entirely to the play of Falcons goaltender Andrew Volkening (Michigan took 43 shots to Air Force's 13); Denver lost to Miami University, 4-2; and Notre Dame was buried by Bemidji State, 5-1.
Denver's loss and even Michigan's actually weren't that shocking -- Air Force, which subsequently was eliminated Saturday by Vermont, came within an eyelash of first-round upsets the previous two years -- but Notre Dame's defeat was the equivalent of Radford dismissing North Carolina by double digits.
Notre Dame, which led the nation in winning percentage and goals-against average, was facing the country's 37th-best team, according to the Ratings Percentage Index ranking system. There are only 58 teams in Division I. But Notre Dame goalie Jordan Pearce got rattled early, giving up the opening goal after a strange bounce off the boards, and the chaos was underway.
4 comments:
You were up early this morning!**
Just saw this on CHN.
**or maybe I didn't get up early ;-}
Blogging is a perfect cure for insomnia. :-)
Congrats to Bemidji !!! The WCHA audition is going well. :)
But in all seriousness; it's quite a bit of fun to see a few different teams in the Frozen Four this year. I just hope to see BU fall. but that may prove to be unlikely. We will see!!!
Can we trade North Dakota and Alaska for Air Force and Bemidji so they can be in the WCHA?
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