College Hockey Update:  What an amzing NCAA Tournament run by Yale, and what an amazing tournament we had this year!  Yale came into the tournament only because Notre Dame beat Michigan in the CCHA Championship game, knocking Michigan out of the NCAA  tournament; had Michigan beaten Notre Dame, they would have been in the tournament, and Yale would have watched it all from home.

Instead, Yale went in as the last at-large bid, and the 15th seed, seeded only above Canisius, which had won the Atlantic Hockey Tournament Championship, taking one of the five auto-bids into the tournament.

And yesterday Yale played another fantastic, blistering-fast, relentless-attack-style of game that got them to this point in the tournament.  Talk about a team hitting the peak at the right time!  This game was great in many, many ways.  It gave us two teams that had never been there before, and the first first-time winner since Minnesota-Duluth in 2011.  It also gave us an all-ECAC championship game, and it gave us a battle for the national championship played between two schools connected by one single street, Whitney Ave., 7 1/2 miles apart, as it runs from New Haven into Hamden, CT., connecting the two campuses.  The only time the championship had been played between two schools located more closely together was in 1978, when Boston University beat ‘Boston College, and these two schools are connected by Commonwealth Ave., as it runs from Boston University out to the suburb of Newton, MA., and Boston College.  Add to this, the icing on the cake for the game:  Quinnipiac had beaten Yale three times out of three games this season, outscoring them by a total of 13-3.

The game summary is provided by our co-publisher, Jim Slaughter:

The game started out, and played through the first period featuring amazingly fast skating by both teams.  It ended deadlocked at 0-0, and was absolutely a draw in my mind.  Both teams were playing great hockey.

In the second the momentum shifted to Qunnipiac early in the period.  They had several great chances early to mid period but could not convert.  There was a big scramble at the Quinnipiac Bobcats net during a power play at 11:00 with many chances for Yale, but the Bobcats held on with great defense by their goalie.  The second period was marked by amazingly intense play by both teams.  Both goalies played amazing hockey with save after save by both goalies on power plays.  The second also featured great penalty killing by Quinnipiac.  As the second period wound down, Yale’s Gus Young grabbed the puck which had just been cleared by the Bobcat goalie, and he shot to the net from out near the point.  Yale’s Clinton Bourbonais deflected the puck near the crease, sending the puck between the legs of the Bobcat goalie, making a surpise Yale goal with only three seconds left.  Wow!

The third period was crunch time for Quinnipiac, and they opened the period with great intensity, but Yale held up well under the Quinnipiac assault.  There was great skating both ways in the early part of the period, and both teams look very fresh.  Then then Yale freshman forward Charles Orzetti, of Wyckoff, NJ, shot from out near the point, and got then followed the deflected puck, and shot off the rebound, coming in from an almost impossible angle, with 15:25 remaining on the clock. The goal deflated Quinnipiac momentarily, but then they came back hard  with a great offensive onslaught against Yale, but no goals resulted.  Lots of tough play back and forth ensued, and then Yale scored a breakaway goal by senior forward Andrew Miller with 10:54 remaining, making it 3-0.  That goal seemed like the final nail in Quinnipiac’s coffin, although the score was much more lopsided than the game had been.  Quinnipiac’s coach pulled the goalie with about seven minutes left!  Yale responded very quickly with an open net goal on a long, easy shot by junior forward Jesse Root, making it 4-0, which marked the end of the scoring, giving Yale the national championship.

Yale played an incredible game to take the championship over a really great Quinnipiac team that just couldn’t quite close the deal.  Quinnipiac beat Yale three times during the season but it’s the fourth meeting that counts.  Yale must be one of the great Cinderella stories in college hockey history.  Malcolm should be MVP.

Thanks, Jim!

This was only the fifth shutout in the championship game in the 66 years of the NCAA Hockey Tournament.  Yale ends the year with a 22-12-2 record, the fewest wins for a national champion since Minnesota in 1974.  Yale entered the tournament ranked #15 in the country, and to win this national championship, Yale won four games, beating the teams ranked #1, #2, #3, and #7.  They certainly earned this on a hard road.  This is also the first national sports championshp for Yale in any sport.  What a year!

Our Pool

Well, as I said, we would have a pool champion, even though it didn’t seem possible.  Not only did a large number of teams picked by a majority of our participants go out in the first round, but no one picked Yale for anything, and they went and won the tournament.  This made for some very funny looking brackets this year.

So what happened?  We had one entrant, Nick Cruz, who did very well in the first round, with six correct picks out of eight, and then he did very well in the second round, with two correct picks out of the Frozen Four, for a total of eight correct picks.  There were also two, John McLean and Dave Ramsey, who had seven correct picks in the first two rounds.  And to make it very interesting, we had three with six correct picks, who also had Quinnipiac in the final game, and Quinnipiac as the winner.  These three, Debra Bogosian, the artist formerly known as Kaycie, and Jim Ryan, all stood to end up in a three-way tie for the win, if Quinnipiac won the final game, by virtue of the extra point given for picking the winner — they would have had eight correct picks for eight points, plus the extra point for nine.  However, it didn’t shake out that way.  So with Yale’s win, this year’s pool winner is Nick Cruz, a 2012 graduate of Loyola Marymount University, a 2008 graduate of Bellarmine College Prep in San Jose, and a former player on the Loyola Marymount Club Hockey Team in the ACHA Divison II, and a former player on the San Jose Sharks 18 and uner AAA junior team.  For more information on Nick on Loyola Marymount’s hockey team, click on this link:

http://www.lmuicehockey.com/Player%20Profiles/Alumni/NickyCruzProfile.html

This total of 8 correct picks is the second lowest total in fourteen years, including the first three years, in which only twelve teams were in the tournament, and only 11 games were played:  In 2002, Charles Wienbar won with only 7 correct picks, but there were only 11 games played, not 15.  In addition, Charles picked the winner that year, and received the bonus point, for a total of 8 points, same a this year’s point total for the winner.  In 2000, the winner, Ellen Comley, also had eight correct picks, and a total of 8 points, again, out of only 11 games played in the tournament.  In the fifteen game era, the lowest score total for a winner, prior to this year, was in 2009, when Seann Sweeney had 9 correct picks, but also had the winner, making his point total 10.  At any rate, we do have a winner, and congratulations to you, Nick.  Your Frozen Four hooded sweatshirt is on the way to you.

Final Standings In Our Pool are (Entrants are listed according to the number of correct picks out of fifteen possible — since no one got the winner, no one got the extra point — this is also the number of points out of sixteen possible points):

8   NCruz   Winner

7   Bogosian, Kaycie, McLean, Ramsey, Ryan, DShymanski

6   RCruz, Fairbrother, Ide, Pastor, Reichel, Smigielski, Speare

5   BBettendorf, MBettendorf, Holte, Huberty, Krajan, O’Conell, Rarden, TShymanski, Sweeney

4   Allen, Cattermole, Kramer, O’Brien, Peterson, Slaughter, GSchreacer, JSchreader, Wienbar

3   Sell

2   OSchreader

What a fantastic year for:  College Hockey, the NCAA Tournament, the ECAC, and teams such as Yale, Quinnipiac, Union College, UMass-Lowell, St. Cloud State, Miami of Ohio, Niagara, and Canisius.  Next year there will be no CCHA; the WCHA will be totally different, will include Alabama-Huntsville,  and will probably be headed up by Mankato; two new conferences, the Big Ten, and the NCHC, will be formed, and will have plenty to prove after the showing in the NCAA Tournament this year by the teams that seem to be their leaders; Hockey East will add Notre Dame, and the ECAC and Atlantic Hockey will continue on.  It will be a whole new landscape, espcially with what Yale and the ECAC just demonstrated and proved this season.  Should be very exciting to see how it unfolds.

That’s all for now.  Stay tuned, and go Terriers!

— Tom