College Hockey Update:  Today in the final game of the Northeast Region in Worcester, MA, Quinn Hughes scored only five minutes into the first to give Michigan a 1-0 lead, and seven minutes later a BU goal tied it at one apiece.  But Tony Calderone scored a power play goal only three minutes later to give Michigan the 2-1 lead going into the break.  Only two minutes into the second, Brendan Warren scored to extend the Michigan lead to 3-1, where it stood for nine minutes.  Eleven minutes into the period, Patrick Curry scored for BU to close the gap to 3-2, and that’s how it stood going into the second break.  Four minutes into the third, BU scored again to tie it at three apiece, but Jake Slater scored just three minutes later to give Michigan the 4-3 lead.  With four minutes to go, Jack Becker regained the puck in transition and passed to Dexter Dancs who went into the BU zone along the right side boards.  The BU defenders were on that side when Nikolas Boka quickly entered the zone, slipping from right side to center, and in a defensive breakdown, he got past the BU defenders and was able to get near the net and fire one in, nearly point blank, to make the score 5-3, Michigan.  BU added an extra attacker but couldn’t capitalize on it.  With two minutes remaining, Nick Pastujov got the puck away from BU and took a long shot down the ice into the empty net to make it 6-3, Michigan, which was the final score.  Michigan advanced to the Frozen Four in St. Paul Minnesota on April 5th to play Notre Dame.

Was this an upset in our pool?  Depends on how you look at it.  Twelve took Michigan to win this game, and eleven took BU to win this game, so not it’s not a huge upset there.  However, of the 50 participants, 18 took Cornell to win this game, and nine picked Northeastern.  In this region the participants were pretty well divided on who would win it to advance to the Frozen Four, but Cornell did have the plurality of the picks.

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

— Tom