College Hockey Update:  First, sorry this is such a late post; second, I’m delighted to have the game summary provided to us by our Contributing Field Reporter, John McLean, who attended the game in person; and third, the pool results and controversy are reported below.

1 John McLean writes:   

Kids beat the Catholics

In yet another NCAA title for a Minnesota-based team at the Xcel Energy Center in St Paul, a very young UMD Bulldog team beat Notre Dame 2-1 in the third of three NCAA title games at the Xcel to be won by a Minnesota team (Minnesota in 2002 and UMD in 2011).  The game was kicked off in magical style with the dropping of the puck by the great 85 year old John Mayasich, one of the greatest all time HS, college and Olympic players.  There also was a very emotional moment of silence for the Humboldt Broncos hockey team.  If you have a hockey stick, please put it out by your front door in remembrance of these fine young men.

Just as they were on Thursday against Ohio State, UMD was led by the combination of captain Karson Kuhlman and winger Jared Thomas, both local products (Esko and Hermantown respectively), and goalie Hunter Shepard.  UMD scored twice in the first period, both off hustle plays by Kuhlman, who helped force a Norte Dame turnover midway through the period at their own blue line and scored a nice wrister off a poke check pass from Jade Miller from the top of the circle.  Then, later in the period, great forechecking by Kuhlman and Thomas resulted in Thomas coming out of the corner with the puck off a turnover and sneaking his shot inside the pipe on Notre Dame goalie (and Mike Richter Award winner) Cale Morris with 1:20 to go.  These first two period goals would stand up as Notre Dame was unable to score until midway through the second period on a nice tic-tac-toe play resulting in Andrew Oglevie knocking one in right in front of Shepard off passes from Cam Morrison and Jake Evans.  Notre Dame made a very strong push behind local product Jordan Gross of Maple Grove from the 11:00 to 6:00 mark in the 3rd but very strong D, led by Nick Wolff of Eagan, among others, helped keep them at bay.

One of the more impressive factors of both this win as well as the game against Ohio State is that when both teams pulled their goalie with roughly two minutes to go, UMD gave up neither a shot nor a sniff of one.  What makes this title improbable is that UMD did it with five freshman D and one sophomore (Wolff).  While UMD’s last title team was much deeper, much credit here goes to Scott Sandelin and his staff for bringing his young players along so fast.  The Bulldogs had five players play on the 20-and-under Team USA bronze winning world junior team who made the most of their season.  While captain Karson Kuhlman certainly earned the Frozen Four MVP which he won, much credit goes to him for his leadership and mentoring of this very young team.  Two weeks before this game, UMD was down in their NCAA Tournament opener 2-0 to a very tough Mankato team before their captain put the team on his back and led them on a wave of 4 tightly contested one goal wins to capture the NCAA Title.  While Kuhlman moves on, expect to see the Bulldogs in Buffalo next April to defend their title.

Thanks John!

What John didn’t detail out was the “cake smorgasbord” that took place after the game both on the UMD bench and in the UMD locker room, as the team has no less than four “cake-belters:”  Nicke Wolff of Eagan; Louie Roehl of Eden Prairie; Matt Anderson of Shakopee; and Nick Swaney of Lakeville.  After an intra-squad spat over which bakery between The Queen of Cakes and Patisserie Margot had the best cake, they decided to just get five cakes from each!

2 The Oh-So Important Pool

According to the rules, as written on the bottom of your brackets, we had a six-way tie for first place in the pool, with nine correct picks each.  The six were Michael Bettendorf, first pool 2002; Mark Krajan, first pool 2006; Emma O’Brien, first pool 2013; newbie Matt Olson; newbie William Roth; and Jim Ryan, first pool 2007.   None of these six picked Minnesota-Duluth to win the tournament, and therefore there is no “bonus point” awarded;” they each have nine correct picks, and nine points, as each pick is one point (except the winner, which is +1 for a total of two).  Time for the tie-breakers:

1.  Did you pick the winner (worth another point in tie-breaker)?  No one had this; still a six way tie.

2. How many teams did you pick to be in the final game (worth another point per team in tie-breaker)?  Krajan, O’Brien, Olson, and Roth each had picked Notre Dame only, for one tie-breaker point each; neither Bettendorf nor Ryan had picked either Notre Dame or Duluth.  So Bettendorf and Ryan are out, and there is a four-way tie between Krajan, O’Brien, Olson, and Roth.

3.  How many teams did you pick to be in the Frozen Four (worth another point per team in the tie-breaker)?  O’Brien, Olson, and Roth each had picked two teams that made it to the Frozen Four; they each get another two tie-breaker points.  Krajan had picked three teams that made it to the Frozen Four, so he gets three tie-breaker points; the tie is broken and Krajan is the winner of this year’s pool.

Congratulations, Mark.  You will be awarded the Official NCAA Frozen Four Sweatshirt, complete with the custom College Hockey Update Pool Winner Logo on the back.  I have your sweatshirt right here, and I’ll be taking it in to have the back screened early next week.  It should be ready by the end of next week; let me know by email if I should mail it to you, or meet you somewhere in San Francisco and hand it to you — you’re still here in the Bay Area, right?

I didn’t research this out, because I had my hands full with other matters, as you will read below, but I am sure Mark Krajan has been in at least two tie-breakers in the past, and it seems as though it might even be three.  He’s come so close so many times, and now he has the coveted prize.

I’d like to point out that Michael Bettendorf was the only participant of the fifty who correctly picked all four of the teams who made it to the Frozen Four.

3 This Year’s Controversy

This is not the first time we have had a winner who did not pick the winner of the tournament.  In fact this is the sixth time.  There have been four years in which on one in the pool picked the winning team:  2004 (won by Denver); 2011 (won by Duluth); 2013 (won by Yale); and 2015 (won by Providence).  But this year we did have a participant pick the winning team.  Dave Ramsey, first pool, 2011, picked Minnesota-Duluth all the way but was so adventurous that he only managed to get a couple of additional picks for a total of six.  He did get the bonus point for the winning team, but his total points only came to seven.  And this is not the first time that this has happened; in 2003 Charles Wienbar picked Minnesota to win it all, but was out-scored in total points by three other participants.  I think we all remember the Great Controversy of ’02 and ’03.

4 The Great Controversy of ’02 and ’03 And The Development Of “The Wienbar Rules”

In 2002 we had a four-way tie with seven correct picks each between Connors, Kramer, Slaughter, and Wienbar, and no real systematic or formal methodology for breaking ties other than the “who scores first/last/time on clock” tie-breaker questions.  When it was all over and Wienbar was the only one who had picked Minnesota to win it, the board met and voted to throw out the tie-breaker questions and to simply award the win to Wienbar, stating at the time,”In a head-to-head tie it just has to go to the person who picked the winner, or the tie would only involve those who picked the winner.”  At the time, Wienbar made a suggestion to consider putting more scoring weight on later picks.  The board said, “This will never happen again.”

Well, the very next year Minnesota won again, and Wienbar was the only one who picked them to win.  But to make matters worse, this time we had a three way tie with eleven correct picks between Kramer, Mike Shymanski, and Speare, where Wienbar only had seven.  Sound familiar?  Charles very actively suggested that we modify the rules (since we had pretty much walked away from them in the previous year) by increasing the points awarded for correct picks made in games played later in the tournament.  The board decided not to do so, to stick to the rules for the purpose of determining the 2003 pool winner, and to consider modifying the scoring and tie-break rules for future years.  In addition, of the three in the tie-breaker, one was my little sixth-grade son who was excited out of his mind that he was going to win.  Somehow he and Speare had the same picks for who scored first and last, and had the exact same difference from the time the first goal was scored.  It came down the very last question, the time the last goal was scored, and Speare won.  My little son Mike was just crushed.  To alleviate the situation, I awarded him a “locker-room tee-shirt” for the winning Minnesota team.  At that time neither the board nor I considered doing this for Wienbar, becuase:  1) He had just won a trophy tee-shirt the year before; and 2) We figured he would probably win two or three more of them without us intervening.  He was hot!

As a result of these two years, the board did change the scoring, to give one extra point for picking the winner, and did formalize the tie-breaker to first work backwards through the bracket, awarding one extra tie-breaker point for the winner, then the finalists, and then the Frozen Four teams, before going to the “first to score/last to score/time on clock” questions.  These new rules were referred to as “The Wienbar Rules.”  It was felt that these new rules would keep the emphasis on needing many picks to win (since it is such short tournament with only fifteen picks), but that it added extra points for later picks in tie-breaker situations, should they arise.  It was also believed at the time that “this will prevent situations such as this from arising any more than once in twenty years.” Well, it almost worked — here we are fifteen years later with another controversy.

5 What To Do With This Year’s Controversy And Ramsey

The board has made two decisions.  First, with the precedent already set with Mike Shymanski in 2003, Dave Ramsey will be awarded a Championship Team Minnesota-Duluth crew-neck sweatshirt.  It has already been ordered, and should be arriving at your house soon, Dave; it acknowledges that you were the only person out of fifty in our pool to get the winner, but it does not designate you as the pool winner, as determined by the rules.  Second, the board has already hired a team of actuaries from Data Science Corporation who will run thousands of Monte Carlo simulations, execute discriminant analysis on the results, and from the most likely results, as determined by those in the plus/minus two standard deviations range, run hundreds of beta-binomial distributions to determine how, if at all, the rules should be changed to come up with a solution that should make this type of situation a true once-in-twenty-years occurrence (if not even less frequently), but still emphasizing a high number of picks needed to win, in recognition of the short tournament and low number of picks in the pool.  Should there be any changes to the rules, you will be notified in the interim, or, at the latest, at the start of the tournament and pool next year.

6 This Year’s Final Pool Standings

Winner, Mark Krajan, by Tie-Breaker    9 correct picks, 9 total points

9 Picks, 9 Points    MBettendorf, O’Brien, Olson, WRoth, Ryan

8 Picks, 8 Points    Allen, BBettendorf, Esposito, Kriesel, Mattson, Nguyen, ORoth, Schwictenberg, Sempere, Thorson

6 Picks, 7 Points    Ramsey

7 Picks, 7 Points    Breen, Cattermole, Fairbrother, Fong, “Oswald,” Rugani, GgSchreader, GnSchreader, JSchreader, Sell, MShymanski

6 Picks, 6 Points    Reichel, Schmidt, Shimshock, DShymanski, TShymanski, JnSlaughter, Wienbar

5 Picks, 5 Points    Bogosian, Cook, Kramer, Michela, JmSlaughter, Speare

4 Picks, 4 Points    Bricknell, Gallus, MacIver, O’Connell, Pastor, Peterson, Rarden

3 Picks, 3 Points    Erdman, Naughton

7 Final Rankings/Final Poll For This Season

This provides the final top-twenty teams, rankings, records, and NCAA Tournament results, if they could all fit on one short little line:

[table id=174 /]

Again, congratulations to Mark Krajan, who stuck with it for many years and didn’t give up.  Thanks to all of you for coming along for the ride.  What a season!  And thanks to my behind the scenes contributors for who know a lot more about hockey than I do, for helping me out.  Especially John “Oswald” McLean for writing the summary of the final game.

So, that’s all for now.  Stay tuned, and go Terriers, go College Hockey!

— Tom