Brian Leetch accepts the Conn Smythe Trophy as Stanley Cup playoff MVP in 1994.

Their stays may have been brief, but college hockey has its mark all over this year’s NHL Hall of Fame class. Brett Hull and Brian Leetch each had short, yet remarkable, college hockey careers before heading to the make their impact elsewhere. And as members of the iconic 1996 U.S. World Cup team, they will forever be remembered fondly by those who follow the college game so closely.

Hull, playing for Minnesota-Duluth, was the last college player to score 50 goals — an incredible number, even given the higher-scoring era. The pros weren’t sure he could handle the NHL at first — him not being the most adept skater, and so on, but soon his sniping skills were unstoppable in the NHL as well, as well as his mouth.

Leetch was dominant at Boston College for one season, before heading off with the 1988 U.S. Olympic team. In short order, he was leading the Rangers, winning the Rookie of the Year honors then a couple of Norris Trophies as the NHL’s top defenseman. And in 1994, became the first American to win the Smythe Trophy as playoff MVP, leading the Rangers to their first Stanley Cup in 54 years.

Also inducted was Lou Lamoriello, and his legacy in college hockey goes deeper than either of the two players. Lamoriello, the former coach and then-AD at Providence, led the charge in creating Hockey East, when five teams split off from the ECAC to form the new league in 1984. The team that wins the Hockey East championship is now awarded a cup in Lamoriello’s name. He continued that legacy by being one of the first GMs to sign a lot of ex-college hockey players. His willingness to do that, when most of his peers were not, was part of the reason for the Devils’ edge, which led them to three Stanley Cup championships. He paved the way for teams to not be afraid of guys like Brian Gionta, and it has worked out for everyone. Lamoriello has a reputation for surliness and penny-pinching behind the scenes, but any time I’ve been able to talk to him about college hockey — whether at a World Cup or the draft — he’s been cordial and forthcoming with information.

Add Steve Yzerman and Luc Robitaille into the mix — two class players, with outstanding skills — and this is a Hall of Fame induction class for the ages. Congratulations to all on a well-deserved honor.

It’s hardly a secret now. Former North Dakota coach Dean Blais — a two-time NCAA champion — is returning to college hockey.

The Nebraska-Omaha program will get an infusion of enthusiasm and — very soon — talent. Expectations should ratchet upward, and Blais will hold everyone accountable from Day One.

It’s somewhat surprising in a way. New Omaha athletic director Trev Alberts has dropped some hints about making sure the school can afford the guy he decides to hire to run the hockey program. Blais is likely not coming cheap, but his pricetag was obviously not too high for UNO.

Nor should it be.

Omaha is a solid market, and it’s one this university can tap into with the right coach. While Blais might make a lot of money in his position, he will put a winning product on the ice, and he will do what it takes to make sure the program is successful.

Not only that, but you shouldn’t discount the experiences Blais has had in hockey. Among them was the work he did at North Dakota, a program that is as much a part of its home city as any other in the country. The North Dakota men could play a scrimmage against the Kentucky club team, and it would still sell a large number of tickets at the Ralph. Blais worked every day with a support staff that knows how to market a college hockey program.

In Fargo, he helped build a USHL franchise from scratch, and they just played for the Clark Cup title this spring.

With all this in mind, does UNO’s decision regarding the WCHA become easier with Blais on board?

There’s no question that Blais has a great amount of respect for the WCHA, and vice versa. I remember seeing him in Denver before a UMD game there a few years ago, when he had a chance to catch up with former Blais assistant and current UMD coach Scott Sandelin. Current North Dakota coach Dave Hakstol got the gig after Blais left, and he was an assistant prior to that. You’d be hard-pressed to find anyone within the WCHA who doesn’t respect Blais.

Alberts admits he is learning about college hockey. That said, he is well-aware of the prestige of the WCHA. More importantly, the financial advantage the WCHA offers (for example, their per-school guarantee for the Final Five is much higher than the CCHA’s is for their league finals in Detroit) could really tip the scales in favor of this move. After all, Alberts talked at his introductory press conference about making a bigger deal out of hockey — UNO’s only Division I sport.

This might not be a slam dunk, but it’s as close as you’re going to get to one. Barring a major philosophical upset, I would expect Nebraska-Omaha to join Bemidji State in the WCHA. Not to brag, but it’s a solution I predicted nearly two years ago.

For years, one of the more entertaining college hockey discussions has been: Who will be the next coach at Boston University after Jack Parker? This conversation always has legs because — a) there was a time when Parker seemed closer to leaving (because of flirtations with the Boston Bruins, administrative jobs, etc…) … and b) because there are so many qualified candidates out there.

Parker wound up settling back in at BU, but, of course, he’s also getting older. Various candidates have come and gone since then, BU alumni and/or former Parker assistant coaches.

With today’s announcement that former BU All-American Joe Sacco has been named the new head coach of the NHL’s Colorado Avalanche, that list just got bigger, and more interesting.

Names that used to lead the charge, have fallen off. Current Massachusetts head coach Don Cahoon, a BU player in the early ’70s, is not appreciably younger, relatively, than Parker at this point. Blaise McDonald, a former assistant, now head coach at Massachusetts-Lowell, has not distinguished himself, necessarily. Buddy Powers, former head coach at RPI and Bowling Green — same thing. Former assistant Brian Durocher now is head coach of BU’s women’s team, and seems ensconced there.

In the current sweepstakes lead, many consider it to be current top assistant David Quinn, a BU alum and one-time first round NHL pick. Though he is currently a candidate for Nebraska-Omaha’s opening. But he has the experience, and, perhaps, at 42, the right age.

Another lead name is BU alum Mike Sullivan, formerly head coach of the Boston Bruins. He didn’t take the amateur coaching route, like others did, but he had a long playing career, then went into coaching the AHL and quickly got the Bruins job, before losing it after a couple of years. This is akin to the route Ted Donato took at Harvard, although Donato had even less head coaching experience.

Which brings us to Sacco. Sacco also had a long playing career, a brief stint as an AHL head coach, and now the NHL.

BU may ultimately go with people who have stuck around the college game, which would keep Quinn at the forefront. But by being BU alums and NHL head coaches, Sullivan, and now Sacco, immediately thrust themselves into the discussion as well.

For all the concern about what could happen to Alabama-Huntsville in the near future, and for all the gloom and doom over its attempt to find room in the CCHA … the more it’s investigated, the more it might make sense.

However, this is only because of Nebraska-Omaha’s potential departure from the CCHA for the WCHA.

See, we’ve been part of the uproar here. We wrote recently that the WCHA’s open courting of Nebraska-Omaha, as a way of making Bemidji State’s WCHA entrance more palateable, was very unseemly. After all, if the WCHA was truly only trying to do what was best for college hockey as a whole — and bring in Bemidji State in order to save that program (with the impending dissolution of the CHA) — then how could it claim that while also robbing another conference of one of their teams? At best, it was a 50-50 proposition, from the big picture view of college hockey.

However, maybe not.

Huntsville’s longshot bid becomes a lot more intriguing vis-a-vis UNO, specifically. Huntsville has been labeled a longshot because of the distance from CCHA schools. In this economy especially, flying schools to Huntsville is an expense most schools don’t want.

When the discussion swirled around Bowling Green’s potential demise, replacing BGSU with Huntsville was a costly difference.

But in terms of UNO, there is no cost difference. And this is the huge key.

A check of Google Maps shows that the driving mileage distance from Detroit to Omaha, Nebraska, is 732 miles. The driving distance from Detroit to Huntsville, Alabama, is only 663 miles.

True, the airport situation may be trickier, but the end result may be no more expensive for CCHA teams.

So perhaps UNO to the WCHA, while a rough “see ya later” to the CCHA, may be the one scenario that is best for college hockey right now.  Let’s face it, everyone’s between a rock and a hard place, but at least there is some semblance of a solution that would benefit everyone, somewhat — and potentially save two programs.

Update: And, as UAH SID Jamie Gilliam points out, Huntsville was just named the top place to live!

You probably wouldn’t believe it if I said that I practically predicted that the Frozen Four would turn out this way, but I did. I only wish that I had actually predicted it.

Shortly after the NCAA tournament field was announced, I mentioned to Adam Wodon that there were more than a handful of teams that had been idle during conference championship weekend, having crashed out of their conference tournaments a week early. This year, a full quarter  of the field did not have a game in the week before the NCAA tournament began thanks to tournament losses: Vermont, New Hampshire, Miami, and Ohio State. Adam then casually added Bemidji State to the list, although their week off came after the early CHA championship tilt.

I probably wouldn’t have noticed or even cared if not for a piece I wrote in this space two years ago following yet another first round exit by St. Cloud State, this time to a Maine squad that had concluded its regular season and Hockey East tournament by losing four consecutive games to UMass, getting a week off between the Hockey East quarterfinals. Head coach Bob Motzko later pondered on his radio show about the significance of having a week off.

It happened again to the Huskies last year, when they were knocked off by Clarkson – who had been upset in the ECAC quarterfinals by Colgate.

This year, three of those five teams advanced to the Frozen Four, and a fourth, New Hampshire, got an opening round victory and very nearly made it four for Frozen Four.

This isn’t even the first time Miami has earned an NCAA win following an idle week – in 2007, while Maine was resurrecting a dismal end to their season with a trip to St. Louis, the Redhawks squeezed into the NCAA tournament and upset New Hampshire in Manchester for their first ever victory in the national tournament.

Is it fair? Motzko asked an open-ended question on that show, pondering whether the NCAA ought to require that teams advance through the first round of their tournament to be eligible for an at-large bid. Such a rule in place this season would have left those four teams home and been a benefit to Wisconsin, Minnesota, Boston College, and St. Lawrence. Think last weekend would have shaped up differently?

Did Vermont, Miami, and Bemidji State have an advantage in having a week off? Possibly. I suppose it depends, in the Catamounts’ and Redhawks’ case, on what’s important. Was a league title important to them or not?

I drew a comparison today between college hockey and European soccer (hang on a second, trust me on this one). For those unfamiliar with international club soccer, teams have multiple competitions that they engage in during the year – usually, a domestic league, a domestic cup tournament, and for the very best, the continental championship tournament. In this sense, you could compare the regular season conference games to the domestic leagues, the conference tournaments to the domestic cups, and the national tournament to the Champions League. In Europe, it’s a bit different as all three competitions typically take place simultaneously throughout the year, but you still see that teams sacrifice positions and success in one or more of these competitions in order to find greater success in another.

Perhaps the same holds true in college hockey. Would a team sacrifice standing in the league in order to get a better draw for the playoffs? It’d be hard, but I’ll bet they would if they could. Would a team that expects a bid to the NCAA tournament hold something in reserve during the conference championships? Perhaps.

Whatever the answer, that advantage is now gone at this stage – all four teams will have had roughly the same amount of time to prepare for battle, and rest assured, the cream will rise. I’m not going to make any predictions, really, but if you needed much more indication that this may be Boston University’s tournament to lose, consider that they had to beat two well rested teams to reach the Frozen Four – and were the only team in the bracket able to do it at all.

It’s been a season where there have been a lot of very good players, and no definitive obvious Hobey picks. It’s going to be interesting to see who wins that award, and we still have our own Player of the Year pick coming up.

Our 2008-09 All-CHN Teams reflect the difficulty in coming up with a decisive group. Our staff placed their votes, and we came up with a consensus. Here are my personal thoughts — feel free to chime in, argue away, and call me a dope. Y’all have never actually needed that invitation to do so in the past, however.

Ryan Stoa — He was not named a Hobey finalist, but should’ve been. I felt he was the forward who most impacted the game every time he was out there. Minnesota had its problems this year, but no moreso than Wisconsin, and Jamie McBain was a Hobey finalist despite having one of the worst plus-minus ratings on the team, minus-8.

Ian Cole was the other non-Hobey finalist to make our First Team. You almost have to pick a Notre Dame player somewhere. Goalie Jordan Pearce has great numbers, but isn’t necessarily spectacular. This is not a knock on him — he doesn’t need to be. The forwards are all-around solid everywhere, but they spread it around. Teammate, Nathan Lawson, was named CCHA Defensive Defenseman of the Year. But Cole seems to be the most complete package of any defenseman I’ve seen.

David McIntyre stood out to me because he was one of the nation’s leaders in plus-minus despite playing on a sub-.500 team. That’s hard to do. Matt Gilroy is, of course, a Hobey finalist, and needs no defense — but his numbers aren’t great. I think his play goes beyond the numbers. He’s had the numbers in the past. He came to BU as a walk-on forward and took years to learn the defensive side. BU has plenty of scorers, but they are now also one of the best defensive teams in the country. That’s why the Terriers are scary.

Our staff ultimately put BU’s Colin Wilson on the Second Team. I must say, I struggled whether to include him. He led BU in scoring, but on the strength of 35 assists. I tend to value goals much more than points. He’s nowhere near the goal-scoring leaders. Tough to leave a Hobey winner entirely off the list, but as dominant goal scorers, BC’s Brock Bradford, Michigan’s Louie Caporusso, and Minnesota-Duluth’s MacGregor Sharp are tough to top. Of course, Wilson doesn’t have to carry the load, so that hurts him in a sense, with BU’s scoring so spread out. So it’s no knock on him, really. But these are individual awards.

Absent from the list, Hobey finalist Jacques Lamoureux of Air Force, the nation’s leading goal scorer with 32. Tough one, but this the age old debate on what it means to score that many goals in a lower-level league.

Forwards that were hard to pass up included: Corey Elkins (Ohio State) , Jason Lawrence (BU) and Brock McBride (St. Lawrence).

Defensively, it was hard to pass up Michigan’s Chad Langlais and his plus-27.

The goaltending spot was really tough. We mentioned Pearce. Hobey finalist Zane Kalemba of Princeton also was not on the list. But the toughest was what to do with Alex Stalock. Like Stoa, he may be the most physically talented of any goaltender in the country, and I realize his numbers are hurt by playing in a more open system and with a defense that isn’t as strong. And, obviously, his last five games have been ridiculously good, and it led UMD to a historical Final Five win. But Chad Johnson was CCHA Player of the Year, and led the nation in save percentage. That’s very impressive in its own right. Stalock may yet deserve it, with a few more wins here this season. But it has to be picked on a whole season.

Well, this was our projected bracket and discussion of the possibilities, as of last night: http://www.collegehockeynews.com/news/2009/03/21_ncaatournament.php

As you can see, we weren’t far off. We only got tripped up on the switch of Northeastern and Minnesota-Duluth. We can only speculate that this was for attendance purposes, since it deviates from setting up a “true” 2 vs. 7 matchup in the Midwest (Notre Dame-UMD) and 3-6 in the West (Denver-Northeastern).

Of course, the teams were tied in the Pairwise, basically, so it doesn’t matter too much.

Everything else went according to expectation. And you can read about all the rationale, as we laid out, in the article mentioned above.

Further explanation and analysis, and conversation with the committee, is forthcoming.

As for the brackets themselves, here are some thoughts:

Northeast – Manchester

Boston University is the top overall seed, but because of the seeding processes — as we discussed last night — the Terriers have to play Ohio State in the first round. BU should be able to take care of that young team, but OSU has beaten good teams over the course of the year.

So New Hampshire and North Dakota square off in the other matchup. You have to think the Sioux will be rarin’ to go after losing twice at the Final  Five. Then again, UNH has been off a week, and is probably annoyed too.

Midwest – Grand Rapids

Because of the BU issue mentioned earlier, Notre Dame is the beneficiary of facing the lowest overall seed, Bemidji State. Meanwhile, Cornell is banged up, but the program has a strong history of winning first-round games, while Northeastern hasn’t even made the tournament since 1994. Cornell has won at least a game here the last five trips to the NCAAs, but only the seniors on this team have had a trip. That was the year Cornell lost to Wisconsin in triple OT.

West – Minneapolis

Denver faces Miami again, with the matchup of George Gwozdecky and Enrico Blasi. Blasi played for Gwozdecky at Miami. This matchup has happened before in the NCAAs, with Denver winning. So it’s not new, but still interesting.

Princeton, meanwhile, gets the chore of facing red-hot Minnesota-Duluth, and its goaltending star Alex Stalock. Princeton has a Hobey finalist in net in Zane Kalemba. Princeton will play hard and tough, and is better prepared than in  last year’s appearance, but we’ll see how they match up on the big ice against Duluth. Princeton has not played on that surface much, if at all, while Duluth has plenty of experience with it.

East – Bridgeport

This should be a very well-attended bracket. Yale is local, and will draw. Vermont travels very well, and will get people down from nearby Burlington. Michigan, the top seed, of course travels well and has plenty of alums. That leaves poor old Air Force, which will play tough, for sure, and give Michigan a run.

Yale-Vermont is an intriguing matchup. We’ll see how the best the ECAC has to offer all year, stacks up against a fourth-place Hockey East team.

The “Pairwise” is the familiar moniker given to the NCAA’s process of picking and seeding teams for the NCAA tournament. Each year, we break it down six ways to Sunday. On the CHN main site right now, you can see the current Pairwise … read about how it works, and what it all means with the CHN Primer … and even plug in your own results from this weekend’s games and figure out what the final Pairwise would look like, with “You Are the Committee“.

So, here we are, with the running commentary of how the results effect team’s NCAA hopes, ongoing, throughout the weekend.

Saturday … 11:02 p.m. — OK, the games are done. Go to the main site for our final Bracket Analysis — and remember, the Selection Show is Sunday 11:30 a.m. ET on ESPN2 — where you can see how we did.

Saturday … 9:31 p.m. — We (MikeM and I) can’t see how BU would go anywhere but Manchester at this point. All signs point that way. No. 2 overall seed is Notre Dame, no matter what, so we figure they go to Grand Rapids. The No. 4 overall will be paired with No. 5 overall Yale, in Bridgeport. No. 4 will be Michigan or Denver. That leaves Minneapolis for the other one. If Northeastern is No. 6 overall, that means it will be in Minneapolis. That leaves No. 8 North Dakota in Manchester, and No. 7 Minn.-Duluth in Grand Rapids.

Saturday … 8:51 p.m. — Still awaiting some finals. Believe it or not, there’s still too many combos, at least when it comes to seeds. The teams are pretty much all set. Ohio State will be in unless Lowell wins HEA. Miami is No. 13 probably. That means that neither CCHA team can play Notre Dame at No. 2 or Michigan at 3 or 4. So this means BU will be stuck with one of them, as opposed to a “lesser” team in Air Force or Bemidji State. This happened to Cornell in 2003, when it had to play Mankato, and won 5-2.

Saturday … 8:10 p.m. — So the top two seeds overall, either way, are BU and Notre Dame. That means they should be in Manchester and Grand Rapids, respectively. Even though UNH is at No. 9 and could be a second-round matchup in Manchester, the committee hasn’t really cared about that in recent years. If Michigan wins the CCHA, it could get to No. 3, but that’s about it.

Saturday … 6:24 p.m. — The stunned media corps found out minutes later that there was a shootout taking place on the ice for the EAC consolation game. It was completely irrelevant — though I’m not sure any St. Lawrence fans knew this. SLU won it – yawn. Question: Should Guy Gadowski have pulled Kalemba in the shootout to make sure he didn’t get hurt?

Saturday … 6:16 p.m. — Indeed Marsh pulled the goalie. What a little mini-drama that was. Princeton had the puck in the St. Lawrence zone most of the last two minutes, so it wasn’t until late that Marsh finally pulled Petizian. It was the right move. It ends in a tie, and St. Lawrence is done. Princeton moves on. First Princeton tie in 2 1/2 years. Oh, the irony.

Saturday … 6:05 p.m. — OT in Albany. Does SLU coach Joe Marsh know to pull his goalie in OT? Does Princeton coach Guy Gadowsky know not to? We’ll find out which coaches know about the Pairwise and which don’t.

Saturday … 5:39 — Found a scenario where Wisconsin loses out to Ohio State by .0002 RPI. It happens if Yale, Notre Dame and Minnesota-Duluth all win later.

Saturday … 5:37 — If Yale and Notre Dame win, Ohio State hangs onto the comparison with Air Force by a miniscule amount — less than .0001 — and Wisconsin finishes just .0003 behind in RPI.

Saturday … 5:34 p.m. — Wisconsin and Northern Michigan have won consolation games. This helps Ohio State. It looks like the Buckeyes will make it over Minnesota, unless Lowell wins, in which case, OSU is also out. A Cornell win helps even more, but it looks safe even if Yale wins.

Saturday … 3:54 p.m. — Whoops. As Mike Machnik pointed out, that below scenario does NOT keep St. Lawrence out. The tie that would be created at No. 13 between Minnesota and SLU (plug those results into You Are the Committee and see for yourself) would actually go to St. Lawrence. That’s because the committee has been breaking ties in recent years via RPI. So thanks to the person who pointed out that below scenario, but that doesn’t do it. So I go back to what I originally said — that I cannot find a scenario where St. Lawrence wins the consolation and doesn’t make it.

Saturday .. 3:04 p.m. — OK, here’s the results that leave St. Lawrence out even with a win. It does require Lowell winning, and taking the 14th spot away. I thought SLU would be safe at No. 13 regardless, but apparently can slip to No. 14 in this scenario.

• Hockey East Championship game: Mass.-Lowell defeats Boston University.
• ECAC Championship game: Yale defeats Cornell.
• ECAC Consolation game: St. Lawrence defeats Princeton.
• Atlantic Hockey Championship game: Mercyhurst defeats Air Force.
• CCHA Championship game: Notre Dame defeats Michigan.
• CCHA Consolation game: Northern Michigan defeats Alaska.
• WCHA Championship game: Denver defeats Minnesota-Duluth.
• WCHA Consolation game: North Dakota defeats Wisconsin.

Saturday … 1:49 p.m. — So, we’re back in the Albany press room, and let’s follow up with the last post from last night. Playing around more with the wacky Ohio State-Minnesota situation, it appears that things come down — in most cases — to whether Ohio State can flip the comparison with Air Force. Doing so, requires staying ahead of Air Force in the RPI. If Air Force wins Atlantic Hockey, that will require help elsewhere, but the “help elsewhere” has basically no bearing on Ohio State directly, it’s just the way the wacky RPI works, with the strengths of opponents and opponents’ opponents, etc… For example, if Cornell defeats Yale today, it provides a nice RPI boost to Ohio State. Alaska winning the CCHA consolation also provides some RPI “points,” as does a Michigan win over Notre Dame.

We’re talking about splitting minute hairs here. Ohio State, in some cases, beats out Air Force by .0001 in the RPI. These shifts are within a range of .0018 or so. It’s crazy. And it has nothing to do with anything Ohio State or Minnesota is doing directly.

A St. Lawrence win, meanwhile, helps Minnesota, because in most cases, it flips the Minnesota-Princeton comparison in the Gophers’ favor, sometimes by as little as .0001 in RPI.

There is also a crazy scenario where Wisconsin wins the consolation and Mercyhurst wins Atlantic, and somehow that gets the Badgers within .0003 RPI of Ohio State. So that close to getting in the NCAAs. I can’t find any way to actually get Wisconsin in, however.

Someone on the Cornell message board said there was a scenario where St. Lawrence wins the ECAC consolation, Mercyhurst wins Atlantic, and so SLU still doesn’t make the NCAAs. But I have not been able to replicate that.

Saturday … 1:24 a.m. — Just wrapping up things in Albany for the evening. The weirdest thing about this year’s Pairwise, is that Minnesota and Ohio State, two teams that were knocked out by Thursday, are wavering back and forth for the last spot, all dependent on results elsewhere. Their respective RPIs teeter around a few percentage points here and there depending on other results all over the country. Depending on various combos, one or the other makes it. Meanwhile, the only other spot up for grabs is the winner of the Princeton-SLU ECAC consolation. Also, of course, if Lowell wins Hockey East, it knocks out Minnesota and Ohio State. Miami looks safe. We’ll go more into the seedings during Saturday afternoon.

Friday … 11:05 p.m. — Cornell wins in 2nd OT. Princeton and St. Lawrence to play for an NCAA bid Saturday. Princeton gets in with a tie, SLU doesn’t.

Friday … 10:49 p.m. — Minnesota-Duluth stuns North Dakota with shutout win. Bulldogs are IN. Book it. North Dakota, 2 seed at best.

Friday … 10:05 p.m. — Another stunner out East, with Cornell scoring two late goals to force OT with Princeton. The winner gets a bid. Loser has to win tomorrow in the consolation. Meanwhile, BU and BC are 0-0, and teams like Ohio State are sweating that one out. If BC wins, it means Hockey East will get another bid.

Friday … 8:09 p.m. — Lowell stuns Northeastern with a late goal, then a win in OT. This means Northeastern will be a respectable No. 2 seed. A Lowell win upsets the apple cart for the likes of Ohio State. Still looking for a way for the ECAC to get four teams in. It doesn’t look like a tie helps St. Lawrence enough, however.

Friday … 7:20 p.m. — Notre Dame also gets a stunner. It keeps everything lined up with the higher seeds so far. This helps teams like Ohio State, in particular.

Friday … 6:36 p.m. — I’m trying to get St. Lawrence and the 2nd game ECACs loser in the NCAAs – a tie doesn’t seem to help SLU enough. Trying to see if SLU wins the consolation, if there’s any way for Princeton/Cornell to get in … Princeton, in one scenario, misses out by .0006 RPI

Friday … 6:28 p.m. — A stunning ECAC finish. St. Lawrence, poised to win, keep things in line for a possible 4 ECAC bids … and all of a sudden, Yale scores twice in about 20 seconds, both with under two minutes left, to steal the game. This means, the loser of Saturday’s ECAC consolation game, most likely will not get in. As we said earlier in the week — they should agree to tie.

Friday … 5:40 p.m. — I punched in North Dakota winning the WCHA, Northeastern winning HEA, and Yale in ECAC, and none of them were able to pass Denver. Pioneers will be a No. 1 seed for sure.

Friday … 5:33 p.m. — Denver has defeated Wisconsin, eliminating the Badgers once and for all. Denver may have locked up a No. 1 seed. Going to crunch some numbers.

Friday … 3:52 p.m. — Games are about to begin in Albany. The ECAC could get 4 teams in the NCAAs for the first time, but the best chance for that is St. Lawrence beating Yale in this game.

Tonight, the Hobey Baker Award committee will announce the 10 finalists for this year’s award. Here’s my ballot, not necessarily in order.

Matt Gilroy, Boston University, senior, defenseman — The last defenseman to win was Matt Carle in 2006, then Jordan Leopold, when Minnesota won the national title in 2002. Gilroy’s leadership and higher commitment to defense this year, made BU a juggernaut on offense and defense — and by staying another season, he has only raised his stock higher with the pro scouts.

Brad Thiessen, Northeastern, junior, goaltender — Like John Muse last year, Thiessen played every minute of every game so far this season. The Hockey East goaltender of the year has a 2.07 GAA and .932 save percentage.

David McIntyre, Colgate, junior, forward — He didn’t get the nod in the ECAC, and probably won’t get recognized here, but that’s only because Colgate was a 10th-place team in the league. But McItyre was responsible for 25 percent of his team’s offense, with 21 goals and 43 points, and throw in his remarkable plus-18 rating, tremendous for a sub-.500 team.

Brock Bradford, Boston College, senior, forward — Had as many power-play goals (10) as any other player on his team had overall. Finished with 25 goals overall, and, again, if his team was strong this year, he’d be a shoo-in for this list. But with his team playing better lately, it could help him out.

Ryan Stoa, Minnesota, junior, forward — And here’s yet another player with a strong year for a team that struggled. However, Minnesota didn’t struggle as much as BC or Colgate, and Stoa did put up 24 goals and a plus-17. His presence alone was a huge factor in every game, and if his team had a little bit better season, he’d be my pick for the Award, period. Even still he should get serious consideration.

Jacques Lamoureux, Air Force, sophomore, forward — Yet another selection with a caveat involved. He leads the nation with 31 goals and is a plus-20, but he will not get as much credit because his team plays in a weaker conference. Nevertheless, Air Force is a legit top 20 Pairwise team, had some big wins early, and his numbers are so staggering, they are hard to ignore. He had three goals in a two-game series against Bemidji State, and two in one game against NCAA-bound Yale.

Ian Cole, Notre Dame, sophomore, defenseman — On a tremendous, well-balanced team loaded with quality candidates — Erik Condra, Christian Hanson, Kyle Lawson, Jordan Pearce — it’s Cole that stands out. He was the only one of them to be named First Team All-CCHA. He anchors the power play, and was a plus-15, leading the team.

Louis Caporusso, Michigan, sophomore, forward — 23 goals and 23 assists, 10 PPG — a dynamic player on one of the country’s top teams.

Chad Johnson, Alaska-Fairbanks, senior, goaltender — An outstanding .939 save percentage, and led a team with one 10-goal scorer to the CCHA semifinals. First Team All-CCHA.

Colin Wilson, Boston University, sophomore, forward — I guess the No. 1 team in the nation deserves two picks.

Just missing the cut: Jamie McBain, Wisconsin, defenseman; Zane Kalemba, Princeton, goaltender; Carter Camper, Miami, forward; Aaron Palushaj, Michigan, sophomore; Ryan Lasch, St. Cloud State, forward; Chay Genoway, North Dakota, defender; Viktor Stalberg, forward, Vermont.

UPDATE: The list just came out … among my list, Bradford, Stoa and Cole did not make it. Instead, three others from the “just missing the cut” list did: McBain, Kalemba and Stalberg. I can live with that. I was happy to see McIntyre make the list. I don’t mind swapping McBain for Cole. But Bradford and Stoa deserve it over the other two.

It’s that time of year again in the ECAC. Time for league partisans to gather in Albany and complain about how they’d rather be somewhere else. But where else is there that really works?

Every league has teams it needs to succeed in order to have a successful tournament. For the WCHA, it’s Minnesota.  Hockey East has its big four teams – BC, BU, UNH and Maine. In the CCHA, it’s Michigan and Michigan State.

It’s pretty well accepted that there are three teams that draw well enough on the road in the ECAC to be decent draws in Albany. Cornell, Clarkson, and RPI are the teams in question, and the latter has a built in upside in the same way Minnesota is big for the WCHA – the local team.

Let’s take a look at who’s come to the tournament since it moved to Albany.

2009: Cornell, St. Lawrence, Yale, Princeton

2008: Cornell, Colgate, Harvard, Princeton

2007: Clarkson, St. Lawrence, Quinnipiac, Dartmouth

2006: Cornell, Colgate, Dartmouth, Harvard

2005: Cornell, Vermont, Colgate, Harvard

2004: Clarkson, Colgate, Dartmouth, Harvard

2003: Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, Brown

In each year, including this year, only one of Cornell and Clarkson has been present in Albany, and never the big ticket local team in RPI. No Union either, which would also have been a local draw. Vermont in their ultimate season in the ECAC in 2005 could have been a big draw, but the effect was blunted by their basketball team’s huge upset of Syracuse the same weekend.

Now, consider the Lake Placid years. Bear in mind that five teams made the tournament in the later years.

2002:  Cornell, RPI, Clarkson, Dartmouth, Harvard

2001: Cornell, St. Lawrence, Vermont, Dartmouth, Harvard

2000: Cornell, RPI, Clarkson, St. Lawrence, Colgate

1999: Clarkson, RPI, St. Lawrence, Colgate, Princeton

1998:  Clarkson, Cornell, Harvard, Yale, Princeton

1997: Cornell, RPI, Clarkson, Princeton

1996: Cornell, Clarkson, Vermont, Harvard

1995: RPI, Clarkson, Colgate, Princeton

1994: Clarkson, RPI, Harvard, Brown

1993: Clarkson, RPI, Harvard, Brown

Look at that – in every year (save 2001) the tournament was held in Lake Placid, at least two of the big three were present, and all of them were present in 1997, 2000, and 2002. St. Lawrence even makes a fourth big draw in 2000.

Clarkson qualified for Lake Placid every year the tournament was held there except in 2001. They have a large following and the same would have been true if the tournament had been in Albany all those years. Since the tournament moved, the school with that kind of record is now Harvard, which has been at Albany every year but 2007. The difference is pretty stark.

Throw the championship game into the mix and it gets even starker. For a 12-team league, it’s still pretty easy to determine who’s usually going to be vying for the title. Last year’s final between Princeton and Harvard was the first in almost 20 years – since St. Lawrence and Vermont did battle in 1989 – that the title game lacked at least one of Clarkson, Cornell, or RPI. 2008’s title tilt was between two schools notorious for poor turnout.

Since the tournament moved to Albany, it’s been hung with a number of poor-drawing teams each year and has been characterized by the immediate downturn of the one program that would be a big local draw. The only Albany tournament that may have significantly drawn better in Lake Placid was the 2007 edition, due only to the inclusion of both North Country teams.

Sure, you could expand the tournament to five teams again, but that would probably require moving back to the pre-Albany model, whereby two teams missed the playoffs entirely. It probably isn’t going to happen.

This all ignores the other fundamental question that must be asked. If not Albany, where would the tournament be held?

Boston? The league moved out of Boston in 1993 because the ECAC tournament had become more of a sideshow to the bigger, more popular Hockey East tournament, which more often than not featured better teams than the ECAC. Returning to Boston, though the city offers more in the way of fan amenities, would be a return to second-class status – the year’s biggest celebration of the league overshadowed by Hockey East.

Back to Lake Placid? You’ve just moved the tournament farther away from 10 of the league’s 12 schools and haven’t solved the main issue alluded to earlier. True, with Clarkson’s recent resurgence, you’d be able to count on a strong regional contingent, but then again, they didn’t exactly light the world on fire this year. RPI may have a resurgence in the future, but they only won 10 games this season. Better hope Cornell stays where they are.

Let’s not forget that for all of the magic of Lake Placid, it’s a notoriously hard town to get to. It’s at least a 45 minute drive from the nearest Interstate, and in March, those twisting, turning roads through the Adirondacks are not always the safest.

Where else could realistically be considered? It’s the most central location you can find that has adequate amenities. Syracuse? It’s no college hockey town. Rochester? Atlantic Hockey is already there, and besides, it’s farther west than any ECAC school. Bridgeport or Hartford? Come on. New York City? It’d be awfully hard to find open space on the Madison Square Garden schedule in March, given that the Rangers and Knicks are in season, with college basketball’s Big East championships held there as well around that time. Besides that, the tournament would be swallowed up and ignored in NYC.

Let’s face it – Albany makes sense from a logistical and geographic standpoint. Perhaps the Times Union Center lacks the magic of Herb Brooks Arena or Boston Garden, but the lack of energy in the building can hardly be blamed entirely on the city itself. Did someone in the league office break a mirror back when the decision to move was made? It’s been seven years of bad luck ever since.