5:34 p.m. — That is all she wrote. Feel great for the maligned Rick Comley, returning to the final. Feel bad for the maligned Tim Whitehead, who falls short again.

5:30 p.m. — Michigan State’s gonna hold onto this thing. Bishop leaves the net with 1:25 left, faceoff coming up in MSU zone – timeout Maine. Hail Mary attempt.

5:23 p.m. — Only problem with press meal: serving pork on Passover … lowers grade to B-minus. (hasn’t stopped me from eating it)

5:16 p.m. — Attendance of 18,857 is second in FF history to St. Paul in 2002.

5:13 p.m. — Dang, MSU is interrupting the media meal (good one, too – redeems the lousy lunch) … Another goal. Where did this come from? Great first save by Bishop but he left the rebound. Not much he could do.

5:02 p.m. — Maine just botched the heck out of that clear. Good strength down low by MSU. Sparty looked dead early, now they have a first lead. 3-2.

5:00 p.m. — Purcell hits the crossbar, made pile up during Maine PP.

4:58 p.m. — Seats are decently filled up, despite some fears they wouldn’t be. Good passion on both sides. Biggest cheer of the night was still for the introduction of native son Ben Bishop from the locals in attendance.

4:51 p.m. — Second period about to get started. Tied 2-2. So far, things have been solid but unspectacular in St. Louis. But it’s a great venue, with a VIP function literally under the Gateway Arch last night. Downtown scene was a little dead, but it should pick up. Good people, good atmosphere. Typical Frozen Four. OK, back to the game.

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One of the biggest knocks on the Pairwise Rankings is that, especially late in the season when there are fewer permutations, teams can improve their standing by losing games. That flies in the face of every basic competitive tenet in the sporting world – gain by losing.

For example – much of the latter half of the season, it was expected that St. Cloud State would be a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament, but they lost that after two losses at the WCHA Final Five because they incurred losses against North Dakota and Wisconsin, both teams under consideration. Speaking strictly in Pairwise terms, the Huskies probably would have been better off losing to Minnesota-Duluth in the previous week’s playoff series – the Bulldogs would not have harmed SCSU’s record against TUCs, and the Huskies wouldn’t have been able to harm it by losing to TUCs in St. Paul.

They weren’t the only WCHA team that could have possibly benefited from a first round loss. North Dakota could have done themselves a favor by taking their series with Minnesota State to a third game, as it would have likely guaranteed that the Mavericks would remain a TUC for the remainder of the season. The Sioux actually dropped in the Pairwise after sweeping MSU.

St. Cloud’s well-known NCAA difficulties aside, would they have done themselves a favor by throwing the series prior and sitting out a week? Ask Maine and Miami. They didn’t seem to have too much of a problem rebounding from having a week without competition. Did they have an advantage, even if they were both bubble teams until the last moment?

Here’s an idea that was specifically mentioned by St. Cloud coach Bob Motzko in his season-ending radio show this week – simply make it a requirement that a team survive the first round of their league playoffs in order to get an at-large NCAA bid. Coming from Motzko, it may seem like sour grapes given the Huskies’ first round exit at the hands of a Black Bear team which was quickly swept out of the Hockey East playoffs and had to take a week off, but given St. Cloud’s own potential benefit from having done the same, it starts to grow into a rationale for winning.

So what would the effect be? Well, for starters, it would have to determine what to make of the ECAC and CCHA first-round byes. Do those count, or do Top 4 teams in those leagues have to reach the neutral-site tournament in order to gain an at-large bid, or are they eligible based on having passed through the first round?

The second problem is that, under current playoff structures, it would artificially limit the WCHA and Hockey East to five and four teams respectively – and Hockey East sent five teams this season. There’s little doubt that if the “win or else” rule came into being, Hockey East would probably start inviting all 10 teams to their tournament.

Assuming this rule was in place for this season, Maine and Miami would both have been disqualified from the national tournament, and they would have been replaced by Wisconsin and Michigan Tech. Were those teams better qualified for the tournament? There’s certainly an argument that can be made for playing well down the stretch, but the NCAA already scrapped the old “Last 16 Games” element of Pairwise in order to make games in October just as important as games in March.

Imagine the havoc that could be wraught – Alaska-Anchorage was close to knocking off the No. 1 overall Pairwise team, Minnesota, in the first round of the WCHA playoffs. That would have put the Gophers out of the NCAA Tournament, and that’d have been quite a shake-up. But would the series have been as close if Minnesota had more incentive to ensure their advancement to the next round?

Most importantly, the “gain by losing” facet of the Pairwise would be seriously compromised. It wouldn’t eliminate elements like the Sioux scenario above, but it would certainly make that first round important for every team, not just the ones who need a league title to play into late March.

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Oddly enough, the CHN 64 National Title Game ended up being a preview of tonight’s second game. 

Check out the bracket for the Frozen Four results. 

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We have our Frozen Four games set … check out the bracket. I’ll sim these games before the actual Frozen Four to see if we can accurately predict anything. Two teams (BC and UND) made it to the FF, as well as Wisconsin (not in the real NCAA Tournament) and Michigan. 

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Just want to let all of you folks know that the Sat. and Sun. games will be updated tomorrow. I didn’t want to update over the weekend in an attempt to not take away from the real tournament. Look for updates during the day/night tomorrow! 

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Before I share with you the results for the 6pm and 9pm games and complete our first round, I should share with you just how these games are being simulated. I am using the game called, “NHL Eastside Hockey Manager 2007”. You cannot play as college teams in the game, however if you play as an NHL team and are in the offseason, you can schedule tournaments. I basically just schedule an offseason tournament with the Boston Bruins (the team I picked to control) and seven NCAA teams that are in the game with the actual NCAA players (just the names are changed).

For example, Brian Boyle is the game is named Ryan Miskovic, however if you go to BC’s roster and click on that name, you will see Boyle’s career stats.

That is how I get not only a score, but SOG and PP numbers. Just so people know that I am not just pulling numbers out of thin air. Anyway, here are the 6pm and 9pm games to close out the first-round.  

College Hockey News 64

6pm games:
(5) Minnesota State over (12) Alabama-Huntsville, 3-2
(9) Bemidji State over (8) Harvard, 4-1
(5) St. Lawrence over (12) Wayne State, 3-2 (OT)
(2) Clarkson over (15) Canisius, 7-1

9pm games:
(7) Quinnipiac over (10) Providence, 2-1 (OT)
(4) Massachusetts over (13) Sacred Heart, 3-1
(3) Michigan State over (14) Connecticut, 4-1
(13) Army over (4) Colorado College, 2-0

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The 3pm games are done; no upsets this time around.

College Hockey News 64

(2) North Dakota over (15) AIC, 5-0
(4) Maine over (13) Bowling Green, 2-1
(7) Ohio State over (10) Colgate, 4-1
(1) Notre Dame over (16) Manhattanville, 11-1 

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The early first round games on Friday are complete, and we have our first pretty major upset.

College Hockey News 64

(10) Union over (7) Nebraska-Omaha, 4-3 (OT)
(12) Robert Morris over (5) Vermont, 1-0
(2) New Hampshire over (15) Oswego State, 6-2
(6) Alaska-Anchorage over (11) Alaska-Fairbanks, 2-0 

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Sorry for the delay, but here are the 9pm results from the first round of the first day. We should be on schedule tomorrow.

Here are the scores, and once again boxes are on the bracket:

College Hockey News 64

(6) Lake Superior over (11) Brown, 3-2
(6) Minnesota-Duluth over (11) Rensselaer, 6-5 (OT)
(4) Michigan Tech over (13) Air Force, 2-1 (OT)
(3) Boston University over (14) Mercyhurst, 1-0 

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Well the 6pm games are complete before they were even supposed to start! How’s that for quickness! Here are the results – mini box scores are available by clicking the link of each games’ score on the bracket.

College Hockey News 64

(3) Denver over (14) Merrimack, 3-0
(3) Wisconsin over (14) Bentley, 4-1
(11) UMass Lowell over (6) Dartmouth, 4-2
(2) Michigan over (15) Holy Cross, 8-1 

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The 3pm games are complete … the 6pm games will be updated around 5:00 EST because I’ll be on the road. The 9pm games will likely be updated around 12am.

Here are the results for the 3pm games, remember click the score links on the bracket for further breakdown:

College Hockey News 64

(9) Northern Michigan over (8) Cornell, 4-1
(8) Northeastern over (9) Ferris State, 3-2 (2-OT)
(9) Princeton over (8) Niagara, 3-2
(5) Miami-Ohio over (12) RIT, 4-3 (OT) 

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The early games of the first round started a bit earlier than expected because I had a meeting come about. Regardless, here are the results from the 12pm games. The 3pm games should be done this afternoon, and the night games tonight. For those of you that have no clue what I’m talking about, just scroll down a bit.

You can actually click the link on the bracket of any particular game after it is played and you’ll see some notes – score by period, SOG, etc. Here are just the winners:

College Hockey News 64

(1) Minnesota over (16) UMass-Dartmouth, 8-0
(1) St. Cloud State over (16) St. Norbert, 7-1
(1) Boston College over (16) Middlebury, 9-2
(7) Western Michigan over (10) Yale, 4-3

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The NCAA Basketball Tournament has 64 teams, why doesn’t the hockey tournament?

Well the answer is really quite simple – there are not 64 Division-I hockey teams in the country. But, what if you took the 59 Division 1 teams and added the top five Division-III teams in the country?

That’s exactly what we did in the first annual, “CHN 64” – first round play starts tomorrow!

College Hockey News 64

There is a link to the bracket below; feel free to check it out and the games will be “played” on the day in which they are scheduled per the bracket. I am going to do my best to add results at numerous points throughout the day in the order in which they are “scheduled” (i.e. the 12pm games on a specific day updated around 2:30pm, etc.), but the results will be updated at the end of each day at the very least.

The seedings were based on the KRACH rankings, as well as some playing with the numbers to avoid conference matches in the first round (something that we all know actually does happen).

Of course this is all fictional, but feel free to follow along and talk about it here on the blog. I’ll post the results on the bracket as we go along, as well as a score and brief summary of each game on the blog.

College Hockey News 64

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Theresa again live from Pepsi Center for the NCAA West Regionals. Tonight’s game features a rematch of the 2007 WCHA Final Five title game, pitting the University of Minnesota and the University of North Dakota against each other.

7:07pm MST – … and again, as I type that, Chris Porter becomes the hero and skates it around the net and shoves it short-side past Frazee to send the Sioux to the Frozen Four once again. Porter, from Watkins and Jones, at 9:43. 

7:04pm MST – Both teams have had chances, but nothing has broken through yet.

Side note: I’m all for fans supporting their teams, but the guys directly below me doing the non-stop “Let’s Go Gophers” chant are starting to grate on my nerves … 

6:58pm MST – Overtime has been much like the rest of this game – very back and forth action. These two teams are incredibly evenly matched. 

6:53pm MST – Random facts from the first three periods: Sioux outshot the Gophers 29-26; Penalty breakdown: one in the first, 7 in the second and 5 in the third. 

6:49pm MST – Free hockey time is under way … and Frazee makes the first big save, hitting the puck away with his stick as if he were swatting a tennis ball with a tennis racquet. 

6:32pm MST – … yep. Overtime hockey. 

6:31pm MST – 30.3 seconds left in the third, still 2-2. Will we get our first overtime of the Regional? 

6:19pm MST – Robbie Bina goes off for tripping at 12:26 – if the Gophers are going to score, they better do it now … and they do. Barriball from the left face-off dot fires one past Lamoureux. Tie game, 2-2 at 13:11 of the third.

6:11pm MST – HUGE kill by North Dakota on that one. Then, they turn it around and draw a Gopher penalty to go on the power play themselves – Gordon for holding at 9:40 of the third. Still 2-1 Sioux.

6:07pm MST – North Dakota doing a good job of killing this one off so far – two minutes remain out of the initial five. 

6:03pm MST – Radke gets 5 and a 10 for checking from behind – that hurts the Sioux. Penalty served by Zajac, by the way.

5:58pm MST – Reminiscent of yesterday: UND power play, fairly quick goal – Toews from the side of the net passes it to Robbie Bina crashing the net through the slot – 2-1 Sioux at 2:08.

5:57pm MST – A friend in the stands informed me that a BC jersey has been spotted as well.

Wheeler also just went in the penalty box for holding at 1:46 of the third. 

5:39pm MST – Still tied at one at the end of two – Sioux lead in shots 20-18. 

5:36pm MST – Sioux get a power play to end the period – Carman, contact to the head-high-sticking at 19:03. 

5:31pm MST – Gophers have been applying some pressure, but this period is still moving quickly. Case in point: People up here are more captivated by the UNC/Georgetown basketball game in OT than this one. 

5:26pm MST – Kozek roughing and Flynn hitting after the whistle at 15:59. 

5:25pm MST – The Sioux have definitely had more chances in the latter half of this period. 

5:21pm MST – Never thought I’d say this about a Gophers-Sioux game, but this one’s actually kind of boring.

Although, it could only seem that way because yesterday’s games were so crazy …

5:15pm MST – I had to run away for a second so missed Finley for charging, Stoa for interference and a possible Gophers goal that’s under review, but will not stand since the whistle had blown first. The official reason was player in the crease, but still, no goal is no goal – Still tied at one with 10:28 to go in the second frame. 

5:06pm MST – Finley, interference at 4:41. Gophers PP. 

5:00pm MST – Ryan Flynn, MN, two for hooking at 1:57. UND power play.

The official of this game is once again a familiar face for me – Hockey East’s Tim Benedetto. 

4:59pm MST – Second period is underway.

While wandering around during the intermission, I think I’ve realized one of the little-known laws of college hockey tournaments: No matter who is playing in what tournament, there must be at least one fan in an LSSU sweater and one in an RPI sweater (preferably the Puckman one). There was some guy in an LSSU sweater at the Final Five, there’s always at least one at the Frozen Four … coincidence? I think not. 

4:41pm MST – End of one, tied 1-1. Shots 11-6 in favor of the Gophers. 

4:40pm MST – Duncan two for obstruction hooking at 18:40 for the first penalty of the game – PP Gophers. 

4:36pm MST – Frazee just stopped a shot with his face. 

4:29pm MST – Sign spotted at Pepsi Center: “Sioux is a Girl’s Name.” 

4:22pm MST – Carman and Flynn almost combined for a Gopher goal. 

4:18pm MST – Sioux tie it up – Brian Lee fires a shot from the top of the circles that bounced out to the right of Jeff Frazee right to Ryan Duncan who buried at 6:49.

4:11pm MST –  Mike Carman puts the Gophers up 1-0 with a shot that beat Lammy under his right arm. Assist to Mike Vannelli who sent him the pass across the zone at 2:22.

4:08pm MST – And we’re underway here in Denver – Gophers win the first face-off. Predictably, play is even to start off. 

4:05pm MST – More signs you know we’re in Colorado – No matter what sporting event you go to, you are guaranteed to see at least one Denver Broncos jersey. 

4:02pm MST – Starting line-ups, yay!

For North Dakota:
Duncan-Toews-Oshie
Watkins-VandeVelde-Porter
Fabian-Kaip-Kozek
Radke-Zajac-Miller
Chorney-Lee
Finley-Bina
Lamoureux

For Minnesota:
Stoa-Okposo-Kaufmann
Gordon-Wheeler-Barriball
Lucia-Carman-Flynn
Anderson-O’Brien-Bostrom
Goligoski-Vannelli
Peltier-Johnson
Schack-Fischer
Frazee 

3:57pm MST – Signs we’re in Colorado – some guy in a Detroit Red Wings jersey is seen on the JumboTron and half the arena boos. 

3:54pm MST – Still waiting to hear the starting line-ups, but the Gopher pep band already scored points with me by playing The Who’s “Pinball Wizard.”

I do wonder, however, why the Sioux didn’t bring out their band and cheerleaders – MN brought out both, Michigan brought their band … even Air Force brought  both band and cheerleaders though, admittedly, that was the third or fourth time I’d seen their band this season and the first time I’ve seen cheerleaders at one of the hockey games. Still, for a big game, you bring out the big guns (so to speak).

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We are blogging live from the Verizon Wireless Arena in Manchester, NH. The Boston College Eagles and the Miami RedHawks battle for a trip to St. Louis.

5:56p – Benn Ferriero makes it 4-0 BC.

BC 4, MIA 0 – 8:29, 3rd 

5:50p – In Miami’s two third-period power plays, the first unit of Jones, Davis and Kaufman saw little ice time behind the RedHawks’ second unit.  

5:45p – BC looks like they are on their way to St. Louis. Matt Lombardi takes a shot from the slot and while Zatkoff made the initial save, Kyle Kucharski was there to bury the rebound.

BC 3, MIA 0 – 12:12, 3rd 

5:43p – Rooney and Ferriero jsut broke in on a 2-on-0 (that’s right, and they’re killing a penalty), but Jeff Zatkoff came up with the HUGE save sprawling from his right to left to make the pad save. 

5:42p – Mike Brennan goes to the box again, this time for holding and Miami is on the power play.

BC 2, MIA 0 – 14:49, 3rd 

5:32p – As we start the third period, Miami will be on the power play after Mike Brennan took a penalty at the 20 minute mark of the second. 

5:29p – According to an official in the press box, the BC goal was not allowed because the net came off the moorings before Brennan’s shot crossed the line. 

5:26p – We are at the end of two in a game that has seen 44 shots combined for the two teams (24-20 in favor of Miami). The RedHawks will see their season on the line in the third period. Last year, it was the Eagles that eliminated Miami with a 5-0 in the first round of the tournament.

5:01p – It looked like BC had taken a 3-0 lead but it was ruled no-goal, here’s how it happened:
Pat Gannon took a shot from the right boards – Zatkoff made the initial save but the puck squirted back out in front. Matt Price was crashing the net and had another shot and then ended up on top of Zatkoff as Mike Brennan flew in from the blueline and knocked the puck out of mid-air into the net. It was ruled no goal and we will try to get an official to tell us why.

BC 2, UNH 0 – 5:40, 2nd 

4:41p – It’s Rooney again. He steals the puck from Robbins and wraps around for the goal.

BC 2, MIA 0 – 13:48, 2nd 

4:36p – BC takes the 1-0 lead. Benn Ferriero came in on ther right side and slashed towards the middle through Miami defender Brad Robbins and fed Joe Rooney for the one-timer in the left circle.

BC 1, MIA 0 – 16:48, 2nd 

4:17p – End of the first period and we are scoreless. Miami has outshot BC 11-6 through the first frame and Brian Boyle and Nathan Davis were having a long conversation with the officials as they were leaving the ice.  

4:08p – Either a lot of people from Miami flew out last night, or there are a lot of UNH fans still around that are cheering against BC because it sounds like the building is pro-RedHawk. Speaking of the building, we are a about 3/4 full. Jersey roll call (so far): 
Miami
BC
Maine
UNH
Merrimack
BU
Minnesota

That’s all for now anyway

4:04p – And the officials are whistle happy in Manchester – Motherwell (holding) and Filangieri (slashing) are in the box for BC, meanwhile on the otherside Kaufman (hooking) and Steffes (slashing) are in the box for Miami. 

4:01p – Brett Motherwell takes ANOTHER penalty for the Eagles and the RedHawks are back on the power play.  

3:52p – Boyle just went off for obstruction-hooking (his second penalty in the first ten minutes) and for Miami, great timing with a TV timeout to rest their top-line of Jones, Davis and Kaufman 

3:45p – Brian Boyle goes off for high-sticking, so now the RedHawks will actually have an eight second power play. Then it will be four-on-four again. SO for those of you not paying attention, that means that the Eagles will have only spent 1:08 of Guerin’s five-minute major actually on the power play

3:42p – Ryan Jones just cut in front while shorthanded and drew a penalty when BC’s Motherwell slashed him. Four-on-four hockey for th enext 2 minutes

BC 0, MIA 0 – 15:45, 1st 

3:39p – Marty Guerin just got a 5:00 major for hitting BC’s Tim Filangieri from behind. He gets to sit down for the night.  

3:34p – The puck is about to drop 

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