enlightenedbum

March 18th, 2018 at 12:27 PM ^

Saturday/Sunday next weekend.  They're in Worcester, Massachusetts.  Draw is a little better than the other possibility, but single elimination hockey is the dumbest tournament format in sports, so it's basically just luck.

Joined: 06/06/2009

MGoPoints: 64266

Yostal

March 18th, 2018 at 2:14 PM ^

But many of us who grew up in the 64-team field era don't always realize that UCLA had to basically win two games to assure a Final Four spot when they were always assigned to the West Regional.

Yes, they had to win the Pac-8 every year to earn their spot, but when they largely kept the six western conference teams together in a region, it was not as difficult a path, per se, as many other schools had.

Joined: 06/30/2008

MGoPoints: 7659

rob f

March 18th, 2018 at 1:01 PM ^

The four regionals have games staggered over the entire 3-day weekend. Two regions play Friday/Saturday; the other two, including the Northeast Regional at Worchester, play Saturday/Sunday. Survive Saturday and advance to Sunday and we will have a 4pm puck drop. Here's a link to my favorite College Hockey website, CHN: https://www.collegehockeynews.com/ A wealth of information on the CHN site, including tournament pairings and articles about each team.

Joined: 11/11/2010

MGoPoints: 193688

NittanyFan

March 18th, 2018 at 12:35 PM ^

the bracket as a whole, looks like they're favoring attendance over bracket integrity.  Saint Cloud State is #1 but gets the 2nd toughest QF draw per pairwise - and that quadrant as a whole is very tough. 

Motivating factors seem to be Sioux Falls/Worcester attendance and guaranteeing a Minnesota team to the Frozen Four.

Joined: 12/04/2012

MGoPoints: 42810

stephenrjking

March 18th, 2018 at 2:56 PM ^

Attendance is a publicly stated criteria the committee can and does use to place teams. They are required to place hosting teams in their home regional, and they often flip matchups to places where the attendance will be favorable. Note that they prefer to maintain the matchup--Michigan-Northeastern and UMD-Mankato were the proper S-curve matchups, and they kept them in place and simply moved the entire games. That's pretty typical with how the committee works. Guaranteeing a Minnesota team is neither a public nor hidden criteria and was not a factor in determining matchups or locations.

Joined: 03/15/2012

MGoPoints: 20143524

CarrIsMyHomeboy

March 18th, 2018 at 12:41 PM ^

Regional-wise, this was my platonic ideal for Michigan. I wouldn't have minded going to Bridgeport as the #2 to ND's #1, either. Avoiding SCSU and OSU before the Frozen Four is huge.

Joined: 06/30/2008

MGoPoints: 7328

stephenrjking

March 18th, 2018 at 2:52 PM ^

Fans do go to Worcester, because there's always a team or two close by. Selling out is a different story; I suspect you can get tickets pretty easily. If I were you I'd call the Michigan ticket office, which gets an allotment. I don't know for sure and don't have the oomph to check, but I don't believe Worcester sells out for these.

Joined: 03/15/2012

MGoPoints: 20143524

ToledoWolverine

March 18th, 2018 at 1:10 PM ^

This is about as good of a draw as we could have hoped for. Not nearly as plugged in as some of you, but avoiding SCS and UMD is a big positive. Gonna be a great weekend.

Joined: 10/02/2008

MGoPoints: 11886

tlo2485

March 18th, 2018 at 1:35 PM ^

I can't imagine how Minnesota feels. They had all 6 games on the final day go exactly how they had to go (mostly upsets) to knock them down in pairwise. They finished TIED for 12th with Minnesota Duluth, lost the tiebreaker (RPI) .5404 to .5403 to drop to 13th, and then had FOUR auto-bid champs swipe the #13-16 spots for the first time ever. Ha.

USCHO: Out of 64 possible outcomes in Saturday’s conference championship games, only one would have kept the Gophers out of the tournament with the Frozen Four in their backyard in St. Paul, Minn. That’s the one scenario that played out: titles by Air Force (Atlantic Hockey), Notre Dame (Big Ten), Princeton (ECAC Hockey), Boston University (Hockey East), Denver (NCHC) and Michigan Tech (WCHA).

Joined: 08/06/2010

MGoPoints: 7429

Niels

March 19th, 2018 at 3:35 AM ^

Not a huge hockey person but figure that I can take my 5 year old to his first UM game. My question, is there a way to figure out online where UM fans are sitting? It’s not obvious to me based on the ticket website. I’d call the UM office but am flying from Asia all day todayand am a bit concerned tix will be gone. On that latter point, I can attest to the fandom of BU (and NEU) hockey fans and would be really surprised if Sat was not sold out (Sunday if BU or NEU lose I would imagine it would be easy to find tix if you take your chances).

Joined: 09/04/2009

MGoPoints: 3409