NCAA Frozen Four and Regional Site Map 2017-2026
I was curious about the lack of local-ish NCAA hockey playoff sites, so I mapped the Frozen Four sites (yellow) and the NCAA regional hockey sites (red) for a ten-year period beginning in 2017 and going forward to 2026.
Some notes:
- There's a noticeable lack of regional sites in the Midwest hockey hotbed areas of Detroit, Chicago, Wisconsin, and Minnesota.
- The above areas (minus Wisconsin) were given Frozen Fours, however.
- Penn State has hosted a regional five times since 2018 and will host again in 2025.
- Please excuse the rudimentary map (I'm a map noob.)
- I slightly adjusted the locations of sites that hosted more than once to show the frequency better.
MGoBlog writers have long stated that NCAA hockey is run by people who don't know what they are doing. I think that this map proves their collective point.
They do know what they are doing, they just don't care. The format for regionals is absurd. As long as it exists the problems will continue.
March 24th, 2023 at 12:07 AM ^
You know it’s bad when my nine year old was watching the Cornell game and just kept asking why no one was there.
At least Cornell did us a solid and knocked off DU.
Thank you. For a while I thought that ignorance and idiocy at the NCAA was primarily Mark Emmert.
It does appear it’s throughout the organization.
I think Detroit was supposed to host the Frozen Four the year Covid shut everything down.
However, I do agree. The Van Andel Arena in Grand Rapids would be an awesome site to host regionals.
Van Andel has hosted Regionals in the past because I remember taking my daughter there quite a few years ago.
Quick google search says it was 2013
I’m not sure why I don’t remember that. Let’s run it back! Michigan would sell the place out.
March 23rd, 2023 at 11:43 PM ^
Two problems:
1. Michigan has been there and the place has not, in fact, sold out;
2. Michigan is not guaranteed to get there.
The reality is that Van Andel has hosted before, but the most recent year when there were "local" regionals Michigan failed to make the tournament at all, and two regionals within three hours of each other had little in the way of local fanbases and both took a bath. If I recall, the NCAA requires a $150k guarantee plus 80% of the revenue. So the regionals need to draw a lot of ticket buys to work.
The result has been that, over time, regionals local to Michigan have dried up. It's not like the east, which is guaranteed to have two or three local teams in any regional because there are something like two dozen teams within a couple of hours. Out here you're counting on a small handful of teams with big traveling fanbases to make it or its a failure.
The obvious solution is to change the format so that high seeds host. Either four regionals at the high seed, or (my preference) eight home games followed by four home games in the next round. The Yost regionals I attended were among the greatest sporting experiences of my life, in no small part due to the incredible crowd atmosphere. It was unfair, since the high seeds were on the road, but it was also *fantastic*. Why not have 12 games like that every year? Yeah, I guess there would be a couple of duds, but I think most arenas would be seething madhouses in one-and-done hockey scenarios, and at the high seeds, that is an earned privilege.
And lest we think that just doesn't happen anymore, I was at Mariucci for the B1G title game last year, and it was the same this year: Absolutely fantastic. So would it be for basically all these games. Saint Cloud at home? A white-out at Penn State? Who wouldn't want to watch that, instead of the dreary tombs they play in now?
Well, the powers that be wouldn't.
Just to be clear: People say "the NCAA" as if it is a big monolithic entity, but in this case the key decisions for hockey are made by the hockey constituents. Mark Emmert and his ilk have nothing to do with it: it is the hockey schools making choices, and there is some portion of that constituency adamantly opposed to making a sensible change to the tournament format. It's bad. But that constituency also sets standards for tournament admission, which is basically uncontroversial, the Frozen Four arrangement, also successful, and rules, which... well, try again please.
March 23rd, 2023 at 11:54 PM ^
Also, Van Andel hosted a number of times in the old six-team regional format; I attended in 2001, it was terrific. Not a sellout, but you had Michigan, Michigan State, and Wisconsin all sending fans. St. Cloud sent their cheerleaders, but that's another story.
Van Andel hosted again a couple more times with four-team regionals. They had a dud in, I think, 2004, when Michigan got sent out east and a bunch of non-local teams played. Michigan made it in 2005 when we beat Wisco and then gagged away a 3-goal lead against Colorado College in front of 6,000 or so.
I appreciate your insight. I did not know about the revenue thing. There were some very empty arenas yesterday. Home games would be the best. It would just be nice to have a better atmosphere for playoff games.
I mean, I get the complaints. And folks here have been complaining about this for 15+ years.
But, I'm sorry - it's just becoming a broken record. And I really don't understand why Michigan doesn't try to host somewhere/some place themselves.
Yes, PSU (and Miami University before it, in the 2015-2018 era) is continually hosting all these Regionals in Allentown and Cincinnati (Miami was the host, though they never actually participated, for the 3 Cinci regionals). But that's because they're the only ones who are offering to host for a "Midwest" site.
If Michigan hockey fans want change, it's more likely to happen by asking the U-M AD to be proactive and make some Regional bids, as opposed to asking the NCAA to change. The NCAA likely isn't changing.
All the NCAA's gotta do is treat hockey like they treat most other D1 sports. Just do the opening rounds on campus instead of Michigan having to beg arenas to host just so we can get a vaguely close regional for once
March 23rd, 2023 at 11:47 PM ^
Michigan used to offer to host at Yost and it was enormously successful for almost everybody. I think they hosted the 2013 GR regional that was a catastrophe, too. And that was that.
It may be a broken record but just because a bad idea has stuck around for a long time that doesn't mean that the bad idea should keep sticking around.
I think they hosted the 2013 GR regional that was a catastrophe, too. And that was that.
What was the issue with Grand Rapids in 2013 (other than the fact we didn't make the tournament that year)? Honestly I think I checked out once we lost in the CCHA championship game and thus lost our NCAA tournament appearance streak (not to mention basketball was in the middle of a Final Four run)...
Michigan didn’t make it, which killed attendance, AND Toledo hosted at the same time. Far too close at the same time, and because Michigan was hosting GR, they were guaranteed not to go to Toledo. It was considered absurd even before Michigan missed.
You know, the fact that, when we bid back then, we bid Van Andel instead of Toledo makes me wonder if there's something preventing us from bidding Toledo. Like being out of state? Because objectively Toledo is the much better site (unless you live on the West side of the state). It's a very nice arena in a very pro-hockey city that is much closer to A2. I dunno. Doesn't make much sense, although I'll be honest the more I look at things it's hard not to come to the conclusion that Warde is doing a shitty job with respect to the hockey program...
It is quite ridiculous given that Michigan is the state of hockey.
National Champions:
Michigan 19 championships from 5 teams
Michigan 9
Lake Superior State 3
Michigan State 3
Michigan Tech 3
Northern Michigan 1
Massachusetts 12 championships from 4 teams
Boston College 5
Boston University 5
Harvard 1
Massachusetts 1
Colorado 11 championships from 2 teams
Denver 9
Colorado College 2
Minnesota 8 championships from 2 teams
Minnesota 5
Minnesota Duluth 3
Wisconsin 6 championships from 1 team
Wisconsin 6
New York 4 championships from 3 teams
Cornell 2
RPI 1
Union 1
Maine 2 championships from 1 team
Maine 2
Connecticut 1 championship
Yale 1
Rhode Island 1 championship
Rhode Island 1
As much as it pains me to say it, you forgot North Dakota. Tied with (the state of) Minnesota with eight championships, all by the Fighting Sioux...
FTR, RPI had 2 titles so NYS has 5 total
Denver lost to Cornell… 2-0.
Big Red Machine!
Living just north of Toledo,I wish Toledo became regional regular.
I dont know the logisitics of it, but Michigan should just start bidding Toledo constantly like North Dakota bids Fargo repeatedly
IIRC, Bowling Green was the host when it was in Toledo.
Yeah, I'm not sure why Michigan doesn't bid Toledo. If the Huntington Center is ok hosting a regional with BG as the host, they'd have to be ok with us--you know the fans would show up for that being so close.
Especially in light of how the AD dicked around with Mel last summer before finally getting around to firing him, makes you wonder WTF Warde is doing...
Small schools will complain about how playing at home sites is 'unfair' while unironically supporting a system that sees midwest teams play road regionals almost 100% of the time and more than half the regionals are in New England.
Stupid, stupid, stupid system. I will whine about it till it changes
Quinnipiac is a one seed, Harvard is a two seed. What is the group of schools that thinks it's going to be permanently locked out of hosting (but also make the tournament)? Atlantic Hockey? They can't have that much pull!
March 23rd, 2023 at 11:45 PM ^
Niagara has one vote, same as Michigan.
March 24th, 2023 at 10:00 AM ^
I don't know what happens in the backrooms but you can imagine who would be upset about removing some of the high variance from the tournament- Atlantic Hockey, and probably the mid-to-bottom of a lot of the major leagues which aren't likely to be top 4 or top 8 seeds in most years
I kinda like it. I mean, when else would I get a chance to visit Allentown?
March 24th, 2023 at 12:53 PM ^
I've heard that they're closing all the factories down
I should build an outdoor rink and put a bid in to host. I’m sure I can fit the tens of people that show up around my lawn
March 23rd, 2023 at 10:07 PM ^
“If you build it….” I’ll bring a few cases of refreshments for the spectators.
March 23rd, 2023 at 10:28 PM ^
The NCAA sucks but no school in the state has put a bid in to host the regionals since we did for GR in 2013.
March 23rd, 2023 at 10:52 PM ^
This post has been up nearly 3 hours and no mention of Charlie Boys yet? C'mon folks, get with it....
anyone want to overlay the D1 hockey school locations with that map? I always found it odd that with the number of large schools in Michigan and the surrounding areas that it isn't a hotbed - or doesn't seem to be considered for postseason play.
Does someone from the state need to win a title in order to get more local sites? Still really confused about St. Louis...
March 24th, 2023 at 10:08 AM ^
Well, below is the (slightly dated) D1 map.
Basically you have:
- 3 leagues centered around where the new england regionals typically are. Like, all of Hockey East and the ECAC are within maybe 3-4 hours drive of your typical NE regionals. Compare that to how spread out the Big Ten is.
- A cluster of significant programs in Minnesota/North Dakota that makes Fargo, MSP, etc viable.
It really would be smart for MSU, Michigan, OSU, and Notre Dame to try to make Fort Wayne and Toledo regionals happen with some frequency since it's central to all of us but I am guessing the fact that these are routinely money losers results in there being no true midwest regional in most years
What the 2023 NCAA first two rounds could’ve looked like:
Round 1: Top eight seeds host. Canisius at Minnesota. Merrimack at Quinnipiac. Colgate at Michigan. Cornell at Denver. Western Michigan at Boston University. Ohio State at Harvard. Michigan Tech at Penn State. Minnesota State at St. Cloud State.
Round 2: Four highest remaining seeds host four lowest remaining seeds. Minnesota, Boston University and two other highest remaining seeds host.
Frozen Four: Host City - Tampa
Those of us who attended college and graduate schools in Boston/Cambridge, Massachusetts in the late 1960s and early 1970s could’ve been to five Frozen Fours (in those days only four teams made the tournament – two from the east; two from the west) without many travel problems. The hosts were Lake Placid in 1970, Syracuse in 1971 and the old Boston Garden in 1972, 1973 and 1974. I made it to four of those five. In those years, they also played a third-place game during the afternoon before the championship game.
College hockey is run by a small majority of small schools who have very different needs and exist in a very different space than Michigan. There are more Niagaras in D-I hockey than Michigans and Minnesotas, so they can just change every possible dial towards what's best for Niagara. At many of them hockey is their #1 sport, and they've been playing it a long time, and anything they can do to keep the cost of remaining D-I low is worth doing. They don't have basketball and football supporting this sucker--this sucker is supporting the athletic department. They artificially limit the number of coaches and number of scholarships at about half of what a reasonable program should have, because that keeps the bar low for who can have a team.
It's a feedback loop that the small market programs are very happy with: the lower the bar for D-I, the more Rensselaer Polytechnic Institutes can stay "D-I" while not supporting their program on a D-I level, and the more Lindenwoods and Long Islands they can let in the back door, and the larger the small market voting block becomes. One of the reasons that Big Ten hockey fans are so keen on other Power 5 schools creating hockey teams (like when we cheered Arizona State) is to combat this effect of cheap sans-culotte programs getting in, changing the rules to suit them, and then letting more of their lot in, then passing more rules to bring everyone down to their level. They recently added Augustana and are adding back Robert Morris. They call this "growing the sport" and see their work towards greater access as a total good. From our perspective, growing the sport means increasing the number of fans who interact with it, and the number of schools that have programs, not lowering the quality of D-I so that more D-III schools can call themselves D-I.
The other effect going on here is that Northeast Hockey is diffused differently. There's a significant minor league and juniors hockey culture in the Northeast that we don't have elsewhere in the country, and they're all a lot closer to each other, so regional games make a ton of sense for them. Their college rinks (again, because of money) are not very big--2,000 to 2,500 seats--so upgrading to the local minor league rink is a treat, and also an opportunity to get a much bigger gate. They can also expect both teams to come because the actual distances are small. It's akin to what college football was like in the 1880s: Your school had a small field that was alright for hosting a regional game, but if Cornell is going to come to Michigan, you want to play that in Detroit where there are lots of fans who'd be interested in seeing that, and the seats to put them all.
The problem is they like this setup and don't give a flying fuck if it's bad for everyone else, and the sport in general. It's not as big a deal for OSU and Wisconsin because they play in basketball stadiums anyways. But it's pretty silly when we have Yost and Pegula and Munn and Baxter and Mariucci to be moving games to the nearest AHL rink just for the sake of moving them.
This is also the engine fueling the shift towards much older players. They have the easiest requirements in the NCAA for who can qualify, and use the non-pro junior leagues to fill their rosters with 24-year-old freshmen who've already learned they're not going to play in the NHL and just want to get a degree. I think that's actually great for the sport, but it's also an equalizer for a team like Michigan that's trying to live off future NHL players. We're not hearing it here, but there's a lot of pushback on hockey reddits right now about how Michigan and Minnesota can hold onto drafted sophomores with NIL. In the past the argument was all about whether drafted players could play. Again, this isn't about schools asking what's best for the sport (having superstars in your league is good for the sport) but creating the best environment for cheap programs.
Most of all they want to win. In the last decade we've had national championships at Yale, Union, Providence, UMass, NoDak, Denver (x2), and Minnesota-Duluth (twice in a row!). [EDIT: That's the a full list. Yale and Providence were the absolute flukes]. Arguably none of those schools would have won if they had to play best 2-of-3 series. They also would have been at greater disadvantages if the higher seeds hosted games instead of having to play them at distant outposts. The tournament format and randomness of single-elimination hockey are not accidents; they're actions by programs that do not think they will ever have the best teams to *prevent* the best teams from winning every year.
It's a feature, not a bug, that the worst team in the playoff has almost as good of a chance to win the championship as the best team. That's what you want if you're the small market: a direct path to the postseason, and then random results, so you don't actually have to build a good hockey team to win it.
March 24th, 2023 at 10:56 AM ^
Damn this is depressing (not that I disagree with any of it though)...
March 24th, 2023 at 11:01 AM ^
Agree with a lot of this. There are some other factors; for example, it is often explicitly stated that tv coverage is a factor in the choice of tournament format, and ESPN for somewhat obvious reasons likes what it is. Hockey is not a revenue draw for them, and even with home games being a vastly superior tv product, it won't drive enough ratings to offset the extra expense. Doesn't mean that it should be that way, but it is.
Also, the description of the five small schools to have won in recent seasons is only partly correct. Yale and Providence are small schools who were low-seeded anomalies (Yale was the last team in and Michigan would have pushed them out that year if Michigan had won the CCHA championship game).
The best-of-3 thing doesn't work for the other schools, though. Union is a small school, but it wasn't a fluke in 2014. They played and won on the road against Penn State (a sweep) and St. Cloud, who had a good team that year. Then they won the title by deservedly beating the dynasty program in BC and a very good Minnesota team. UMass, similarly, was an elite team in the run that brought them a national title.
And UMD is not the same category at all. They are a D-2 school, but hockey is a big deal, just like Denver and North Dakota. Duluth is a city of 85,000 with no significant minor league sport of any kind, except college hockey. There is a wonderful arena built specifically for the sport that reflects this emphasis. They draw NHL draft prospects, and they've won titles by being the best team on the ice.
Still, the combination of small schools and the east-west thing does indeed work against the bigger programs, as said here. The bigger eastern schools like BC are just fine with how things are, which leaves just the B1G schools and some of the NCHC interested in a different model.
We're not hearing it here, but there's a lot of pushback on hockey reddits right now about how Michigan and Minnesota can hold onto drafted sophomores with NIL.
Isn't that just a shame. Appears to be making a big difference in Major Junior decisions, too. No school was more affected by Major Junior than Michigan. These last couple of years have been a stunning turn of the tide, and from our perspective, a very welcome one.
My bad, I just literally listed ALL the champions of the last decade, wasn't saying they're all small programs.
The old WCHA is kind of a poster boy for what you want in a hockey school: passionate fans, small schools that can get a good goalie and punch a Minnesota in the face. It's hard to argue that hockey would be better if Duluth isn't as competitive, and I do want to keep that in mind because some things that would be good for Michigan hockey could harm Duluth (like breaking up the WCHA to form the Big Ten conference).
Duluth is also a beneficiary of the current system in ways, because it limits their opponents' scholarships more than theirs--it's easier to get guys to "walk on" to Duluth because it's in the Minnesota system and if you're from Minnesota your education is mostly paid for. Air Force is a smaller program, but one that beat Michigan with a team of *ALL* scholarship players (because everyone at the school is on scholarship). Is that program wanting for money? Hardly. Are they East Coast? Not remotely. But they're part of the coalition keeping scholarships down.
I was just thinking… why Tampa for the Frozen Four?
Tampa’s a fine city - and the Lightning have played a nice brand of hockey. Where is the nearest college hockey program to Tampa?
This being said - since teams and fans will need to travel on relatively short notice (qualifying in their respective Regional) - wouldn’t a location that’s actually driveable - accommodate fans more effectively? More fans.. better turnout - etc.
My thought is - Pittsburgh, Philly, Boston, Detroit, Chicago, and Minny - could be a good rotation.
March 24th, 2023 at 11:08 AM ^
Tampa also hosted in 2012 and 2016. I don't know why they get to host so often. I think the easiest way to grow the sport is to maximize the energy in the arenas, which is done by getting as many crazed fans in attendance as humanly possible. Tampa probably does not do that, but I don't know. This fan didn't go to Tampa.
March 24th, 2023 at 11:44 AM ^
Frozen Four is a vacation for a lot of college hockey fans. Tampa does quite well. 2019 in Buffalo was a disaster, 2020 in Detroit was heading towards a major disaster before Covid bailed them out.
March 24th, 2023 at 12:28 PM ^
Yeah, it honestly makes a lot of sense to put the frozen four in southern areas of the country as it'll be more attractive as a destination vacation for a bunch of yanks who have been sitting inside in the cold for 4-6 months. Tampa or Vegas or LA or anywhere else down there sounds like a decent long weekend vacation right now
Real question: How was 2020 Detroit going to be a disaster? I had tickets for the games in Detroit.
I was at the 2010 Frozen Four in Detroit at Ford Field and though it was great.
March 24th, 2023 at 10:41 AM ^
damn - would be cool if they came to the DC area. oh well. i think the men's NCAA bball tourney is here next year.. ill get a couple tickets for Juwan and i to watch.
*ducks*
ITS A JOKE.
March 24th, 2023 at 12:42 PM ^
Back when I was in school, the first round of the NCAAs was a best of 3 series at a home site. Our 1991 series with Cornell at Yost is the best college hockey experience I've ever witnessed and was actually the birthplace of some of the stuff that became staples of the Yost experience. Cornell brought fans and they were LOUD. I'm not ashamed to admit that Michigan learned stuff from them.
I know the NCAA wants to avoid home-ice advantage, but that was 3 games of sellout crowds and was just an awesome experience. I can't imagine anyone preferring a single-game elimination at a mostly empty neutral site to that.
March 24th, 2023 at 12:55 PM ^
/tips hat