College Hockey Championship Weekend 2015: Anyone’s To Win?
March Madness basketball? Forget that, it’s college hockey championship weekend! The Frozen Four is a little over a month away, but now’s a good time to learn about some of the teams you will meet. Keep an eye out on Quinnipiac, New Hampshire, North Dakota, and Robert Morris as teams that will make noise.
Big Ten
Everyone’s eyes are on the newest conference in the league. And guess what? All six teams are in the tournament. If you want to see mainstream recognizable brand name teams, watch the Big Ten tournament.
Michigan State and Minnesota are the top teams and will get a bye. However, the other teams (Michigan, Wisconsin, Penn State and Ohio State) will play to see who faces the top seeds.
Minnesota is one of the top teams in the country overall and they’ll give a fight to whoever they play. Penn State would be the tougher matchup compared to playing the Buckeyes, but Minnesota should win this conference.
Atlantic
Robert Morris is the elite team in this conference and should run away with it. They do have to face a Mercyhurst team who is on a bit of a run after beating the Bentley Falcons, and they could catch lightning in a bottle again.
Meanwhile, the Rochester Institute of Technology takes on Canisius in the battle for Western New York. RIT should win this one but there is a bit of a rivalry factor.
Hockey East
The best conference in college hockey always has an interesting tournament. Boston University is the team to watch (as always pretty much) because of Jack Eichel. They face New Hampshire who has been red hot themselves, and BU has lost an occasional bad game so this matchup is one of the better ones to watch.
UMass Lowell and Vermont round out the rest of the tournament. Verment upset the number three ranked Boston College Eagles last weekend so they are a dangerous team to watch, but the Riverhawks have tended to have Vermont’s number this season.
NCHC
North Dakota, led by goaltender Zane McIntyre, is the team to watch. They have to face St. Cloud this weekend after they did storm Colorado to advance.
The best game of the tournament however is the Miami (of Ohio) Redhawks against the Denver Pioneers. The winner will (likely) play North Dakota in the conference final.
WCHA
Minnesota State has this conference tournament in the bag basically pending a major upset/injury/act of God. The other teams in this tournament are Ferris State, Michigan Tech, and Bowling Green.
If anyone was going to contend against the Mavericks it would be Michigan Tech. Bowlign Green did split with Minnesota State but the Mavericks are just on such a different level.
ECAC
Quinnipiac owns this tournament if they can beat Harvard who has gotten hot and knocked off some good teams like Yale. However, the Bobcats are the top team in the conference and they SHOULD take this.
They would face the winner of St Lawrence and Colgate, of which the Colgate Red Raiders should win. This isn’t an easy tournament, but it should belong to Quinnipiac.