FYP

Go Beavers

bbones - I agree with your take on this glorious situation involving the Minnesota hockey situation. And barring anything crazy happening, St. Cloud, Bemidji and Duluth are all pretty much locks and there's close to no chance for anyone else from Minnie barring a miraculous run in the WCHA tournament.

FWIW, I have been to games at all three of those Minnesota programs (SCSU, Bemidji, UMD). Never been to Mariucci at Minnie though.

In the latest pairwise rankings Michigan State has moved up to 9th while Ferris St has dropped to 16th. And Michigan has fallen off the map completely after losing back to back games at Nebraska-Omaha to fall to 12-11-1 overall. Wolverines are pretty much done (again...barring a miracle run in the conference tourney). Right now it looks like the CCHA is a 2 team conference but Ferris could have a chance to squeak in if they finish strong. And Alaska is #18 with a weird record of 12-9-9 so could still have a chance too.

ECAC has Yale at #8 and Cornell at #13 so might be a two team conference.

Hockey East looks to have BC, UNH, UVM, and possible U-Mass. While defending champs Boston U are at 18th right now so need to get hot to make it.

The WCHA could have 6 teams with #2 Denver, #3 Wisconsin, #4 St. Cloud, #7 Colorado College, #9 Minn-Duluth, #13 North Dakota

going to both UW-SCSU games this weekend. Should be fun with #3 vs #4. Important series for the final WCHA standings.

A miracle run in the WCHA that knocks NoDak off the bubble might be the greatest college hockey experience of my life, and I should be in attendance if it happens too. Like <1% chance but would be sooooooo sick

North Dakota is up to #8 now. Will be pretty hard for them to be anywhere near the bubble when it comes WCHA tourney time.

Minnesota is up to #24 now at 15-15-2. I can see them climbing within spitting distance of contention if they go 3-1 in their last 4 reg season games against Wisconsin and Duluth. That takes them to 18-16-2. If they make it all the way to the WCHA championship and then fall (and I assume a first round series sweep) then that takes them to something like 22-17-2 which I think might be enough. Pretty unlikely for them but they do have one win against Wisco already this year and are also coming off a sweep of CC so it's not completely impossible.

they will win at least one game against wisco. Denver has the macnaughton all but locked up, and scsu will probably get the 2 seed as they hold the tie breaker over wisco.

This isnt really true. They are 8th in PWR right now, which is all that matters, but they could easily lose a couple of those comparisons over the next two weekends. Getting swept in CC would knock them down at least 1, maybe 2, and they would lose the comparison with Minny if they lose to us in the WCHA tournament, which puts them at 14 comparisons. They would probably lose at least a few more comparisons if that were to happen, could easily see them falling to #10 or #11. That is at least somewhat on the bubble, depending on conference tourny upsets, etc. Which is why Minny would need to win the Final Five. Dont get me wrong, this is obv a dream scenario, and not gonna happen, but the outcomes of all the parlays are fairly well correlated. Winning the Final Five is a huge longshot, but winning it and having NoDak knocked out isnt that much more of a longshot.
If this were mens basketball and we got bonus points for "playing well down the stretch" or "having a big name" then maybe, but not really sure that they would make it in with this record.

minnesota will get a benefit because there is a regional in St. Paul. Just like wisco got into the tourney in 2008 because a regional was in madison.

People said this at the time but it makes no sense to me. There isnt really any room for subjectivity in the selection process, the Joe Lunardi of college hockey does not exist because the formula predicts the results accurately like 100% of the time.

3 in a row for Gophs, home ice in Final Five still a possibility, barely keeping the at-large hopes alive as well.

MB was right, no chance for Gophs to keep UND out of NCAAs, but still would be fantastic to keep them out of Final Five, and keep the season alive. **** the sioux imo

Guess this is probably the right thread.

Playoffs in the Ontario Hockey League, Quebec Major Junior Hockey League and Western Hockey League start tonight.

OHL

Eastern Conference

Barrie vs. Sudbury
Ottawa vs. Niagara
Mississauga vs. Peterborough
Kingston vs. Brampton

Western Conference

Windsor vs. Erie
London vs. Guelph
Kitchener vs. Saginaw
Plymouth vs. Sault Ste. Marie

QMJHL - The Q doesn't really have seperate conferences

Saint John vs. PEI
Moncton vs. Cape Breton
Drummondville vs. Lewiston
Victoriaville vs. Shawinigan

Quebec vs. Acadie-Bathurst
Rimouski vs. Chicoutimi
Rouyn-Noranda vs. Val-d'Or
Montreal vs. Gatineau

WHL

Eastern Conference

Calgary vs. Moose Jaw
Brandon vs. Swift Current
Saskatoon vs. Red Deer
Kootenay vs. Medicine Hat

Western Conference

Tri-City vs. Chilliwack
Vancouver vs. Kamloops
Everett vs. Kelowna
Spokane vs. Portland

Top 10 CHL teams at the end of the year...

1. Barrie
2. Saint John
3. Windsor
4. Drummondville
5. Calgary
6. Brandon
7. Moncton
8. London
9. Saskatoon
10. Victoriaville

Brandon hosts the Memorial Cup in May.

Yeah, this is the right thread for this. I don't know diddly about the major-juniors really. Should be some other fans who are able to discuss that stuff around if they delve into this thread but I'm guessing they are hanging in the NHL thread.

Here with the Wheeling ECHL team we just got 19 year old Kale Karbashian who led Sarnia in scoring this year and whose season just came to an end when they failed to qualify for the playoffs. He scored in his first pro game for the AA affiliate of Pittsburgh.


ECHL American Conference (Eastern) has 8 teams out of 12 qualify for playoffs. 7th through 11th is a pretty tight cluster right now between Toledo, Reading, Wheeling, Trenton, Gwinnett. Only 2 of those 5 teams will go. Wheeling has the fewest games remaining of all the teams. 7 games left while others have 9 or 10. So kind of in a bit of trouble.

No, Wisconsin did not get in that year because they were hosting. It's a popular conspiracy theory and it's also not true.

Union vs. Quinnipiac last week played the longest game in college hockey history at 5 OT's. Beat the old NCAA record from 2006 by a few minutes when Union played Yale. Union College just loves those 5 OT games!

Michigan has to win the CCHA tournament to make it to the NCAA tournament in almost all likelihood. Their streak of 20 straight tourney appearances is on the line. Playing around with the Pairwise predictor I get them to around 15th if they beat Miami in the 1 vs. 4 game of the CCHA semi's on Friday but they need to make it to the top 14. Maybe some other scenarios can get them there.

Alabama-Huntsville won the CHA over Niagara in the last ever season for that conference (the 4 remaining teams are all going their different ways next season). Bemidji State lost in the tourney but will easily qualify for the NCAA tourney anyway.

Brown University at 12-19-4 overall and 6-12-4 in conference for 11th out of 12th place is in the conference semi's after an upset of 1st place Yale last weekend. Won Game 3 of the best of 3 series 1-0 with their goalie Mike Clemente spinning the 44 save shutout. Obviously not going to the NCAA's unless they run the table and win the whole ECAC tourney.

Yeah, give it up for my former team being the first to qualify for the NCAA's. Go UAH, F the CCHA.

so what do y'all know about Hunter Bishop?

Don't know anything about Hunter Bishop.

What I do know is that Michigan just laid the smackdown on Miami 5-2. Michigan plays Northern Michigan for the CCHA title tomorrow night. If we somehow win this and qualify for the tournament, it would be a pretty awesome story.

Cornell handles Brown rather easily, and Union wins a thriller over SLU to set up tomorrow night's ECAC final. If Union wins, ECAC probably gets 3 teams into the NCAA's.

Going to be a really fun atmosphere in Albany; Union (local to the albany area) had never made the ECAC finals in Albany in the ~8 years it's been here. But they really brought a lot of fans out tonight, and surely will bring more tomorrow. Them, combined with the perennially strong Cornell contingent will make for a great crowd!

Maine looked solid tonight against BU, winning 5-2. Championship against a better Boston College squad tomorrow. Maine has to win as they aren't going to get picked.

UMaine falls to BC in OT, 7-6, after tying it up with 20 something seconds left.

Good game though, good finish to the season.

The awesome story continues! 2-1 win tonight with Lou getting both goals. The Shawn Hunwick story is just unbelievable and now he has CCHA playoff MVP to add to his resume. Onward we go into the tourney, GO BLUE!!!

I heard there was supposed to be a Tournament Selection Show on at 11:30 AM EST time tomorrow but can't confirm it on ESPN's website.

Also, I am looking to get tickets for the semifinals and finals games. Do you think I should just wait til closer to that weekend to see if my school is going to be in it (not too worried) or will tickets be hard to come by at that point? Everything seems pretty expensive right now and I think I definitely could find a good bargain for the title game from someone whose team gets eliminated in the semifinals.

Cornell has a freshman stud goalie coming in in 2010-11, and an Ithaca native to boot: Andy Iles, who's started for the USA U-17 national team and stars for a top-ranked prep school team in Connecticut, committed to the Red after his junior year of high school (in addition to being from Ithaca, his father and Schafer are very close friends, so no one else had a realistic shot at him). At the very least, he's the best hockey prospect to come out of Ithaca since the LA Kings' Dustin Brown.

--Scott

Dude, I'm pretty sure tickets are going to be really easy to come by. Ford Field is going to have a capacity of 44,000, and they're nowhere close to selling out. I'm guessing I can find tickets somewhere, if Michigan doesn't make it, it'll be real easy to find tickets. Just PM me and I'm sure I can find something for you.