2013 Frozen Four. Apparently college hockey is still happening
So I had almost completely forgotten that college hockey was still going on. In what is absolutely the weirdest frozen four I have ever seen we had Yale beat Umass-Lowell 3-2 in OT and Quinnipiac is currently up 4-1 on St Cloud State with 5:00 left in the 2nd
I haven't followed college hockey as much this year with Michigan being awful, but what a weird frozen four. Four nobodies in the college hockey world with it looking like it's going to be a Yale-Quinnipiac final.
Feels like a fake championship. Anyway, just wanted to share because I don't know if we'll ever seen a frozen four this weird looking again
April 11th, 2013 at 10:16 PM ^
April 11th, 2013 at 10:54 PM ^
April 11th, 2013 at 10:16 PM ^
April 11th, 2013 at 10:30 PM ^
NCAA's no. They'll end with the National Championship on Saturday in Pitt.
April 11th, 2013 at 10:31 PM ^
We were just playing to make the NCAA tournament
NCAA Frozen Four usually takes a two-week "break" or so in the playoffs, so as not to conflict with the Final Four. Man, a back-to-back M Final-Frozen Four would have been so sweet.
April 11th, 2013 at 10:34 PM ^
Pretty sure this is going to end up being the least attended frozen four in probably a decade or two. There is no one there right now in Pittsburgh. Probably only 5,000 or so
April 11th, 2013 at 10:34 PM ^
North Dakota? Denver? Boston U? Unusual matchups to say the least.
April 11th, 2013 at 10:38 PM ^
April 11th, 2013 at 10:41 PM ^
April 11th, 2013 at 10:45 PM ^
this was the first Frozen Four is 50 yeas without at least one of Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin, North Dakota, Boston College, or Boston Univ.
something like that anyway.
April 11th, 2013 at 11:05 PM ^
April 11th, 2013 at 10:54 PM ^
April 11th, 2013 at 11:05 PM ^
The Quinnipiac story is pretty cool. From deadspin:
http://deadspin.com/how-quinnipiac-tore-up-and-rewrote-new-havens-hockey-h-472545033
April 11th, 2013 at 11:29 PM ^
Yale v Quinnipiac.
I would say it's an absolute lock for this to be the least attended final in decades. Neither school has more than 6,000 undergrads. I won't be upset missing this game except for the fact that Michigan barely missed out on tournament featuring an all EZAC final. Gah
April 11th, 2013 at 11:36 PM ^
worst Frozen Four ever?
I have absolutely no interest in this year's tournament. I don't care about any of these teams...
April 12th, 2013 at 12:44 AM ^
April 12th, 2013 at 11:30 AM ^
Damned straight. If Michigan isn't going to be in it, I'd rather have 4 upstarts competing than a Frozen Four comprised of the usual suspects. Also don't mind seeing the WCHA and Hockey East getting closed out. (Oh yeah, I'm also a Yale season ticket holder, so there;'s that, too).
April 12th, 2013 at 11:38 AM ^
Man, where were you when I was looking for people that cared about college basketball and watching the most fun run through the tourney I've ever seen.
April 12th, 2013 at 12:51 PM ^
watching with my kids. My Michigan gear got a lot more notice -- mostly from other Michiganders, I think -- over the past few weeks.
April 12th, 2013 at 12:54 AM ^
Aren't both those schools in New Haven? Odd.
Close. Quinnipiac is in Hamden, which is just north of New Haven. Regardless, these schools are only 15 minutes away from each other, which is crazy.
Just because the schools that you're all used to won't win the championship doesn't make it a "fake championship" or a bad Frozen Four. Quinnipiac was the best team in the country for most of the year. Yale has already beaten 2 number 1 seeds to get to the finals. These are two good hockey teams and just because you don't know much about them doesn't make that less true. Also, this is great for the ECAC - no more fans of the other large conferences saying they're the fourth best conference. They were the second best conference for most of the year and these teams earned their way here.
This may have been weird looking. It may have been the "Anti-Final Four." And, to date, based on people actually in the seats at Pittsburgh's CONSOL Energy Center, as opposed to tickets sold, it may be the worst attended Frozen Four (a term coined by a former Boston University Sports Information Director*) in many years. But it shouldn’t be a complete surprise that three of the four schools that got there are little known to most sports fans, and the fourth, Yale, is much better known for its alumni who’ve "gone pro in something other than sports."
Of the 59 schools playing NCAA Division One men’s hockey, only 15 of them play Division 1A/ FBS football and only eight of them are from the BCS conferences (six from the Big Ten, two from the ACC, if Notre Dame now counts as an ACC school): Air Force, Army, Boston College, Bowling Green, Connecticut, Massachusetts-Amherst, Miami, Michigan, Michigan State, Minnesota, Notre Dame, Ohio State, Penn State, Western Michigan and Wisconsin.
It’s likely that more people in the United States watched the EPL’s Manchester Derby in which City beat United 2-1 this week before over 75,000 fans at Old Trafford than watched the semifinals of the Frozen Four.
Yet, considering all the focus that there has been on tragedy in Connecticut since last December 14, it’s nice that the people of Connecticut will have something good to celebrate this weekend.
*Link to article about this year’s Frozen Four and how that term was coined. http://bostonglobe.com/sports/2013/04/06/frozen-four-breaks-from-tradition/ceyojE9xgzDq0rTY2VH85I/story.html
April 12th, 2013 at 10:44 AM ^
As someone that volunteered for a year with Quinnipiac strength & conditioning in 2010-2011 I am really happy for those guys. Bui, Hartzell, Arnt, Barron, Currie, etc. are all great guys and hard workers. It's great to see them having such success. I never got to know Pecknold very well, but they have a great strength coach. So happy for those guys & great to see an all-Connecticut finals.
And btw Hartzell is just as explosive and athletic as they noted on ESPN last night. He can probably dunk better than anyone on the basketball team.
April 12th, 2013 at 11:41 AM ^
Do I root for the team that is from 3 miles down the road from me or the team that is three miles up the road from me?...
Go CT Hockey!
Yale making the Finals does make the loss to ND more painful, because the field was pretty open (I mean, it's always more open than March Madness, or college football). ND lit us up pretty good this year.
Yale to the Victors?! Doesn't sound right.