Union and Michigan State are underway in a near-empty building, so we're off. Some final items before the madness descends:

HOCKEYBEAR. PLAYOFF TIME IS HOCKEYBEAR TIME.

HOCKEYBEAR IS GO

Cornell. The preview is here; the Big Red is a tight-checking team with a defensive emphasis and good goaltending. Usually getting an ECAC team in the tournament is a good sign—no team from that league has advanced to the Frozen Four since 2003. You saw the Air Force game, though. This is single elimination playoff hockey.

Line change? Michigan's broken up their top line at an odd time. In practice they've moved Derek Deblois up and Chris Brown down, leaving the lines like so:

1. Deblois-Wohlberg-Guptill
2. Glendening-Treais-PDG
3. Brown-Lynch The Elder-Moffat
4. Rohrkemper-Lynch The Younger-Hyman

Berenson's explanation of this is grim:

"I just think the lines were getting stale, especially Wohlberg's line," Berenson said. "I thought they lost their work ethic, and they were scoring as individuals but the line wasn't producing. In fact, the line was negative in the last 10 games.

"We can't go into a tournament with a line that is not helping the team, especially one that's supposed to be one of your best."

The top line was still filling up the nets, scoring eight goals in the last nine games, but they're –1 between them. How much is on them and how much is on Michigan's newfound addiction to terrible turnovers from the defense.

Also from that article: Michigan is 13-4-1 since Merrill returned, and he's +12.

Or maybe not? The Daily has another quote from Berenson that suggests Michigan may dump the change if it's not going well:

“When you see the line chart (on Friday) you’ll have a better idea,” Berenson said. “But I like the fact that we’ve got some flexibility. We’ve had different players play with different players during the year, and we’ve even had some guys play different positions. I think when you get to this point of the year, you have to be flexible, as a coach and a player.

“That doesn’t answer (the) question, but that’s my answer.”

It's possible Red is just sending a message.

2002 from darker eyes. Denver reminisces about Yost's apex:

"That was one of the toughest losses I've had in my career," says Kevin Doell, who led that club with 43 points and remains a veteran scorer with the Chicago Wolves of the American Hockey League. "When we had a lead going into the third period, we were good at shutting the door. Once they got that first goal and their crowd got into it, it was a huge momentum boost for them. It's still hard to swallow when I think about it."

And thus was born the NCAA's deathly fear of a home crowd for anyone other than Minnesota.

The start of it all. The Daily's Zach Helfland tell the story of Michigan's tourney streak beginning:

It was late Sunday night in March 1990. Bo had just retired, the Fab Five just months away from enrolling at Michigan, and Berenson had just finished a phone call that would decide whether his once-mighty hockey team would be relevant again after so many years.

The 2012 version of the Michigan hockey team encountered some bumps, but it waltzed into the tournament. So did the team before it. In fact, since 1990, only one team, the 2010 squad (which Shawn Hunwick led on its miracle run), was anywhere close to the bubble. But in 1990, it wasn’t that easy.

On one end of the call was Berenson, six fruitless years into his tenure in Ann Arbor. On the other was the NCAA selection committee. Ever since it beat Bowling Green in the CCHA consolation game the day before, Berenson’s team, firmly planted on the NCAA Tournament bubble, had been waiting for this call.

View from Cornell. An email:

Hi, I'm a Cornell fan.  I like your site and wanted to add a thought or two with respect to some of the comments.

About the ECAC's number of national titles: technically it is four, not three. Cornell (1967, 1970), RPI (1985) and Harvard (1989).  RPI also won in 1954, before the league was formed.  And BU walked off with 3 (1971, 1972, 1978) when Hockey East split off from the ECAC.

On the subject of Cornell's mascot/nickname confusion:  The nickname is the Big Red.  Just the color.  We tried to explain this to a Minnesota fan at the 2005 regional when they asked what the mascot is and they thought we were talking down to them.  But usually when we say "Big Red" to someone the next words out of their mouth are "Big Red What?".  In fact, one of the Cornell fan sites is called "the Big Red What?" 

Anyway, the nickname comes from a football song written in 1905 as the team wore red and white, the school colors since its founding.  The bear came along in 1915 when the football team bought a live black bear and kept it on the sidelines during games.  And despite a bear being in the Cornell sports team logos the university website still refers to the mascot as "unofficial".  Not sure what to make of that.  Long story short, nobody calls us "the Bears".

They're like Stanford, okay?

Etc.: Michigan is not exactly paranoid about letting people see their practices. Cornell is of course the team that Michigan emulated during the famous 1991 matchup at Yost that spawned a thousand angry swears. (HT: MHN.)