December 31st, 2011 at 8:56 AM ^
Unlike other sports, the NCAA Hockey Committee has an open selection process--no smoke-filled rooms for the selection of the at-large teams. Their selection rules are replicated by something called the Pairwise Ratings:
http://www.collegehockeynews.com/ratings/ncaapwcr.php
If the season ended today, and assuming no major upsets in the conference tournaments...
#1 seeds: Ohio State, Minnesota-Duluth, Boston College, Minnesota
#2 seeds: Boston University, Notre Dame, Merrimack, Massachusetts-Lowell
#3 seeds: Northern Michigan, Michigan State, Colgate, Western Michigan
#4 seeds: Michigan, Cornell, Lake Superior, AHA tournament champion (Air Force?)
Notice that there are 7 CCHA teams that would qualify right now. Since there are no non-conference games remaining in the CCHA, these 7 teams will start knocking each other out of the top 16 and we will probably be left with only 5 or so teams in the tournament. The key for Michigan will be to make sure that they beat the teams near them in the standings--next weekend's series against Lake Superior, plus series against MSU and Northern on back-to-back weekends in mid-February are the key games on the schedule.
December 31st, 2011 at 9:53 AM ^
I do hope FSD replays it sometime this weekend. I can't imagine that they wouldn't.
December 31st, 2011 at 11:15 AM ^
I was at both games; best GLI I've seen in a long, long time. FSD NEEDS to replay this game!