More Linkorama.

Here is an interesting article on the NCAA hockey tourney from ESPN. I think the EZAC has a lot to prove this weekend.

2. Which conference has the most to prove?
Let's see … the WCHA has won five of the past six national championships. Hockey East has had at least one team in the title game in 10 of the past 11 years. The Central Collegiate Hockey Association has the No. 1 overall seed, Michigan, and the defending champion, Michigan State. For the purposes of this argument, we'll exclude Atlantic Hockey and College Hockey America and leave them at the kids' table.

That leaves the ECAC. The league hasn't won a title since Harvard in 1989. And if you remove Cornell from the discussion, the last team to win a game, any game, in the NCAA tournament was St. Lawrence back in 2000. It took the Saints four overtimes to send Boston University home in the longest game in NCAA tourney history. To be fair, Cornell advanced to the Frozen Four in 2003 and has won five NCAA games in this decade. But where's the rest of the conference?

Clarkson was a No. 1 seed last year and lost to UMass in the first round. This year, the Golden Knights are a No. 3 seed and will face St. Cloud State in Albany. That seems eminently more winnable than Princeton's 4-versus-1 matchup against the Fighting Sioux on Saturday in Madison. Either way, the conference needs to find a way to advance a team or two if it wants to shed its second-tier status behind the three big leagues.