Women's NCAA Frozen Four is Set

Well the field is now set for the 2014 NCAA division 1 women's ice hockey Frozen Four, and there are no surprises except for the upset of Mercyhurst over Cornell yesterday.

Perhaps what everyone involved with NCAA women's hockey will call the true NCAA title game, Minnesota vs. Wisconsin, will be the most anticipated match-up in this tournament. Minnesota, who has been the outright number 1 for most of the last three seasons now, will look to punch their ticket to a third straight national title, but Wisconsin looks to say otherwise.

Wisconsin, who has four national championships and most recent in 2011, was runner-up to Minnesota in the 2012 title game and looks for a little revenge against the Golden Gophers. They are the four seed, in what many called a flawed pairwise ranking system, placing them on the same side of the bracket, avoiding a possible national title game rematch.

The winner of this years national championship will most likely come from this highly anticipated match-up next weekend and a big thing that will help in favor of the Wisconsin Badgers is that the game is being played at a neutral site in Hamden, Conn. Both Minnesota and Wisconsin were nearly unbeatable at home this season, with Minnesota just losing once at home to North Dakota, and Wisconsin with only four home losses, two to Minnesota, and one each to North Dakota and Minnesota State.

This match-up will be a hard fought game and I don't see it being decided by more then one goal, unless an empty netter is scored by either team. I am going to have to pick Minnesota to come out on top of this one, winning 2-1 and advancing them to their third straight national championship game.

On the other side of the bracket we have number 3 Clarkson vs. Mercyhurst, who upset Cornell to advance to the Frozen Four this season. Clarkson is looking to advance to their very first women's National Championship game in team history as Mercyhurst is looking to return for only the second time in school history.

The two schools would have an early season non conference series all the way back in October and Mercyhurst would allow just one goal against a very tough Clarkson squad. Getting shutout in game one, and skating to a tie in game two, Clarkson is looking for some revenge against a Mercyhurst team who is riding a lot of momentum coming into this weekend's Frozen Four.

Since the holiday break was over, Clarkson went a very impressive 15-1-3, showing what you have to do to get things done down the stretch run. Some victories one should note during this time is a 3-1 victory at home against Cornell, and a 2-1 road victory against Harvard.

I am still pondering on how Mercyhurst would make the NCAA tournament this season if they didn't win their regular season conference title, and even be seeded higher then a very good Boston University squad. Mercyhurst comes from a very weak CHA conference and would lose the conference tournament championship to RIT in double overtime. Mercyhurst's only win of note would be their 2-0 road victory against Clarkson and are looking to keep this Cinderella story alive for just two more games.

With Mercyhurst riding a lot of momentum after their huge upset of Cornell, there is always that chance that they could do the same against Clarkson, but this would be very highly unlikely. Clarkson wins this one 4-1 and advances to the title game to meet up with a very tough Minnesota who is looking to win their third straight title.