REA not getting a regional...

I was hoping that UND would get a regional in 2010 or 2011 but it would appear that NCAA is moving away from campus sites after all of the whining that has taken place by coaches, fans and college administrators the last few years.

So if we are going to neutral sites why does Minnesota get a regional in their back yard? Seriously, someone needs to tell Hockey Committee Chairman Joel Maturi, who I might add is from the University of Minnesota, that the Xcell energy center in St. Paul, Minnesota is not a neutral site. The Xcel energy center is 7 miles from the campus of the University of Minnesota. You are going to be hosting a game in your back yard. I can see fans unhappy with that one as well. Fort Wayne is a horrible selection for a NCAA hockey regional can we say empty building, so it will be a neutral site.

Midwest and West Regionals Awarded Through 2011.
INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. (Aug. 28) — The NCAA Ice Hockey Committee has set the sites for the NCAA Championships all the way through 2011 with the announcement of the West and Midwest Regionals for 2010 and 2011.

In 2010, Notre Dame will host the Midwest regional from March 27-28 at the Allen County War Memorial Coliseum in Fort Wayne, Ind. and the West regional will be hosted by Minnestoa at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul, Minn. from March 26-27.

Michigan Tech will host the Midwest regional at the ReschCenter in Green Bay, Wis. from March 26-27, 2011 and the CCHA will host the West regional at Scottrade Center in St. Louis on March 25-26, 2011.

Of the four sites only the Resch Center has held a regional before, with Wisconsin coming out of this regional en route to the championship in 2006.

But both the Xcel Center and the Scottrade Center have hosted the Frozen Four. The Xcel Center hosted the Frozen Four in 2002 with Minnesota winning and will host it again in 2011. In 2006 Scottrade Center hosted the Frozen Four with Michigan State taking the title.

This will be the first time the NCAA Ice Hockey Championships will have a regional in the state of Indiana.

“We focused on selecting sites that have NHL size ice sheets and are in neutral buildings,” said Ice Hockey Committee Chairman Joel Maturi, the AD of Minnesota. “We really feel that each of these buildings will showcase college hockey, give our student-athletes a tremendous experience and help take our championship to another level.”

The announcements round of the sites for all of the regionals and Frozen Fours until 2011.

Previously the 2010 and 2011 East and Northeast regional sites were awarded. The 2010 East regional will be held at the Times Union Center in Albany, N.Y. and will behosted by ECAC Hockey and Rensselaer from March 26-27 and the Northeast regional will be held at DCU Center in Worcester, Mass. and will be hosted by Holy Cross from March 27-28.

The 2011 East regional will be held at the Bridgeport Arena at Harbor Yard in Bridgeport, Conn. and be hosted by Yale and Fairfield on March 25-26 and the Northeast regional will be held at the Verizon Wireless Center in Manchester, N.H.and be hosted by New Hampshire on March 26-27.

Next year the Frozen Four will be in Washington, D.C.’s Verizon Center, the 2010 Frozen Four will be at Ford Field in Detroit, Mich., the 2011 Frozen Four at the Xcel Center in St. Paul, Minn. and the 2012 Frozen Four will be at the St. Pete Times Forum in Tampa, Fla.

Is Charley Waters on crack?

Here is the latest Charley Walters rumor. I wonder how much truth there is to this little rumor? I wonder if he has been smoking the pipe or hitting the scotch again?

There's whispering that the Big Ten Network might make it financially prudent for Big Ten hockey schools to reconsider their status in the WCHA. And talk continues that Alaska Anchorage could be leaving the WCHA because of transportation costs, which the school pays for visiting teams.

I don't see this happening and I suppose the UAA fans will be packing his email box with flames. Seriously what league are they going to play in? I have read and heard from Gophers fans that Shooter isn't all that accurate. UAA isn't going anywhere.

Yawn, anyone else bored with the Big Ten Hockey conference talk? Seriously? Okay, say there is a BIG TEN hockey conference; so what? Who cares? Contrary to a few elitist fans from a handful of schools this isn't going to kill the rest of college hockey. There is still going to be other good schools that don't reside in the Big Ten (6-10).

Do you think Michigan, Michigan State Wisconsin and Minnesota are going to like kicking the snot out of each other for 4-6 games each? Talk about getting stale and boring. Lastly; who is the 6th, 7th or 8th team going to be?

B.C. 4 Notre Dame 1 (ND gets hosed)

First congrats to the Eagles for winning their third national title. The Eagles proved that they are the best team in college hockey this season, and they did it being very creative in the offensive zone.

On their way to the national title, the Boston College Eagles burned the Gophers, RedHawks, Sioux and Irish with their teams speed and got good to great goaltending from Muse. I am sure other teams in college hockey will take note that you CAN win a national title by outscoring your opponents and playing smart defense without just simply piling up at the blue line and a focusing on defense first and offense as an afterthought. As a hockey fan, it makes me long for the days of racehorse hockey under Dean Blais. They just went out and tried to score as many goals as possible and played smart defense.

If you think about it, B.C. Eagles's style of play is a breath of fresh air. The Eagles play racehorse hockey and are actually really exciting to watch. Some teams in the NHL and college hockey should take note. In fact I am hoping that my favorite coach takes a look at the film from this past weekend and changes up his game plan a bit.

WCHA officials shine again

Looking back at the National Championship game, the off ice officials (WHCA head of official Greg Shepherd) got another call wrong on a goal. Leave it to the WCHA officials to screw up a perfectly good game and ruin it. If you go back and watch the film, at the end of the embedded video you will see that the Notre Dame player Kyle Lawson had the puck bounce off his left foot. Lawson tried to kick the puck with his left foot but missed. After a long review by the off ice official the goal was waved off. We saw numerous replays of the Notre Dame goal in question and there is no doubt in my mind that the goal should have counted. Adam Wodon also has a really good explanation:

But was the call wrong?

I think it was.

The longer it went on, you knew there was trouble for Notre Dame. The officials explained it as needing to see if the puck hit a stick. Otherwise, they felt pretty early on that Lawson knocked the puck in with a "distinct kicking motion."

I disagree. I've watched it over and over, and I have no idea how you look at that replay and determine that the player kicked the puck in with a distinct motion. And particularly, how do you look at that and determine it conclusively — which is necessary to overrule the on-ice call.

Lawson took a cross-ice feed and tried to corral the puck with his left skate. Then, as he was trying to get his stick down to tap it into what became a wide-open net, he turned his right skate to again try to control the puck. The puck hit off his skate blade, then went rolling towards the net. Lawson tried to tap at it, but whiffed. He also clearly tried to kick it — but it was also clear, at least to me, that Lawson made no kicking motion until after the puck had already deflected off his skate blade and went rolling away.

You don't expect an on-ice official to see that in a split second, but you do expect that, with the benefit of super slo-mo replay, that the video judges would have.

According to Greg Shepherd After a long delay, "The puck was kicked in by the Notre Dame player's right skate. The skate was moving toward the goal line." Way to go, Greg. You managed to botch another call this season.

Another shining moment for the WCHA officials. The WCHA league office must be proud today that they were able to affect a tourney they weren't even playing in.



Box Score

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1st Period (20:00)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

BC-1 Kyle Kucharski (2-Holding the Stick) NDM 0x1 8:41
BC-2 Matt Greene (2-Cross-Checking) NDM 0x2 14:33
NDM-1 Brock Sheahan (2-Roughing) BC 0x1 17:02
BC-3 Anthony Aiello (2-Tripping) NDM 0x3 18:24

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2nd Period (20:00)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

BC 1 - 0 6x6 LL Nathan Gerbe (34) (Brian Gibbons, Ben Smith) 2:23
BC (+): 9,17,12,6,26,G1 NDM (-): 14,5,9,23,19,G1
BC-4 Andrew Orpik (2-Slashing) NDM 0x4 2:51
NDM-2 Ryan Thang (2-Interference) BC 1x2 4:58
BC 2 - 0 6x5 PP GW Nathan Gerbe (35) (Ben Smith, Dan Bertram) 5:37
BC: 9,12,22,15,21,G1 NDM: 25,14,5,22,G1
NDM-3 Dan VeNard (2-Cross-Checking) BC 2x3 6:29
NDM-4 Dan Kissel (2-Tripping) BC 2x4 7:27
BC-5 Kyle Kucharski (2-Holding) NDM 0x5 7:32
BC 3 - 0 5x4 PP Joe Whitney (11) (Nathan Gerbe, Benn Ferriero) 8:11
BC: 15,9,21,12,G1 NDM: 5,23,14,G1
NDM 1 - 3 5x5 Kevin Deeth (11) (Kyle Lawson, Ian Cole) 9:07
NDM (+): 21,2,28,22,G1 BC (-): 4,5,21,14,G1
NDM-5 Dan VeNard (2-High-Sticking) BC 2x5 16:49

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
3rd Period (20:00)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

BC-6 Nick Petrecki (2-Elbowing) NDM 0x6 0:08
BC 4 - 1 6x6 Ben Smith (25) (Nathan Gerbe, Brian Gibbons) 5:31
BC (+): 12,9,17,4,26,G1 NDM (-): 14,5,16,25,22,G1
BC-7 Matt Price (2-Obstruction Tripping) NDM 0x7 8:05
BC-8 Matt Greene (2-Hooking) NDM 0x8 9:54
Timeout - Notre Dame 19:12

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
End of Game