Frozen four St Paul Apirl 9 & 11

[cbrooks]

UMD vs Notre Dame 4:00 CT Apirl 9th

UND vs Michigan 7:30 CT

These games will be on ESPN 2

[Dylan33]

Is anyone going? or more importantly, does anyone want to take me with you if you go?

[cbrooks]

I'm a maybe, right now.

[Shorelunch]

Yep, we'll be in St. Paul. Sioux Yeah Yeah!

[Bryce]

Probably have to sit this one out. Get back fron sodak snow geese late Wed and plan on leaving for nodak camp on Friday. Doesn't leave a lot of time to clean and repack gear if I try to make Thursday games. If weather stays cold at camp, I will definitely go to championship game.

[solbes]

Shorelunch is in and sounds like a couple of maybes. Duluth better win that first game now or I'm going to be crying in my bee...oops I mean soda.

Duluth v No Dak would be a great thing to watch. I would be a little nervous about that matchup when I think back to the complete domination by black in the final days of 2010. Different Duluth team now hopefully.

[scsavre]

I will be there. Foresurly at the bars near the x. Ill likely go. Depends on who I go with tho.

Brooks how u getting ticks. Let me know if you go. We got the muskie expo about 5 mils away

[Steve Foss]

Duluth v No Dak would be a great thing to watch. I would be a little nervous about that matchup when I think back to the complete domination by black in the final days of 2010. Different Duluth team now hopefully.

Everything just started over. It's a two-game season for the championship, and the past doesn't matter. That's the idea, anyway. I'd like to see the Dogs and Sioux go at it again.

[OnAFly]

I would like to see an all-WCHA final. We won't be seeing too many more of these in the future... (still fuming about the big ten)

[Bryce]

I would like to see an all-WCHA final. We won't be seeing too many more of these in the future... (still fuming about the big ten)

Why would you now be more nervous about the Big Ten? Afraid the new Penn St. team is going to grow into a national powerhouse?

Although we would like to see an all WCHA final, that matchup will cause the NCAA/ESPN to reformat the tourney brackets to even further prevent it.

[PierBridge]

Thats absurd Bryce. I agree a decade or so ago there was an occasional mild attempt by the NCAA to not have the WCHA dominate the tourney but it's laughable to blame our embarrassing play in the last 5 years in the NCAA's on the NCAA.

Go Dogs!

[scsavre]

I always feel like they are against the wcha too.

We better just do wolverines vs dogs

[cbrooks]

]I will be there. Foresurly at the bars near the x. Ill likely go. Depends on who I go with tho.

Brooks how u getting ticks. Let me know if you go. We got the muskie expo about 5 mils away

Its a long shot I think. I'm going through UND to get tixs. They use a priorty point system. Beasically if you donate alot of money to the UND(this is not me) you get first choice. Tickets would be face value. I refuse to pay $500 for tixs. I'm kind of a cheap bastard like that. If I go I will let you know. The muskie Expo makes it more attractive.

[PierBridge]

]I always feel like they are against the wcha too.

Most parents think there kids are better than they are and think the world is stacked against them toooooooo.....so I get the argument as weak as it is.

Bottom line nothing is stacked against the WCHA and our play as conference of late is proof in the pudding!

Go Dogs!

[OnAFly]

Ok, maybe we do have a distorted veiw since we are all WCHArs here (or at least most of us), but when they would consistently pit all WCHA teams against eachother, it was a littl obcious what the intent was. It really got going the year after the whole Frozen Four was WCHA. I don't think ESPN (or their beloved Eatern market) liked that.

ESPN - WHAT WE WANT YOU TO SEE!!!

[cbrooks]

Until this year PB. WCHA will be back to being the dominate league in my opinion. The freshman class this year is stacked. More NHLers come from the WCHA as well. I saw a state recently somewhere.

[cbrooks]

I don't think the brackets were tweak too much this year like they were in the past. It looked like the pairwise went along with the brackets. It was just by chance that UND/Dnver and CC/UNO were in the same bracket. I think BC got the shaft this year because New Hampshire was hosting so BC had to go to St Louis. Kind of funny hearing the BC fans complain about that one.

[solbes]

Bottom line nothing is stacked against the WCHA and our play as conference of late is proof in the pudding!

Go Dogs!

Pier first of all, All Aboard Bulldogs. Love to have ya'.

Second, I agree with some of the others here that there was a shift by the NCAA committee in how they seed the WCHA by regionals. Obviously you'd have to be a fly on the wall inside the meetings to know for sure, but here's how it looks. Years with an * had a WCHA national champion.

1996: 2 WCHA teams in 2 brackets

1997: 4 in 4*

1998: 3 in 3

1999: 3 in 3

2000: 3 in 3*

2001: 5 in 4

2002: 4 in 2*

2003: 5 in 4*

2004: 5 in 3*

2005: 5 in 4* This was the year we had an all WCHA F4, and would mark the year of suspected NCAA policy shift in grouping schools in regionals

2006: 4 in 2*

2007: 3 in 2

2008: 6 in 4 (6 teams they had to fill all 4 or risk outcry!)

2009: 3 in 2

2010: 4 in 3

2011: 5 in 3

From 1996 - 2005, only 2 times out of 10 were the WCHA teams not spread fully across the regionals. From 2006-2011, five times out of six had the WCHA teams not fully expanded across the regionals. The one year they did fully expand, 2008, they pretty much had to. There were 6 teams! Looks like a shift to me. I don't blame them for the lack of a recent national champion (I blame BC), but it can be frustrating to teams within the conference and fans nonetheless.

[scsavre]

Good evidence to me.

[scsavre]

$500 I wouldn't pay that much to see my own kids play hockey.

[Bryce]

I just think it's good to see Pierre finally back in here. You should know to bring better game than that though.

[Quackaddict9]

]$500 I wouldn't pay that much to see my own kids play hockey.

agreed. Go Sioux!

[OnAFly]

No kidding, I'd rather pay a $100 bar tab and taxi bill and save $400.

[scsavre]

I tell you right now I'm not paying more then $150 to go to those games. ill gladly watch at the bar or just go in for free and not have a seat. $500 that is crazy. Its probally more fun at the bar anyway at that rate.

[solbes]

Tis expen$$ive, that's for sure. I thought the session strip tickets at original prices were okay, a little under $200. You're looking at $67/per game for that. I paid more than that for a Wild game a few weeks ago. This inflated $400-500 for a single strip ticket is re-donkulous. You gotta dislike all these ticket outlets that make getting tickets so d%^@ expensive.

I figure at UMD's F4 rate, I could go once every 10 years but I would also have to pay for airfare and hotel. That makes this opportunity far cheaper.