The Regionals
After the first day of NCAA tournament action, half of the field's No. 1 seeds were upset by their respective four seeds.
First, No. 13. Miami (Ohio) Redhawks doubled up No. 4 Denver 4-2 in the semifinal of the West Regional.
Then, No. 3 Michigan Wolverines was blanked by No. 18 Air Force Falcons 2-0 in what I thought was going to end up being the upset of the tournament in the East Regional.
The upsets didn't stop there. In fact, the entire first round was filled with them. The tournament started out 3-0 in favor of the lower seeds with No. 11 Vermont Catamounts taking down No. 5 Yale Bulldogs 4-1.
The only higher seed to win on Friday was No. 8 Minnesota-Duluth Bulldogs barely getting by No. 10 Princeton Tigers with a 5-4 overtime win. The game only got to overtime after UMD scored two goals in the last 30 some odd seconds of play.
On Saturday, the upsets continued. Most notably, I changed my mind on the upset of the tournament as unranked Bemidji State Beavers trounced No. 2 Notre Dame Fighting Irish 5-1.
The only one seed to advance out of the first round was No. 2 Boston University Terriers. They beat up on No. 14 Ohio State Buckeyes 8-3.
No. 12 New Hampshire Wildcats added another upset to the list beating No. 7 North Dakota Fighting Souix 6-5 in overtime.
No. 6 Northeastern Huskies took a 2-0 lead into the second period against No. 9 Cornell Big Red only to squander the lead, then the game giving up three goals in the final frame, with the game tying goal and the winner coming in the final two minutes of play.
The Regional Championships on Saturday saw UVM go to overtime with Air Force before claiming a 3-2 double OT victory securing the first spot in the Frozen Four.
Miami punched their ticket with a 2-1 victory over Minnesota-Duluth.
Sunday saw the last two regional finals between BU and UNH and Bemidji and Cornell.
The first, BU vs UNH saw yet another late goal scored as BU won 2-1 scoring with just 15 seconds left to win and get back to the Frozen Four for the first time in 12 years.
Bemidji State beat Cornell 4-1 to send themselves to the Frozen Four. Their appearance in two weeks will be the first time ever that a team outside of the CCHA, WCHA, ECAC or Hockey East have made it to the Frozen Four.
Granted that leaves the CHA and Atlantic Hockey Conference, it still means a lot considering the CHA is being disbanded after this season.
Bemidji State is the team that qualified by winning their conference tournament as they stood no chance of qualifying any other way.
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