College Hockey NCAA Division I Conference Championship Games Set for Saturday

The final opportunity for several schools to gain access to the 2012 NCAA Division I Tournament will come down to Saturday night, when the championship games of the five major men's ice hockey leagues will take place.

Atlantic Hockey's past two champions will collide at Blue Cross Arena Rochester when Air Force faces RIT. The AFA Falcons, who ousted Mercyhurst by a 5-2 score on Friday, went to the NCAAs last year, while the Tigers, who edged Niagara on Friday in overtime, made it all the way to the 2010 Frozen Four in Detroit.

Bowling Green's Cinderella run through the Central Collegiate Hockey Association playoffs came to a close on Friday in Detroit, with a 3-2 double OT loss to Michigan.

The Wolverines will face Western Michigan in Saturday's title tilt, after the Broncos dumped Miami (Ohio), 6-2, in the other semifinal. WMU beat Michigan in the CCHA semifinals last year before falling to Miami in the championship. The Red Hawks will face BGSU in this year's consolation game.

Harvard shocked Cornell, 6-1, in the Eastern College Athletic Conference's late semifinal on Friday at Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City. The Crimson will now line up against league regular-season champion Union, who dispatched Colgate by a 6-2 count. Cornell and Colgate will meet in the ECAC consolation contest.

Hockey East saw top-ranked Boston College outlast upstart Providence, 4-2, in the first semifinal at TD Garden in Boston on Friday, while No. 11 Maine came back from two one-goal deficits to defeat No. 5 Boston University, 5-3. The Eagles and Black Bears last met in the HE conference championship contest in 2010, with BC winning in overtime, 7-6, en route to its second national title in three years.

Top-seeded Minnesota built a 3-0 lead over North Dakota in the Western Collegiate Hockey Association semifinals at the XCel Energy Center in St. Paul, only to see the Fighting Sioux score six unanswered goals to earn a 6-3 victory and a berth in Saturday's title game against Denver. The Pioneers slipped past defending national champion Minnesota-Duluth, 4-3, in two overtimes.

The winners in Saturday's five championship games will receive automatic berths to the NCAA Tournament. Schools that are likely already in the tournament, according to the latest Pairwise Rankings, include BC, Michigan, Union, North Dakota, Ferris State, Maine, Minnesota-Duluth, Denver, Miami, BU and Minnesota.

Bubble teams include UMass-Lowell, Cornell, Western Michigan, Michigan State, Northern Michigan and Merrimack. Air Force, RIT and Harvard can only advance to the NCAAs by winning their respective conference championship games and gaining their league's automatic berth.

The NCAA Tournament Selection Show will be shown Sunday on ESPNU at noon EDT. The four four-team regionals will be conducted from March 23-25 in Connecticut, Massachusetts, Minnesota and Wisconsin.

The four regional winners will then advance to the Frozen Four in Tampa on April 5-7 to decide the national champion.