2026 Frozen Four

[wildfire]

When Ohio State's girls came to the bench gesturing that Wisconsin covered the puck in the crease I can't help wondering what they saw that the refs didn't on the review? It makes no differenc now but I'm definitely curious.

Athletes on the ice/field/court see things in a flash from one perspective. Reviews can include multiple camera angles and slow motion. They were hardly the first athletes to get it wrong.

 

[Russell Jaslow]

Athletes on the ice/field/court see things in a flash from one perspective. Reviews can include multiple camera angles and slow motion. They were hardly the first athletes to get it wrong.

True. But doesn't every team have coaches up high who are also looking at video replays to inform the bench coach whether to challenge or not? Maybe everyone felt it was worth the gamble considering the moment.

 

[BuckyB]

That was the dumbest challenge since the inception of video.
The timing, the game on the line, already up 6 on 5 with an end zone faceoff.
Cmon, it just can’t be defended to make that challenge.

 

[ARM]

That's true for the WCHA tournament trophy. I'm not sure that it is true for the regular season travelling trophy.

There were always trophies, but the current traveling ones were introduced later. One of the stranger early varieties looked like some crystal vase that would live in a china cabinet and tended to be barely visible in championship photos. Luckily, I don't remember any stories of them being shattered on the ice.

The current regular season trophy has been around since 2019:

Julianne Bye Cup - Western Collegiate Hockey Association

The home of a record 21 national championships, the Western Collegiate Hockey Association presented a new regular-season championship trophy named in honor of longtime

wcha.com

The tournament trophy Lindsay is describing is this one:

Final Faceoff Trophy - Western Collegiate Hockey Association

The home of a record 21 national championships, the WCHA now has the league postseason hardware to match its standing as the country’s premier women’s college hockey

wcha.com

 

[davearm]

That was the dumbest challenge since the inception of video.
The timing, the game on the line, already up 6 on 5 with an end zone faceoff.
Cmon, it just can’t be defended to make that challenge.

The overhead angle that was first shown sure made it look like the Badger skater was on top of the puck in the crease. (The second angle showed that she wasn't.)

If OSU only had that first look, then they'd be crazy not to challenge.

 

[TJ77]

I thought Madison Packer did a pretty good job, made relatively insightful comments, asked decent questions, as a former player would; I'd never heard her do that sort of thing before (maybe she does so on PWHL games?)

The one thing we were saved from Bucci in particular, and men's NCAA games in general was endless telling of who's NHL draft pick the player is and which round he was drafted it. That starts in earnest on Thursday.

Except when she interviewed Johnson on the bench during the game. It started with "like the shirt, the blue eyes are poppin". Johnson's reaction of shock was priceless. I know being a former player for him, and the kind of relationship he has with all his players it may have been normal conversation for them. It may have been a little inappropriate for the time and place.

 

[davearm]

Except when she interviewed Johnson on the bench during the game. It started with "like the shirt, the blue eyes are poppin". Johnson's reaction of shock was priceless. I know being a former player for him, and the kind of relationship he has with all his players it may have been normal conversation for them. It may have been a little inappropriate for the time and place.

That was indeed a bizarre comment.

 

[thirdtime's . . .]

Bring the FF back to Boston --- and throw in the quarters --- and resolve the perennial problems that plague this tournament.

So:

1. No more random rinks. Conte and Agannis have plenty of seats, great sight lines, and hot dogs no worse than most.
2. A truly neutral site, with no danger of home-ice advantage going to the hosting schools, since they will not be in the mix for the foreseeable future.
3. No unseemly dashing to the bus by losing teams eager to escape the hinterlands.
4. No more embarrassing rows of empty seats, therefore no humiliating need to entice "fans" with freebies.
5. No more rows of loud, potentially rowdy, homers. (See #2 above)
6. Compensation to the city for the lost Covid year of 2020, making it seventeen years since we last saw the likes of Vetter, Duggan, Irwin, West, the Twins, Agosta, Larocque, Lawler (my fave), Knight (!), waterlocked as we are by the Mississippi on the west and the Atlantic on the east.
7. Establish a long term place-holder for Lake Placid while the NCAA gets its act together.