2026 Frozen Four

[BadgerInMN]

The sport is too top heavy. There’s just not enough elite talent to distribute to other schools to allow them to challenge Wisconsin and Ohio State. I don’t know what the solution is, though.

The solution is time. The game has to continue growing at youth levels and eventually there will be more depth of talent. Leads to talent being spread out and more parity.

Women's basketball shows it can happen but it is a lengthy process. Just now starting to see enough parity where you get some better games and even upsets in early rounds of the tournament. It doesn't have the depth and parity of men's basketball, so you see 7 seeds beating 11 seeds by 40. It's evolving in the right direction though.

Similar with volleyball, which is now exploding in popularity. The national champions club in that sport has remained quite small. But more girls are playing it, more people are watching, and depth/parity are going in the right direction.

Hockey might be too niche at the college level to expect a big boost in parity, but the teams at the top can rotate. Used to be Duluth and MN.

 

[Lindsay]

The solution is local girls hockey which will mean more girls hockey players. What percent of the American girls on Ohio state and Wisconsin left home to play high school hockey? Of the girls who didn’t leave home but somehow made it to D1, what percent played on expensive travel teams?

Male dominated high school hockey = $500 in fees, only available girls option = $2k to $3k just in initial fees in a cheap market. That needs to be fixed.

 

[Hockeybuckeye]

Well Penn State almost pulled it off but the bottom line is you just can't give Wisconsin power plays unless you have and exceptional PP kill. I'd imagine the Penn State girl who committed the boarding penalty that cost them the game feels pretty down.

 

[Russell Jaslow]

This is the best NCAA semifinal in a long time.

The second game alone was worth the price of the entire weekend ticket.

 

[shelfit]

With no pregame offense to Penn State, I just don't think they stand any chance against Wisco.

The WCHA should be D-I.
The rest of D-I should be D-II except for the NEWHA which is an insult to D-I hockey.
The NEWHA should be split into D-II and D-III (someone else can do the splitting but maybe the bottom 3 teams should be D-III).
D-III should be split into D-III and D-IV (again, someone else can do the splitting because I don't know where to begin).

Would the NCAA sponsor 4 National Championships?

I sure was wrong about Penn State being able to compete tonight although Wisco really helped Penn State's cause with some of the penalties they took too. By the end of the game I found myself cheering for the Nittany Lions. In the end the top 2 teams are playing on Sunday.

I still think my 4-division proposal is good.