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 shouting the s-word. (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.

 

[Timothy A]

UW got killed at the faceoff dot, losing 43, winning 28. What is fascinating is Amos took a whopping 61% of their faceoffs. UW's Hall took the most for UW at 35%.

Faceoffs by lines
Line 1 UW 33 Them 45
Line 2 UW 18 Them 21
Line 3 UW 13 Them 5
Line 4 UW 7 Them 0

It sure looks like TWSNSN was riding 2 lines the whole game or having Amos take 3rd line ones, then jump off.

 

[Timothy A]

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.

7. Establish a long term place-holder for Lake Placid while the NCAA gets its act together.

That's one heck of a cut against BC and BU, sweet.

Does Lake Placid have enough hotels that it could be the permanent site? Apparently the PSU hotel situation is a real poopshow, and if PSU was not in it, attendance would have been a poopshow too.

 

[Russell Jaslow]

Does Lake Placid have enough hotels that it could be the permanent site? Apparently the PSU hotel situation is a real poopshow, and if PSU was not in it, attendance would have been a poopshow too.

Lake Placid has hosted the D3 men's championship weekend many, many times at the same time a Can-Am youth hockey tournament is taking place. Lake Placid has hosted World Cup events in certain Olympic sports. Hotel space is not a problem. However, they will get expensive for weekends like that.

One major problem -- the ECAC tournament is the same weekend, and that is permanently in Lake Placid (at one point it moved to Albany, which is how the D3 men's tournament snuck in, but after a few years there, they realized how stupid that was).

 

[robertearle]

UW got killed at the faceoff dot, losing 43, winning 28. What is fascinating is Amos took a whopping 61% of their faceoffs. UW's Hall took the most for UW at 35%.

Faceoffs by lines
Line 1 UW 33 Them 45
Line 2 UW 18 Them 21
Line 3 UW 13 Them 5
Line 4 UW 7 Them 0

It sure looks like TWSNSN was riding 2 lines the whole game or having Amos take 3rd line ones, then jump off.

The TV people made a big deal about UW's "fourth line" getting ice time late, and maybe the were listed fourth on the chart, but I assume a lot of it was getting Picard out for faceoffs.

Re. Amos "jumping off", some game along the way AJ Milewzko said she would sometimes be sent out to "faceoff, and get off". I had never heard that one before, but I like it.

 

[Russell Jaslow]

The TV people made a big deal about UW's "fourth line" getting ice time late, and maybe the were listed fourth on the chart, but I assume a lot of it was getting Picard out for faceoffs.

Re. Amos "jumping off", some game along the way AJ Milewzko said she would sometimes be sent out to "faceoff, and get off". I had never heard that one before, but I like it.

It's called FOGO. I just read about it recently in an NHL article.

 

[Gurth 2.0]

It's called FOGO. I just read about it recently in an NHL article.

Lacrosse also.

My kid was a defensive middie and was an outstanding face-off specialist (good at it in hockey too) and would win the face-off and get off or if he lost it would stay out till we got the ball back.

/shameless plug but sometimes I still miss watching him compete.

I saw Amos do that more than once in the game on Sunday.

 

[Still Eeyore]

Does Lake Placid have enough hotels that it could be the permanent site? Apparently the PSU hotel situation is a real poopshow, and if PSU was not in it, attendance would have been a poopshow too.

If the NCAA is attempting to build the popularity of the Frozen Four and women's hockey in general, they aren't going to put it in Lake Placid.

 

[Timothy A]

If the NCAA is attempting to build the popularity of the Frozen Four and women's hockey in general, they aren't going to put it in Lake Placid.

They aren't. They really don't care. IMHO, where the FF is held is not and will not advance the popularity of the college game, it's just one weekend a year. If the FF was all about having a mega promotional event, they'd have it someplace warm down south with proper hotel accommodations and make all the tickets 5 bucks. I'd add a third place game to give the losing teams' fans a reason to stick around and I'm sure the young ladies would relish one more game playing for the team they love and their fans the chance to cheer for them 1 more time. Have a PWHL game in the same barn that weekend.

The PWHL is women's college hockey's biggest opportunity for growth. Most of those young ladies will go through the college ranks to get to the PWHL.

 

[FishSense]

Am I on the wrong feed? Is there no play by play announcers for Norwich vs Nazareth?

 

[FishSense]

Am I on the wrong feed? Is there no play by play announcers for Norwich vs Nazareth?

Oh, I guess I wasn't patient enough.

 

[ARM]

... I'm sure the young ladies would relish one more game playing for the team they love and their fans the chance to cheer for them 1 more time.

How many NCAA third place games did you attend? For the first one in 2001, the matchup was two rivals in Harvard and Dartmouth, and it was the first NCAA Frozen Four, so there was at least some interest on the part of the teams. By 2005, it was obvious that the hearts of the teams just wasn't in it. The whole thing was just so flat, that it did nothing to improve the sport. They discontinued it because the players didn't want it.

 

[Arreis]

How many NCAA third place games did you attend? For the first one in 2001, the matchup was two rivals in Harvard and Dartmouth, and it was the first NCAA Frozen Four, so there was at least some interest on the part of the teams. By 2005, it was obvious that the hearts of the teams just wasn't in it. The whole thing was just so flat, that it did nothing to improve the sport. They discontinued it because the players didn't want it.

Yes, they were pretty much going through the motions. The back-up goalie would usually play and the fourth lines got more ice time. Not the best hockey to watch. No third place game for me.