Friday, March 27, 2009

The NCAA Men's Ice Hockey Championships begin on Friday with games in Minneapolis and Bridgeport, CT, representing the West and East Regionals, respectively. The Midwest and Northeast Regionals will begin play the next day in Grand Rapids, MI and Manchester, NH. By late Sunday evening, the Frozen Four will be set, and the wildest weekend of Division I hockey will be complete.After weeks of examiningWCHA match ups and PairWise impacts, it's kind of nice to just sit back and watch hockey in its purest form. Of course, it would have been a lot nicer to have Gopher previews to accompany this post, but for college hockey fans, it's exciting nonetheless. This year's field features the usual intriguing first round match ups, but the potential secondround meetings should get hockey fans really excited. Some potential intra-conference meetings loom, putting the top seed in jeopardy of losing on the lower seed's home ice in the Northeast Region. While in the West, the hottest goaltender in the land stands poised to beat another conference opponent should both teams survive their first round tilts. In the Midwest, the top seed avoids any intra-conference match up in the second round, but now has the prospect of facing dangerous eastern teams in its second round games. Finally, in the East, the top seed has to survive arguably the toughest draw in the first round before moving on.To refresh everyone's memory, the top seeds by region, in order of how they appear on the bracket, are:

Northeast - Boston University

Midwest