Back to Class: Conference tourneys can’t keep Cinderella away

Joe Yerdon

Mar 12, 2012, 8:34 AM EDT

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We’re taking you “Back To Class” for our roundup of the weekend’s action in college hockey. Look for more college hockey on NBCSN this Friday at 5 and 8 p.m. ET for the Hockey East tournament semifinals.

While you’re all busy this week analyzing your basketball brackets, college hockey is busy whittling their field down to see who makes it to the NCAA tournament. While you’re checking out to see which 12-seeds can be the darlings of the tournament, a pair of college teams are making their push to wear Cinderella’s glass slipper.

Bowling Green headed into the CCHA tournament as the bottom seed, 11th overall in the conference. While being the bottom seed usually makes you cannon fodder for the big boys, the Falcons have shocked six-seed Northern Michigan and top-seeded Ferris State in back-to-back weekends to reach the conference semifinals at Joe Louis Arena. Bowling Green’s hockey program was near death three years ago and now they’re two wins away from pulling off an incredible run to the NCAA tournament.

It won’t be simple for Bowling Green though. They needed all three games of the best-of-three series to get past both NMU and Ferris State, now it’s single elimination in the semis and finals and they’ve got a date with Michigan in the semis. Since you’re wondering, yes, the Falcons already have a win over the Wolverines this season.

In the WCHA, eighth seeded Michigan Tech stunned everyone this weekend by going to Colorado College and sweeping the Tigers out of the tournament and punching their ticket to the Final Five in St. Paul. If the Huskies are to create some magic of their own, their road is a bit tougher.

The deck is seemingly stacked against Michigan Tech, but if there’s a team and a fan base that can play the part of Maximus in “Gladiator” and win the crowd, it’s MTU. From their rabid fans to their iconic band, they’re a program that exemplifies what it is to be a part of college hockey. If college hockey were re-enacting “Revenge of the Nerds,” MTU would be Lambda Lambda Lambda and not just because their SAT scores are gigantic, they’re a lot of fun too.

Elsewhere in college hockey:

For all the fun and surprises the CCHA and WCHA tournaments provided, both the ECAC and Atlantic Hockey tournaments saw all their top seeded teams hold serve. In the ECAC semis, Union faces Colgate while Cornell faces arch-rival Harvard. The AHA semis see Air Force take on Mercyhurst while R.I.T. meets up with Niagara.

Hockey East, meanwhile, had a thrilling weekend that saw BU and New Hampshire as well as Merrimack and Maine go to three games, with BU and Maine coming out on top. Boston University did so by coming back from being down 4-1 to win in double-overtime 5-4. (Boston Hockey Blog, The Mack Report)

If you want to play the part of the NCAA committee and play with the different ways things could shake out over championship weekend, both USCHO and College Hockey News have Pairwise tools to mess with so you can play with fate.

The Division-III final four is set and this Oswego State alum is on pins and needles for the third year in a row. (NCAA)

Finally, congratulations to St. Lawrence coach Joe Marsh on his retirement from hockey after 26 seasons. College hockey loses a man with great class, dignity, and a much-respected tenure in the game. (INCH)

(Photo: Bowling Green Sentinel-Tribune)

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