This couldn’t have been a more exciting NCAA Division I Hockey Tournament if it had been scripted by Hollywood’s James Cameron. Not just last-second goals but last-tenths-of-a-second goals, overtimes, comebacks, and one upset after another. Boston University was the only regionally top-seeded team to advance to the Frozen Four. Notre Dame ousted by (allegedly) the weakest team in the tournament, Bemidji State. Air Force shutting out powerful Michigan. Wow!
At least one Hockey East team, Vermont or BU, will be playing for the national championship.
The UMass Lowell River Hawks have to be watching all this unfold with more than a tinge of sadness. Vermont, a team the River Hawks went 3-0-1 against — all the games on the road — during the final weeks of the season and then swept in the first round of the Hockey East Tournament, is in the Frozen Four with a chance to play for the national title. With all the upsets in the NCAA Tournament, the River Hawks can’t help but think they might have made a real run for it all had they not lost that controversial 1-0 game to BU in the HEA championship game.
Thank you, Referee Tim Benedetto, for doing more than your part to keep UMass Lowell out of perhaps the most exciting NCAA Tournament in history.