The Frozen Four wasn’t everything it was hyped up to be, but the NCAA Championship Game now has the chance to make up for the letdown when the No. 3 Wisconsin Badgers and No. 4 Boston College Eagles face off Saturday night in Detroit for all the glory.
Four British Columbia Hockey League graduates — Ben Street (Salmon Arm SilverBacks), Scott Gudmanson (Salmon SilverBacks), Derek Lee (Victoria Grizzlies) and Justin Schultz (Westside Warriors) — will play in arguably the biggest game of their lives as the Badgers battle against Boston College in an effort to bring the NCAA title back to Madison, Wisconsin for the second time in five seasons.
The top programs roll into the NCAA Final after a pair of offensive explosions at Ford Field, outscoring their opponents by a combined 15-2 in the national semi-finals on Thursday night to earn their spot in the big game.
Wisconsin spoiled the Cinderella party of the Rochester Institute of Technology with a dominant 8-1 win in the Frozen Four opener. The third-ranked Badgers scored two goals early in the first period and jumped out to a 6-0 advantage before the Tigers could even respond with their first and only marker of the lopsided affair.
Schultz recorded a goal and an assist, which came on the game’s first goal 1:27 into the opening frame. He then tallied four minutes into the second to give Wisconsin a 4-0 lead. The Badgers' captain Street contributed a helper to the victory for his first point of the tournament.
In the other semi-final, the Eagles hammered Miami-Ohio, the 2009 NCAA finalist, by a 7-1 score to advance to the championship final for the second time in three years.
Boston College took a 1-0 lead with a goal 1:28 left in the first period and they continued the scoring with two goals in 1:02 early in the second to establish a three-goal cushion after 40 minutes. The top-ranked RedHawks scored their first goal 5:19 into the final frame to close the gap to two, but the Eagles tallied four more offensively to put the exclamation mark on the semi-final win.
#3 – Wisconsin vs. #4 – Boston College
Both programs are back in the title game after missing the 2009 tournament and will be seeking a second National Championship in recent history.
It’s a rematch of the 2006 NCAA Final when the Badgers were crowned the National Champions, beating Boston College 2-1 at the Bradley Center in Milwaukee to win in their home state.
Two years later, the Eagles returned the championship final and won the school’s third national title in 2008 with a 4-1 triumph over Notre Dame. Amazingly, this is Boston College's fourth National Championship appearance in the last five seasons.
It will be difficult to equal last season’s classic title game when Boston University pulled off a miraculous comeback to beat Miami-Ohio 4-3 in overtime. The Terriers scored two goals in 59 seconds just to force the extra time before winning it all.
But given the offensive punch on both sides, it will likely be a high-scoring affair that could also come down to the final minute.
Wisconsin scored the most goals in the nation during the regular season with 155 and boast the hockey prodigy Blake Geoffrion, who has three goals and four assists in the tournament. Hobey Baker finalist, junior defenseman Brendan Smith, tied a tournament record against RIT with five assists and led all NCAA defenseman this season with 15 goals and 37 assists.
The Eagles, who ride into the big game on a 12-game unbeaten streak, won the Hockey East championship on the strength of scoring. They won the conference title game over the University of Maine 7-6 in overtime and Boston College has continued that offensive momentum into the tournament with 19 goals in three games, including four markers from sophomore Cam Atkinson.
Not to mention, the Wisconsin and Boston College are as evenly matched as they come in the standings, entering the championship game with a nearly identical record on the season: 28 wins and 10 losses. The unequivocal parity between both teams points to what should be a terrific NCAA Championship Final on Saturday at Ford Field.
