Before we get started here, let me just make it clear that I do not follow college hockey as closely as somebody who is writing this blog should. Between having to suffer through the Flyers season, following the rest of the league, the World Juniors, the Minnesota State High School Hockey Tournament and everything else, there’s just not enough time for regular season college hockey. With that being said, the regular season wrapped up and so have all the conference tourneys. The NCAA Tournament starts this Friday and the Frozen Four is just over 2 weeks away. So let’s get right into it.

We’ll start with Denver who gets the top seed in the midwest. Remember that time that Team USA butt fucked Russia in the shootout during the World Juniors? Remember when Troy Terry became an American hero for moves like this?

Well he’ll be leading the Pios for the next few weeks until their season is over and he joins the Ducks. Kid was about as clutch as clutch could be in the World Juniors. Time and time again he came up with huge goals for Team USA and he’s the same way for Denver. 19 goals, 36 points in 31 games. Another name to be on the lookout this tournament for Denver is Henrik Borgstrom. The freshman from Finland, previously featured on Dangle Days.

Kid leads Denver with 38 points and has hands smoother than that move when you also buy a stick of gum and a copy of “Us Weekly Magazine” when you purchase condoms from CVS so the cashier doesn’t judge you. As somebody who hasn’t watched a ton of college hockey this season, I don’t think that they run into any issues on the road to Chicago. But it would be cool if Penn State somehow managed to pull off a couple of upsets.

5 years ago Penn State was a club team. This year there was a point when they were the #1 team in the nation. Granted it was for a cup of coffee and the wheels started to fall off a bit after that. But they won the B1G this past weekend so the boys are coming in on a high note in their first ever tournament appearance.

I love Union dearly for producing Shayne Gostisbehere. But I have to pull for Slicky Ricky DeRosa and the boys on Saturday.

Oh, and real quick before we move on to the Northeast bracket. #1 Denver has Michigan Tech on Saturday. The Huskies got into the tournament by taking down Bowling Green in double OT in the WCHA conference championship game. Which ended up producing this GIF which will surely be used for “Monday morning got me feeling like” tweets for the rest of eternity.

Truly incredible.

Northeast

I’m going to be totally honest here. I know pretty much next to nothing about all of these teams. I haven’t seen a single second of Minnesota hockey this season but it’s good to see them back in the tournament after missing out last season and getting bounced in the 1st round 2 years ago. The only thing I know about Notre Dame is they had some games on NBCSN this year which were extremely uneventful. I love the gold helmets but that’s about all I have on the Irish. Cornell (ever heard of it?) took down Union in the ECAC semis before losing to Harvard in the final. I have no reasoning behind this at all but put me down for UMass Lowell making it out of this bracket to the Frozen Four. I like Harvard coming out of the East and don’t want to see two Ivy League schools playing in Chicago so that takes Cornell out. I know Minnesota is only a few years removed from losing in the national championship game to Union but they seem like underachievers to me. And I think Notre Dame is just too boring of a hockey team. So yeah, UMass Lowell makes it out of the Northeast and has Denver in the semifinals.

East

In case you missed it, Harvard won the Bean Pot this year for the first time in over 20 years. Here’s the blog recapping that final game against BU from last month. They won the Bean Pot, they won the ECAC, they have not one but TWO alums now working for Barstool Sports [dot] com. This has been the biggest year in Harvard’s history since whatever year Legally Blonde came out (that movie fucking rocks). Now starting off against Providence is a pretty tough draw as one of the top seeds in this tournament. I honestly have no idea how Providence has been this year but they won the National Championship 2 years ago so my recency bias is at an all time high here putting Harvard on upset alert. However, I think the nerds pull through in this one. I think all they really needed to do was get rid of that son of a bitch Jimmy Vesey who was holding the entire program back. Now he can just waste away in New York and yeah I’m super salty that he didn’t even consider coming to the Flyers.

Do I know anything about Air Force hockey? No. But do I love and respect our troops? Of course I do. Even if Air Force doesn’t get as much love as the Army and Navy. I still love the Troops because I’m a true American and not some hippy liberal pussy. With that being said, I think the liberals at Harvard take down the Air Force in the quarterfinals after Air Force knocks off Western Michigan in the 1st round.

West

I know that Minnesota-Duluth is the top seed in this bracket but c’mon. This is BU’s bracket and everybody knows it. Charlie McAvoy, Kieffer Bellows, Jordan Greenway, Clayton Keller, Patrick Harper, Jake Oettengier. All members of the USA team that won gold at the World Juniors this year. McAvoy will be with the Bruins as soon as his season at BU is over. Keller should be with Arizona for the start of next season. Greenway should be on the next flight to Minnesota. Then there’s also Dante Fabbro who was on the silver medal losing Team Canada in that tournament. So as far as star power goes in the NCAA tournament this year, Boston University crushes the competition. Sure, they ended up losing the Bean Pot to Harvard but these are all kids who are currently having the best year of hockey in their lives. You win gold at the World Juniors and then go on to win a National Championship the same year, that’s how legends are made. If, however, for some reason BU doesn’t make it out of the West bracket (which makes absolutely zero sense geographically), then at least give us the North Dakota vs Minnesota-Duluth rematch we all need to see.

Tough break for the defending champs to draw BU right off the bat. Gonna be tough to repeat with that draw. But I wouldn’t put it past the Sioux to simply outwork the Terriers just so they could have another crack at Minnesota-Duluth in the quarters and get some payback for this play right here. As the pros would say, there’s no love lost between these two teams. Need a brawl to break out at center ice during pre-game warmups. Slap Shot style. But yeah, I still don’t see how Boston University doesn’t have a trip to Chicago in them.

So there you have it. The official Frozen Four of a man who really doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Denver vs UMass Lowell and Harvard vs Boston University. Give me BU in that Bean Pot rematch and Denver to move on to the championship game as well. From there… well from there it hard to say so we’ll save National Championship predictions for when we actually get to them.

@BarstoolJordie