Sports

Hockey earns surpising spot in NCAA’s

Following last weekend’s loss to St. Cloud in the WCHA playoffs, UW goaltender Shane Connelly said he hoped the hockey gods were smiling down on the Badger hockey team.

Considering UW earned a berth in this year’s NCAA tournament, the gods must have been grinning from ear to ear.

Everything that needed to fall into place for Wisconsin to make the tournament did. Notre Dame lost in its conference playoffs. The Minnesota Golden Gophers kept winning. And Princeton won the ECAC Tournament.

Despite a sub-.500 record and a losing streak of three games, the Badgers are in, and they will face WCHA Tournament champion Denver at the Kohl Center Saturday.

For Connelly and Co. to sneak in, there was no doubt a sense of surprise and jubilation.

“I heard that we might be in,” Connelly said. “But I watched that selection show, and a smile came on my face. We have a second chance, so I was pretty excited.”

The Badgers were given a No. 3 seed in the 16-team tournament. But the fact that they are still playing hockey at all is something many people didn’t expect of Mike Eaves’ squad.

“It’s new life,” team captain Davis Drewiske said. “It doesn’t matter how we got here; we’re here. So we’ll just take advantage of it.”

Saturday’s contest will pit two schools that have won the NCAA title three out of the past four years. Wisconsin laid claim to the trophy in 2006, while Denver won back-to-back championships in 2004 and 2005.

The two teams split their only series of the year in Denver. The Pioneers came out on top of the first game 3-2 after a controversial no-call on a Matthew Ford goal. But UW came back with a statement win in the series finale, topping the Pioneers 7-2.

Thoughts of the no-goal call that cost them a potential point in the 3-2 loss have lingered with the team, but Ford knows it’s time to move on and take the good from what transpired in January.

“I remember coach [Mark Osiecki] saying something on Saturday morning (after the loss) going, ‘This could be a turning point,’” Ford said. “And I think the next 10 games or so we played a lot better. So maybe that was what kind of gave us that boost to get us into where we are now.”

Should Wisconsin win against Denver, it will take on the winner of the North Dakota-Princeton series, also taking place Saturday in Madison. The winner of the Midwest regional will earn a spot in the Frozen Four in Denver.

Also making the tournament from the WCHA — arguably the toughest conference in college hockey — aside from UW, Denver and North Dakota was Colorado College (No. 2 seed), St. Cloud State (No. 2 seed) and Minnesota (No. 3 seed). One conference team that will be on the outside looking in is the Minnesota State Mavericks, who boasted a better record than Wisconsin and topped the Badgers in head-to-head play this season. But due to the computer rankings, they’ll be forced to watch the tournament from home.