New Haven Register (New Haven, CT)
Quinnipiac heading to Colorado for NCAA Tournament
A little of the drama for Quinnipiac went out of the NCAA men’s hockey tournament selection on Sunday afternoon, when the ECAC announced that the Bobcats were picking up the conference’s automatic bid to the tournament.
Even though two of the four regionals will be contested nearby, the Bobcats wound up as far away as possible. They’ll be the third seed in the regional in Loveland, Colo., meeting Minnesota State on Saturday at 4 p.m. (streaming ESPN3).
“With Bridgeport being one of the locations, you probably expect to drive up 30 minutes away,” Quinnipiac captain Odeen Tufto said..
“We don’t get to get on planes much . ... To get out to Colorado, get some new scenery, I think all the boys seem pretty excited. I think it’ll be a fun event.”
Minnesota and Nebraska-Omaha are the other two teams in the Loveland Regional, and the regional championship is Sunday night. The four regional champions advance to the Frozen Four, April 8-10, in Pittsburgh.
The Bridgeport Regional, hosted by Sacred Heart at Webster Bank Arena, is Friday-Saturday. Top-seeded Wisconsin will face Bemidji State in one regional semifinal, and second-seeded UMass will meet Lake Superior State in the other.
There will be no public ticket sales for the Bridgeport Regional; attendance is expected to be limited to seats for guests of the teams’ travel parties.
This is the eighth NCAA tournament since 2013, when the Bobcats went to the final; Quinnipiac has made it to six of those eight, also reaching the championship game in 2016, when it received its only other automatic
bid.
The ECAC announced that St. Lawrence, which beat Quinnipiac 3-2 in overtime on Saturday night for the ECAC championship, has ended its season because of state and NCAA COVID-19 guidelines, missing out on its first tournament berth in 14 years.
“I’m extremely sorry that this group has lost the opportunity to compete in the NCAA Tournament,” St Lawrence coach Brent Brekke said in the announcement. “It was my own test that came back positive today. The roller coaster of emotions in the last 24 hours for everyone is unimaginable.”
The Bobcats went through the roller coaster, too, going from not being certain they were in to finding out they were flying across the country.
“It seems we’ve been a given a little bit of a gift,” Tufto said. “We’ve got to take advantage and understand we’ve got a great opportunity here this upcoming weekend and just get ready to go against (Minnesota State) Mankato.”
Quinnipiac’s opponent was ranked third in both major polls going into the conference tournaments. The Mavericks were upset by Northern Michigan in the second round of the WCHA playoffs. Junior goalie Dryden McKay has nine shutouts and, like Quinnipiac seniors Tufto and Keith Petruzzelli, is a top-10 finalist for the Hobey Baker Award.
“They just come with four lines, and they all look the same. It looks like they are, I don’t want to say robotic, but all four lines come,” Bobcats associate head coach Joe Dumais said.
“They all are physical. They all are skilled. At any time, they can score. They all defend very well. It’s just a hard team to play against and game-plan against.”
Boston College, which had topped the pre-tournament polls and features standout goalie Spencer Knight of Darien, headlines the regional in Albany, N.Y.