Oh sure, interim school president and Alabama education hitman Malcolm Stopera will say that moving UAH hockey from Division I down to club level isn’t a big deal because there’ll still be hockey at UAH in some form, but this a needless killing and one that leaves a lot of blood on a lot of different hands in the college hockey world. The Alabama education system can justify their decision citing costs all they want to, but college hockey on the whole should feel sick about this as should the UAH leadership.

This wasn’t just one new conference coming to rise and writing UAH’s death warrant, this was a total failure on the part of college hockey world to help out a weakened brother. This is the fault of a hired gun brought into the UAH leadership to make the big decision and get the hell out of town as fast as possible.

This was a hired hit and one that the leaders of the CCHA, WCHA, NCHC, and Big 10 all helped bring about.

The CCHA’s failure to throw UAH a bone years ago when they added now-soon-to-depart Nebraska-Omaha to the conference was the first, and most deadly, shot across the bow for the Chargers. Tom Anastos and his group of ignorant conference leaders, who got their own come-uppances when the Big 10 Conference was formed, helped provide the example of how to ruin a school’s program. By leaving UAH to be independents, a team without a conference to call home, they left them to perish.

Here’s to hoping that Anastos, now the Michigan State head coach, can live with his decision. Of course, he comes out smelling like a dead rose through all of this mess after ditching the CCHA to coach Sparty who is conveniently ditching the CCHA themselves for the Big 10. Convenient, eh?

The conference realignment jumble, confusing in its own right in seeing the WCHA and CCHA try to save face after the Big 10 was formed and then seeing their own plans shot to pieces when the NCHC was created putting a final bullet in the CCHA and turning the WCHA into a conference filled with also-rans. Neither the NCHC nor the soon-to-be brand new WCHA even cast a glance toward UAH for membership.

Rather than help out UAH, the NCHC waited to see if Notre Dame would join their elitist hockey party only to be spurned in favor of Hockey East. An Irish middle finger is a middle finger nonetheless. The WCHA took on fellow death bed program Bowling Green in their scramble to put something that resembled a conference together. Did they call UAH though? No friggin’ way.

Instead, they ignored UAH. They let them sit around as an independent left to wither away and die without the help of a conference to call home and a conference schedule to give them a host of home dates. Take a look at UAH’s schedule for this, their now final season. The last games they play in Huntsville are in late February against the US National Development Team. Games like that are an exhibition meant to show the school off to guys they could potentially recruit.

Oops.

Instead, they’re going out at home with a whimper after a schedule that sees them play on the road in games they had to beg and plead for to play anyhow. This is what the college hockey landscape turned into – one that saw schools turn on each other to save their own skin and left the weakest of the litter out to starve.

Now these Chargers are being put down while a bunch of different hands are pushing off pulling the trigger on everyone else.

It’s sad. It’s sad and disgusting to see things play out this way for the south’s lone outpost for college hockey; A program that rose up from the lower levels of college hockey to become the little school in Dixie that could. They’ve made the NCAA Tournament, they’ve put the scare into top seeds (just ask Notre Dame about what they think of UAH).

Community and student support (both in showing up and financially) didn’t matter to the state of Alabama. All this was for them was a bottom line move, a correction of the books. College hockey, meanwhile, looks the other way while another one of their own dies. A family of 58 is now a family of 57 and there won’t be a single team that will care. The fans of college hockey all care and they’ll make it known at the Frozen Four in Tampa, Florida in April. It’s a bitter pill to swallow that it’s UAH playing the role of the host school, holding the celebration for the crowning of a new champion.

A disgusting end to UAH’s Division-I status concludes with a party on their grave.  While I doubt that Portera gives half a crap about his choice to demote the program, I wonder if the heads of these conferences that all had a hand in this slow killing can accept losing a team in an outpost where hockey is growing in a sport that needs a higher profile, not one that sees it let its hurting brothers die.

Back in 2003 when the NCAA expanded the hockey tournament to 16 teams and allowing a traditional bracket presentation to four regional sites (as opposed to the old 12 team format with the top seed in each region getting a bye), it seemed that the this format was made to allow the top seeds a game to warm up against a weak sister opponent.  In 2003, 2004 and 2005 no top seed lost their first round game against one of the bottom 12 teams in the field.

When 2006 rolled around it appeared as though things would continue along that same path… That is until Holy Cross shocked the college hockey world by beating the Minnesota Golden Gophers in the first round of the West Regional in Grand Forks, North Dakota 4-3. Holy Cross’ win set off shockwaves as the Gophers are (or rather were) traditionally a tough out of the tournament and here they were getting bounced out of the tourney on hostile ice (no, that’s not a Sioux joke) and ensuring that North Dakota would always hold a soft spot in the hearts of Sioux fans everywhere.  Was it a fluke win for a team that just played the perfect game? A lot of folks believed that was the case but…

In 2007, two top seeds bit it in the first round as Clarkson was upended by Massachusetts 1-0 in the East Regional and Miami University took out New Hampshire 2-1 in Manchester, NH of all places.  Top seeded Notre Dame needed two overtimes to finally oust Alabama-Huntsville in their 1 vs. 4 game.  Perhaps parity was coming to college hockey after seeing a lot of the familiar names consistently floating to the top year after year.

2008 seemed to turn a hose on those thoughts as one top seed found their way out of the tournament, New Hampshire getting blown out by Notre Dame 7-3 in the West Regional meanwhile top seeds Michigan and North Dakota stormed their way to the Frozen Four while 2 seed Boston College knocked off 1 seed Miami in the regional final en route to winning the National Championship. Order restored, right?  Not quite.

2009′s NCAA hockey tournament went down in the books as the one where top seeds went to die.  Notre Dame, Michigan and Denver were all upset in the opening round of the tournament.  The Fighting Irish were taken out by the buzzsaw that was Bemidji State, Denver was ousted by co-buzzsaw Miami University and Michigan was shutout by Air Force.  Miami and Bemidji State both advanced to the Frozen Four and Miami moved on to the Finals where they gave the final top seed of the tournament, Boston University, all they could handle in the National Championship game before surrendering a two-goal lead in the final minutes of the game and then losing in overtime to give the Terriers the championship.

Two four seeds, a three seed and a one seed in the Frozen Four.  It still boggles the mind to think and know that this happened and turned out one of the best tournaments of all time and easily the most exciting one of the 16 team format.  So that leaves the question, can some kind of alchemy be thrown together to make things happen in 2010 the way they did in 2009?  It very well could happen. Taking a look at the top seeds around the tournament, there’s a handful of them who come in with glaring issues.

The top team in the East Region, Denver University, limps into the NCAAs after losing both of their games at the WCHA Final Five.  Denver has a boatload of talent, including two Hobey Baker Award nominees in senior forward Rhett Rakhshani (Islanders draftee) and junior goaltender Marc Cheverie (Panthers draftee).  Denver’s seeming disinterest in playing North Dakota and Wisconsin in the Final Five was a bit alarming, although they did have a top seed in the tournament locked up.  Were they too busy looking ahead to the tournament or is there actual reason to worry if you’re a Pioneers fan?  Tough to say, but if they don’t come out on fire in their opening round game against R.I.T. they could be in for a world of frustration.

For R.I.T. it’s their first appearance in the NCAA Tournament and head coach Wayne Wilson’s Tigers will be ready to roll on Friday afternoon.  Forwards Cameron Burt and Andrew Favot carry the scoring load while Jared DeMichiel and his 2.00 goals against average will do his best to keep the Pioneers off the board.  Senior defenseman Dan Ringwald brings stability and scoring touch to the blue line while freshman Chris Tanev has been a revelation for the Tigers working the rearguard. R.I.T. comes into the tournament on fire after steamrolling their opponents in the Atlantic Hockey tournament and already got their wake up call in the opening round when a terrible UConn team took them to overtime in Game 1 of the quarterfinals.

Yes, I realize that Atlantic Hockey is a brutal conference as far as competition goes and yes, I also realize that R.I.T. played zero teams this year who were under consideration for the NCAA Tournament and these things work against the Tigers, but the same thing could essentially have been said about that 2006 Holy Cross team too.  Denver comes into the NCAA Tournament as the #2 overall seed while R.I.T. is 15th out of the 16 teams. The Pioneers have been sleepwalking their way through March going 3-3-0 at the time of year when you should be kicking the snot out of everyone in sight.  Facing a jacked up R.I.T. squad may not be the medicine Denver is looking for to make their run at a title.

In the Midwest Region, Miami University sits as the top seed and they above everyone else in this tourney should understand what it means to come in as a hungry fourth seed as they’ve pulled two upsets of their own from that position but were they ever as motivated as their opponents this year, Alabama-Huntsville, were as a four seed?  I’d have to say no.  For the UAH Chargers, this is their last go-round until they land in another conference.  As was mentioned here before the season, the CCHA turned their backs on UAH and the growth of college hockey when they denied UAH’s bid to join the conference next season.

Fast forward to the College Hockey Association tournament this year, Alabama-Huntsville steals their way to the CHA tournament championship to enter the NCAAs as the only team with a losing record and, of course, get to face off against the top team from the CCHA.  Meanwhile, the team that was upset in the CHA tournament, Bemidji State, faces the University of Michigan in the other game in the Midwest Region.

You could refer to this region as the “Roll-over Region” as some conspiracy theorists have said that Miami rolled over for Michigan in the CCHA Tournament while Bemidji rolled over for Niagara in the CHA Tournament so their four-team conference could get two teams in the NCAAs since Bemidji State already had a spot in the NCAAs as it was.  I hope you folks had your tin foil hats on real tight there to handle that kind of black helicopter magic.  That’s besides the point here.  Instead you’ve got two CCHA v. CHA games in the Midwest and wouldn’t fans of karma love seeing a UAH v. Bemidji showdown to see who moves on to the Frozen Four in Detroit.

The downside here is that UAH is going to need all the heart and guts and puck-luck they’ve ever mustered to get by the Miami Redhawks.  Miami enters the tournament as the #1 team in the whole thing and they’ve got a lot of guys back from last year’s NCAA Finals team who have that stinging loss sticking out in their minds.  Hobey Baker Award nominee, goaltender Cody Reichard comes into the tournament with beastly numbers. Sporting a .924 save percentage and a goals against average of 1.79 are stunning numbers at the college level, especially in the CCHA.  Scoring-wise, the Redhawks have a quintet of scorers lead by senior Jarod Palmer (18-27-45) and four juniors Tommy Wingels, Andy Miele, Carter Camper and Pat Cannone.  Miami can fill the net easily and stop the pucks with ease… Unless they’re up against Michigan apparently.

What makes Miami ripe for an upset?  Since January, the Redhawks have had a handful of head-scratching losses starting with being swept in a weekend series by Robert Morris. While that could be chalked up to being a bad weekend, Miami has been prone to “hiccups” like losing to Nebraska-Omaha, losing and tying Ohio State, and then losing to Michigan in the CCHA semifinals.  Ideally if you’re a team looking to win a National Championship you want to have your “hiccup” games earlier in the season and Miami seems to be having them more regularly later in the year.

West Region top seed Wisconsin comes into the tournament after playing hard and coming away with a 1-1 record in the WCHA Final Five, losing in the semifinals to St. Cloud State while kicking Denver in the teeth in the consolation game.  Wisconsin has a boatload of talent including two Hobey Baker Award nominees in forward Blake Geoffrion (Nashville) and defenseman Brendan Smith (Detroit).  Not to mention WJC superstar Derek Stepan (NYR), freshman forward Craig Smith (Nashville) and undrafted senior forward leaders Ben Street and  Michael Davies and you’ve got yourself a pretty dangerous team.

Wisconsin finds themselves matched up against the University of Vermont, losers to Boston University in the National Semifinals last year.  Vermont has played beastly in non-conference games this year and luckily for them Wisconsin is not a Hockey East team.  What makes this game intriguing is that these teams both play the game with a special focus dedicated to team defense, which means that flukey things occurring could turn this game on its head as far as Wisconsin is concerned.  The Badgers have the superior talent in this game without a question and Vermont lacks the game-breaking talent that they had last year with Viktor Stalberg but if Vermont can put the clamps down and make Wisconsin try to earn everything in the game, Vermont could steal one. Wisconsin has to be wary though as Vermont has been wildly inconsistent this year and if the good Vermont team shows up, the Badgers are in for a real tough game.

As for the East Region top seed Boston College… They look good and strong.  The 7-6 overtime win against Maine in the Hockey East title game aside, Boston College has been a ferocious team comparable to past title-winning BC teams.  Their losses this year have been close ones and many of their wins have been thoroughly dominating.  If there’s a reason to worry if you’re a Boston College fan it would be that the bad John Muse shows up in goal against the offensively-maligned Nanooks of Alaska.  Dion Nelson and Andy Taranto are the only scorers of note for the Nanooks and provided that the BC defense doesn’t allow them any room, Boston College shouldn’t have any problems with Alaska.

Then again, there’s a good reason why they play the games and Alaska goaltender Scott Greenham is capable of shutting down big scoring teams.   Can he do it against a team that’s been punishing everyone for the last month and a half and has a stud from the WJC gold medal team in Chris Kreider (NYR)?  I’ll hedge my bets enough and say, “no” this time.  Boston College looks like a frightening team and have a potential second round match-up against a team they haunt in the NCAA Tournament with North Dakota.

Whether or not any of these four seeds can do the seeming impossible and take out their top seeded overlords remains to be seen, but as has been shown in recent years the chances are improving each year to see someone with high hopes to be crushed under the weight of expectations and perhaps looking too far ahead for their own good.

Secondly, there was the distinct possibility that Oswego State would end up in the Division III Frozen Four in Lake Placid and get to play on the 1980 Rink.  That will happen as Oswego throttled Bowdoin 9-2 in the quarterfinals and the Lakers move on to face the St. Norbert’s Green Knights in the National Semifinals.  I have to admit, the more I read notices and messages from the Alumni office about alumni meet-and-greets in Lake Placid it’s twisting my alumnus innards to pieces to not be there to watch them, potentially, win a National Championship in person.  The fun twist is when Oswego State won the National Championship in 2007, they did so in Superior, Wisconsin located near Duluth, Minnesota while I was parked nervously in front of my television watching everything unfold on CSTV as the Lakers lost a third period lead against Middlebury to send the game to overtime where Garren Reisweber scored the game winning goal by wheeling around the Middlebury defense and deking the goaltender out badly.

Enough talk about that, you can still watch the title game highlight reel here.

Anyhow, this time around Oswego is in the Frozen Four in New York and I’ll be the one away in Minnesota.  Being that far from the team worked out pretty well last time, so perhaps my lack of presence within an immediate drive of the games helps. After all, Oswego lost in the National Championship game in 2003 against Norwich while I was in attendance at Kreitzberg Arena in Northfield, Vermont.  That’s one somber ride home.

Aside from all of that, still, there were even more activities going on including a great Montreal Tweet-Up event over the weekend that’s being hosted by the folks at All-Habs.  So with all of these other things going on, I bit the bullet and bought my plane tickets for Minneapolis, Minnesota because it was high time I made the pilgrimage to what’s described as college hockey’s greatest conference tournament.

Usually when folks throw out plaudits like that, I take them with a grain of salt because they’re generally coming from folks who are fans of teams in the conference and they’re a bit biased.  WCHA folks in particular are very proud of their conference and how they perform and hell, why not? Just take a look at the Pairwise rankings right now and you’ll see that four of the top six teams are from the WCHA.

If you’re unfamiliar with the Pairwise, it’s the ranking system used to slot out the teams for the NCAA Tournament.  It’s not like the bogus rankings the BCS does in college football, there’s actual science to these and while some folks do have issues with Pairwise, the math and methodology is sound behind it and there’s no poll objectivity mixed into it to skew the numbers.

This trip to Minnesota, however, does offer me some grand opportunities aside from seeing potentially five awesome college hockey games (and one NHL game on Sunday, but that’s neither here nor there now).  I’ve come up with a list of things I’m going to try and find, capture on a video camera and share with the rest of you later this week.

1.  The Jucy Lucy

If you’re not familiar with what the Jucy Lucy is, then you need to go introduce yourself to The Travel Channel and the show Man vs. Food.  In his adventure to Minneapolis, host Adam Richman (Twitter) checked out a handful of places including the Minneapolis war of madness between Matt’s Bar and the 5-8 Club who have a contentious war over who the originator of the Jucy Lucy was.

What’s the Jucy Lucy?  Picture a cheeseburger with the cheese melted inside the beef.  Hungry? Mortified? Feeling ravenous for all things melted and wonderfully beefy?  Yeah, I know you are.  Ever since I’ve heard about the Jucy Lucy I’ve been fiending for one and one of the first things I’ll be doing in Minneapolis is heading to Matt’s Bar (which has been recommended to me over the 5-8 Club by most locals) and sampling the molten cheese beauty.  Believe me, by no means am I a foodie of any degree, but Man v. Food has stoked my curiosity to check out places like these and hell, how do you go wrong with a cheeseburger with the cheese on the inside?  You don’t… Unless you try to eat it too soon after it arrives at your table, then you might burn  your mouth out like crazy to which you’ll need to stop by place number two…

2. Gasthof zur Gemütlichkeit

Yes, that’s German and yes it’s a beer hall.  I am a big fan of the German biergarten we’ve got in Albany (Wolff’s Biergarten) and while we’re not exactly going for food at Gasthof zur Gemütlichkeit, it was the featured place on Man v. Food so it’s got that street cred going for it.

I’ll not be having the Meterwurst and going for the challenge but I will be partaking of their $10 liters of beer and will do so even more if I lose a layer of skin from molten cheese at Matt’s.  I’ve got a touch of German blood roaring through my veins and one of the things that blood cries out for is fantastic beer.  Consider me sold, especially with the kind of setting they’ve apparently got at Gasthof’s.

3.  Siouxbacca

Yeah, that’s exactly what it looks like.  Siouxbacca is very real, he was even mentioned by Inside College Hockey last year and I’ve seen a photo of him.  It’s truly one of the most wonderous sights I’ve ever seen on the Internet and is somehow a thousand times cooler than this.

What is Siouxbacca? He’s simply an incredible North Dakota Fighting Sioux fan who dresses up as Chewbacca and throws an old school Fighting Sioux jersey on over top of it.  If I didn’t know any better, I’d swear it was actually Peter Mayhew all cracked out and wearing a stolen Chewie costume but I don’t think he’d even be that dedicated. Maybe.  I realize that if you’re not familiar with college hockey and how some fans might be this might seem crazy to you, but believe it.  I’m going all Steve Irwin on this one and will be praying that Siouxbacca comes out to play this year but don’t worry, I won’t be challenging him to any games of hologram space chess, I should remain safe.

4.  Honest-To-God Real Tailgating

It exists in college football and is legendary for the cookouts and alcohol consumption in mass quantities but a lot of folks don’t know it also happens in college hockey and boy does it ever at the Final Five.  Thanks to some well connected friends I’ll get a good up close look at how the folks from Gopher Puck Live do things at the Final Five.  I’m planning on being hazed a little bit for being the guy with the Eastern Bias but even without the Gophers being at the Final Five, the folks at GPL still get out there and still have fun and can throw down with the best of them.

I’ve heard rumors of games called “beer darts” being played and any number of other sorts of beer-related games but most of all it’s a chance for everyone to come out and treat it like the end of the year convention. I’m sure there’s some major shenanigans that go on out there, it wouldn’t be a college-like event without them, but things like this just don’t exist here in the east.

At the ECAC Tournament, team fans generally don’t mingle too much and the locations of the tournament don’t lend themselves very well to do any actual in the parking lot tailgating. Piling into a bar and downing overpriced slop beer is easy to do.  Downing cheap beer in a parking lot while someone cooks a hundred pounds of meat on a grill is so much more satisfying.

5. Really Great Hockey

I know, it seems like such a sappy thing to say but it’s true.  Look at what you’ve got set up in the other conference tournaments this weekend and you tell me which one you’d like to be in attendance for:

• Atlantic Hockey: RIT vs. Canisius; Sacred Heart vs. Air Force
• CCHA: Northern Michigan vs. Ferris State; Miami vs. Michigan
• ECAC: Brown vs. Cornell; Union vs. St. Lawrence
• Hockey East: Boston College vs. Vermont; Boston University vs. Maine
• WCHA: North Dakota vs. Minnesota-Duluth; UND/UMD winner vs. Denver; St. Cloud State vs. Wisconsin

Sure, maybe some of you might want to check out the Hockey East tournament but with the WCHA sending the top five teams in the conference to their Final Five it sets up to be a huge war for bragging rights and to see who can take home the largest trophy I’ve ever seen in my life – the MacNaughton Cup.  (Editor Note: Thanks to Mike in the comments for pointing out my ignorance here: Denver already won the MacNaughton Cup by being the regular season champion.  Now they’re playing for the Broadmoor Trophy which is… Not as fun looking.  Thanks Mike.)

You can probably see that trophy from space.

Winning the WCHA is a big deal for sure. You’re essentially the best team of the tournament in the best conference in college hockey.  Sure that may not translate into National Championships for WCHA teams, but winning the MacNaughton Cup is a tremendous point of pride for teams in the WCHA.  A lot of the teams in the WCHA have National Championships and those arguments amongst fans can be both silly and petulant but getting to wrap up the tournament with this trophy means a lot.

With this year’s field of teams being one of the best in years, it turns out I really lucked out to get my first taste of what many have been telling is the best experience you’ll have all year outside of the Frozen Four.  Besides, if things do live up to the hype, the Frozen Four is in St. Paul next year and booking my trip to go a year from now might happen instantly.

Just so long as I don’t get mauled by Siouxbacca.