By Scott Lowe – MYHockeyRankings.com w/Chris Sugar of @D-III Hockey News

The mayhem that March brings to the college hockey world already has begun at the NCAA Division III level.

Conference tournaments are in the rear-view mirror, and the D3 national-tournament fields have been announced. The women’s NCAA qualifiers start down the road to the national championship Wednesday, and play begins for the D3 men’s national championship Saturday.

The NCAA Division III Women’s Ice Hockey Championship features 11 teams, seven conference champions that receive automatic bids and four at-large selections.

While the women’s conference tournaments usually tend to not provide as many shocking upsets as the men’s, the University of Wisconsin-River Falls, the undisputed top-ranked team in the nation, needed overtime and a defibrillator after getting pushed to the brink by sixth-ranked Wisconsin-Eau Claire in the Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (WIAC) finals Saturday.

The Falcons won, 2-1, on Kenzie Dunn’s goal six minutes into the extra session to capture a fifth-straight WIAC O’Brien Cup and their ninth league title overall. River Falls improved to 28-0-0 on the season, establishing a school-record for single-season wins in the process.

Things tend to get weird when it comes to college hockey in March, and the tension got cranked up several notches at Hunt Arena early in the third period Saturday when Ellie Anderson put Eau Claire in front. But Aubrey Nelvin set up Maddie McCollins, who tied the game midway through the period, and that’s all the scoring that would take place until Dunn’s game-winner.

After a collective sigh of relief and a few victory laps with the O’Brien Cup, it was time for River Falls to turn its attention to the NCAA Championship Selection Show Sunday and a reminder that for women’s D3 hockey the mayhem actually begins before the tournament even starts.

In a perfect world, the top-seeded teams would face the lowest-seeded teams in opening-round championship matchups, but the NCAA goes out of its way to prevent teams from the same conferences from playing each other and to ensure that opponents are located within 500 miles of each other.

By NCAA rule, teams must travel by bus to any game that is within 500 miles of their campus. If the required travel distance exceeds 500 miles, teams are mandated to fly. Early-round championship matchups are hosted on the campuses of higher seeds at the Division III level, so the NCAA tries to limit travel costs by creating matchups between teams that fall within that 500-mile limit.

That can lead to pre-tournament mayhem as the only way to prevent excessive travel sometimes can be to have highly ranked teams that normally might not meet until later in the tournament face each other in an early round.

Such is the case with this year’s tournament as top-ranked Wisconsin-River Falls hosts Gustavus Adolphus (22-4-0) from St. Peter, Minn. in a quarterfinal matchup Saturday in River Falls. And this isn’t the first time this has happened in the D3 Women’s Championship.

Gustavus Adolphus, the defending national champion, is ranked third by Chris Sugar’s DIII Hockey News social-media accounts. Sugar has been promoting Division III hockey since 2016 and runs the largest Division III hockey-exclusive social-media accounts, bearing the handle @DIIIHockeyNews, on the platform formerly known as Twitter and Instagram. He also has the only D3 hockey-exclusive podcast and is a contributing writer covering women’s Division III hockey for U.S. College Hockey Online (USCHO). 

There aren’t many people on the planet who follow Division III hockey more closely or do more to promote the game at that level than Sugar, and having two teams that logically shouldn’t play each other until the semifinals or championship game meeting in the quarterfinals of an 11-team tournament doesn’t sit well with him.

“To the disdain of many, myself included, we’re given a bracket in which No. 1 UW-River Falls is forced to play No. 3 Gustavus for the third-straight year in the quarterfinals,” Sugar said. “Meanwhile, teams that lost early in their Eastern conference tournaments get a much-easier road compared to River Falls and Gustavus. This is a glaring issue with the 500-mile travel limit; it’s ruining D3 hockey and what should be the best time of the year is becoming filled with fixable controversy.”

Mayhem. Already. 

Sugar goes on to lament that River Falls has beaten Gustavus three times already this season and now has to beat that team, which has only lost once other than those matchups, for a fourth time after putting together a perfect season to date.

“It’s hard enough to beat any team three times in one season, and now they have to do it for a fourth time,” he said. “Mind you, this isn’t a .500 team; it’s 22-4-0 Gustavus, which always plays UWRF close and is the defending national champion. If River Falls defeats Gustavus, they’ll likely face No. 5 Adrian, which is 27-2-0, then they would probably play No. 2 or No. 4 Amherst in the title game. Meanwhile a team from the East such as Plattsburgh won’t face higher than a No. 4 until the championship game.” 

Adding to the mayhem are the unusual major upsets that occurred in the Eastern conference tournaments Sugar referred to earlier.

Fourth-ranked Amherst didn’t make it to the finals in the New England Small College Athletic Conference (NESCAC), No. 2 SUNY Plattsburgh fell to No. 7 SUNY Cortland in the State University of New York Athletic Conference (SUNYAC) finals and top-seeds Norwich and Endicott were knocked out before the championship games in the New England Hockey Conference (NEHC) and Commonwealth Coast Conference (CCC), respectively.

While it seems like a shame that what could have been a great championship game between the defending national champs and an undefeated, top-ranked team will be played early in the tournament, the contest between River Falls and Gustavus Adolphus should be a another classic battle. And as a whole, this could be one of the most exciting Division III NCAA Women’s Championship tournaments ever played with a level of play that could be the highest in D3 history. .

“On the brighter side, the tournament itself will be interesting considering the amount of parity we’ve seen outside of undefeated River Falls,” Sugar said. “Western New England out of the CCC is making its first-ever NCAA tournament appearance after winning its first-ever league title, which is nice to see considering it’s a younger program that is only four years old. 

“And Cortland upset Plattsburgh in the SUNYAC,” he continued, “so I’m looking forward to seeing what the Red Dragons can do against an Elmira team that found its way in after beating Cinderella Southern Maine in the NEHC title game after USM beat top-seeded Norwich on the road.”

Before we get too far ahead of ourselves, let’s take a look at how this year’s bracket lays out for the rest of the field: 

 

First Round – Wednesday, March 6 at Campus Sites

7 p.m. EST in Clinton, N.Y. – No. 9 Nazareth at No. 8 Hamilton

Hamilton enters the tournament with a record of 15-6-6 after falling to No. 6 Middlebury, 4-0, in the NESCAC championship game. Nazareth is 22-5-1 and just captured its third-straight United Collegiate Hockey Conference (UCHC) Tournament championship with a 2-1 victory over Utica.

 

Sugar’s Take:

“I like the rematch of Hamilton and Nazareth, which dates back to last season’s NCAA first round, where Hamilton won 3-1, before going on to beat Adrian in the quarterfinals to advance to their first-ever Frozen Four. Nazareth is one of the youngest teams in D3; they’ve had an excellent season under Head Coach Chris Baudo once again. The winner of this game visits Adrian. This should be a great game, and I expect Nazareth to win this one and take the next step this year.”

  

7 p.m. EST in Middlebury, Vt. – No 11 Western New England vs. No. 6 Middlebury

Middlebury is 16-6-4 and defeated No. 8 Hamilton, 4-0, over the weekend to capture its 12^th NESCAC Championship. Western New England is the (CCC) champion, bringing along a 17-7-3 record. The Golden Bears are making their first NCAA Championship appearance after beating Curry, 5-3, as the second seeds in the CCC title game.

 

Sugar’s Take:

“For Middlebury vs. Western New England I’d like the Golden Bears give it a great fight and maybe shock the world. But I just can’t see Bill Mandigo’s Panthers losing this one. Middlebury was great in NESCAC play and decent in out-of-conference games, so assuming that they win it will be interesting to see how they fare against Plattsburgh in the quarterfinals.”

 

7 p.m. EST in Cortland, N.Y. – No. 10 Elmira vs. No. 7 SUNY Cortland

The campus in Cortland still is buzzing after watching the school’s men’s and women’s teams both captured State University of New York Athletic Conference (SUNYAC) championships last weekend. Cortland improved its record to 20-5-2 with a 2-1 overtime victory against second-ranked SUNY Plattsburgh. The second-seeded Red Dragons captured the inaugural SUNYAC title and are making their first-ever NCAA Championship appearance. Elmira defeated Southern Maine, 2-0, Saturday to capture the New England Hockey Conference (NEHC) Championship and improve to 20-7-1 on the year. The Soaring Eagles won their second league title in their third-straight championship-game appearance.

 

Sugar’s Take:

“Cortland and Elmira is intriguing since both teams find themselves in the tournament when it wasn’t necessarily expected. Elmira hadn’t fared well vs. Norwich this year, but avoided them in the NEHC Tournament when USM defeated the Cadets, Cortland beat Plattsburgh, which hadn’t lost a league title since 2011. I think Cortland with home-ice takes this one as the Red Dragons seem to really have it this year.”

  

Quarterfinals – Saturday, March 9 at Campus Sites

3 p.m. EST in River Falls, Wisc. – No. 1 Wisconsin-River Falls vs. No. 3 Gustavus Adolphus

3 p.m. EST in Adrian, Mich. – No. 5 Adrian vs. Nazareth/Hamilton winner

3 p.m. EST in Plattsburgh, N.Y. – No. 2 SUNY Plattsburgh vs. Western New England/Middlebury winner 

3 p.m. EST in Amherst, Mass. – No. 4 Amherst vs. Cortland/Elmira winner

 

So what happens after the opening round?

“My title favorite is UW-River Falls, but it’s tough to know how their matchup with Gustavus will go,” Sugar said. “I almost want to pick Gustavus to win because it’s so hard to beat a team four times in one season, and they have to do it against a top-three nationally ranked rival. I do think the champion will come from the West, so also keep an eye on Adrian as assistant coach Trevor Coykendall looks to become the first person at Adrian to win a national championship as a player (Adrian, men’s champions 2023) and a coach.”

When it comes to college hockey in March, we’ve learned to expect the unexpected. We know for sure that one of the best teams in the country will be knocked out early, and after all of the mayhem during this year’s Eastern conference tournaments, it seems as though – as usual – anything is possible.

And that’s why they play the games.