There's no ice in Florida!

By far, the most egregious move by the NCAA Ice Hockey Committee is placing the 2012 Frozen Four in Tampa, Florida. Tampa. FLORIDA. 674 miles from the nearest Division I hockey team, and nearly 1,000 miles to the second-closest Division I hockey team.

Of course, there are still regionals and the 2011 Frozen Four in Minnesota, but they have a bit of an advantage (emphasis mine):

“We focused on selecting sites that have NHL size ice sheets and are in neutral buildings,” said Ice Hockey Committee Chairman Joel Maturi, the AD of Minnesota. “We really feel that each of these buildings will showcase college hockey, give our student-athletes a tremendous experience and help take our championship to another level.”

Yes, what a tremendous experience playing for the championship in an empty arena in Florida. Awesome.

If the NCAA was serious about expanding Division I ice hockey, they wouldn't be scheduling tournaments in Missouri and Florida. They would spend all their free time wooing Penn State. Pennsylvanians not only have two pro hockey teams, but are aware they have two pro hockey teams, so you have a built-in hockey fanbase. Michigan, Ohio State, and Notre Dame have hockey teams, so you can have games against known rivals to bring in casual fans. There are only two Division I hockey teams in the state, both in the western part. And there is nothing to do in State College in the winter.

Sure, it's expensive, and you'll have to add women's water polo or rowing for Title IX, but long-term it would be good for college hockey. I almost suspect that the NCAA is trying to kill college hockey. I mean, Florida?

(link via The Blog That Yost Built)

Second place is the first loser

It's been a tough two months of sports for us here. In April, Michigan lost in overtime to Notre Dame in the Frozen Four, ending a wonderful, unexpected rush of a season. A few weeks ago, the Penguins lost to the Red Wings in the Stanley Cup finals, four games to two, after an impressive run in the playoffs. And tonight, the Celtics utterly shellacked the Lakers (sorry, Eli), winning the NBA championship in six games.

I can tell you right now that the Dodgers will make it to the World Series and lose in six games, Michigan football will finally beat Ohio State only to suffer (another) embarrassing loss to USC in the Rose Bowl, and the Steelers will lose in the Super Bowl after some sort of epic third-quarter collapse.

I'm really sorry to all of our fellow fans, but our household seems to be cursed this year.

Waving the white flag

This basketball postseason has seen a wave of home teams surrendering home-court advantage by waving the white flag. The "white-out" tradition of having all the fans wear white apparently started back in time immemorial by the Winnipeg Jets (I hate Winnipeg). And I guess it works in hockey...the Penguins have had three white-outs this post-season, and have won all three games (including tonight against the Red Wings!).

In the NBA the Miami Heat used the white-out to great advantage during their 2006 championship run (apparently the white t-shirts blinded the refs and caused them to give Dwyane Wade every call). But this season? Not so successful.

The New Orleans Hornets used yellow t-shirts to great effect in games 1 and 5 against the Spurs...in game 1 the crowd was rockin', and the yellow looked good on TV. But in game 7 the sponsors must have gotten cheap and switched to white t-shirts which weren't nearly as impressive, and they were killed by the Spurs.

Lakers @ Spurs, game 4? White-out, Spurs were beaten. (Thank you white t-shirts!)
Boston @ Detroit, game 3? White-out, Detroit was killed.
Cleveland @ Washington, game 3? White-out, success!

That makes the white-out 1-3 at home in this post-season, when home teams are overall a ridiculous 58-20 (as of May 28th).

I hope this unimpressive "tradition" of surrender dies a quick death. (Unless the Spurs or Celtics want to try it against the Lakers. I'd be happy with that).