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CCHA Weekly Release #24
 
Need to Know Items from this Week in the Central Collegiate Hockey Association.
 
 
 

 
Kevin Porter is one of two CCHA players to be named a Hobey Hat Trick Finalist.
 
 

April 3, 2008

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The Central Collegiate Hockey Association will have two teams in the Frozen Four for the first time since 2001. Michigan, making its NCAA-best 23rd appearance and winner of a record nine national championships, most recently appeared in 2003. This year marks the Irish's third tournament appearance and first Frozen Four berth in the 40-year history of Notre Dame hockey. The Wolverines and Irish met twice this season, with the Wolverines taking both games by scores of 3-2 and 5-1.

 

The Wolverines, the overall No. 1 seed in the tournament, won the East Regional with a 5-1 victory over Niagara on March 29 and then shut out Clarkson, 2-0 the next night to earn a spot in the Frozen Four.

 

The Irish are the first No. 4 seed to qualify for the Frozen Four since regional sites debuted in 1992. They defeated top-ranked New Hampshire, 7-3 in the first game of the West Regional on Friday and then topped defending national champion Michigan State, 3-1 in a rematch of last year's Midwest Regional final.

 

With a CCHA team guaranteed to reach this year's final game, it will mark the 12th time in the past 29 years that the league has had a team reach the championship contest, but only the third time CCHA teams have met in the semifinals of the Frozen Four (1984, 1992).

 

This year's other semifinal match-up features North Dakota of the WCHA and Boston College of Hockey East. Michigan has lost to the Fighting Sioux in the first round of the tournament the past two years. The Wolverines topped the Eagles, 4-3 in overtime, to begin the season and have faced BC in the Frozen Four on two previous occasions, including a 3-2 OT win to capture the 1996 National Championship. ND owns a 16-15-1 all-time record against North Dakota and a 10-14-2 record against Boston College. The last time the Irish faced the Sioux was on Jan. 2-3, 1999 with North Dakota winning the first game, 8-1 and the Irish taking the second game, 4-3. Notre Dame defeated Boston College by a score of 7-1 on Oct. 20, 2006 at Chestnut Hill, Mass., in their last match-up.