talon {l Wrote}:buconvict {l Wrote}:It's pretty clear that you didn't watch the game. If you had, you'd have noticed that at least 80% of the crowd was cheering for UNH. Line changes and white jerseys aside, it was very much like a road game.
I didn't watch the game, but I don't have any empathy for the Eurotrash that didn't take the time or effort to drive a fucking hour.
I'm only going to quote this post in reference to my first point.
You are clearly unaware of the way the NCAA handles venue hosting for the hockey tournament. UNH was the host team in Manchester, thus they are AUTOMATICALLY placed in Manchester if they make the tournament. This was a forgone conclusion for basically the whole season, thus UNH fans could eat up large numbers of the tickets to the games there before anyone else (BU was up in the air between Bridgeport and Manchester until the day before the selection) knows where their team will be playing. Despite this, BU asked the VZW Arena twice for more tickets since the ones allotted to us sold out to students/season ticket holders in no time, so implying that we "didn't take the time or effort to drive" is patently false. And yes, it was a de-facto UNH home game. UNH's home announcer, announcer antics, introduction music, fish thrown on the ice after the first goal, among other Whit staples were all present. How much more difficult does that make it for BU? We can argue until the cows come home about that. Yes, the last line change does make a noticeable difference, but the combined factors here do not add up to an "easy" game. And claver - look at the replay, the only way Pollastrone has any shot at stopping the crossing pass from Lawrence to Colin Wilson is by diving for the puck. If the puck goes through him Wilson's stick is 2 feet behind it - wanna take a bet if he puts that home? The better comment would've been they were a Kieran Millan highway robbery glove save from taking the lead with 4 minutes to go.
Second, Yes, we played two 3 seeds and two 4 seeds to win the title, so on the surface it appears to be an "easy path". But look at the facts of the situation. First, being a 1 seed we are immediately slotted one game vs a 4 seed - and we actually got screwed a little bit because as the #1 overall seed, we should've played the #16 team in Bemidji but due to hosting rules and intra-conference first round matchups, we were forced to play the #15 Ohio State team. On paper this was supposed to be a sizeable difference in quality of opponent (though it turned out to be different) but still detracts from the "easy path" argument. Second, if you think playing UNH in Manchester was an "easy" game, you're a fool. It's fairly clear the regional games do not help the "easy path" argument. Again, on paper it would appear BU would steamroll through Washington: two 4 seeds including a CHA team and a 3 seed? Looks like cake. Right? Wrong. UVM was the highest ranked 3 seed and a top 10 team all season long - they were a 2 seed the whole way and played their way out of it by crapping themselves against a hot Lowell team in the HE QF's. Now, you could say it might have been more difficult if Michigan had come out of that region, but the difference is negligible. Michigan was plagued with injuries, had streaky goaltending, and came from an overall weak CCHA. They still might have made for a more difficult opponent, but the difference is not significant. Let's not forget we got swept at home by UVM, and they took 3 of 4 points early in the season at home from Miami.
Next, there is something to be said that Miami can be considered an "easy" championship game opponent. They sputtered their way through the regular season, choked in the CCHA QF's, and backdoored their way into the tournament. From a pure talent standpoint, Miami didn't hold a candle to BU. They were a hot team who played a couple of good games then got a good draw in the Semifinal against an overwhelmed Bemidji who was in the same position George Mason was when they got thumped by Florida in the 06 Final Four. But credit Miami for showing up and playing their hearts out while BU bumbled around for 57 minutes and got a marginally average performance from our goalie before turning on the jets and playing probably the best 3 minutes of hockey of our season. So the championship game opponent can be considered "easy".
But this begs the question, who would've been better? Duluth? They were barely a tournament team before storming through the WCHA tournament, and even then needed some help from UVM to get a 2 seed. Northeastern? Without Thiessen they're a .500 team. We put up nearly 3 goals per game on him and went 2-0-2, so there's little argument for them. Denver? Eh. They were never terribly impressive and Miami defeated them anyways. The only team where there's any argument is Notre Dame. This was the championship game everyone thought would occur going back to February. Despite Miami sweeping them on the road in October, it's pretty easy to say ND would've been a more difficult game. But if they couldn't get up enough to beat Bemidji State - and not just lose to them but get destroyed by them, this begs the question how much more difficult would it have been?
This brings me to why I had originally brought up regular season records in my original argument. When you make the statement "you had an easy road to the championship" you are implying that since you played no one of any real worth, you're somehow less deserving of being champion. This is where the argument about how BU thumped many of the 1 and 2 seeded teams throughout the regular season comes in. If playing 3 and 4 seeds was easy, where is the proof that playing 1 and 2 seeds that we'd repeatedly disposed of (5-0-2 combined record) would've been more difficult? The only team that had any continued success against us last year was UVM - 1/3 of our losses were to them. They were part of our "easy" path. You can sit there and make the argument that if we'd played them again Michigan might've played a better because it would be in the Frozen Four, or North Dakota would've been more difficult than the IceBreaker game, or Denver would've been more amped up to play us in the title game than the Denver Cup final. But there's little proof of any of this. Not only did we handly dispose of all 3 of those teams, they all lost in the first round and in UM and ND's case to much lesser competition. The fact that we didn't play them in the postseason doesn't mean anything - there's no proof they would've beaten us. Instead we defeated the only two quality teams who beat us all season. The underlying argument of the "you had an easy road" comment holds absolutely no weight. Find me someone who would claim that BU was not outright the best team in the nation last year. Playing at the top of our game there was no one in the country last year who could compete with us. Sure, we never played ND but there's little evidence they would've done any better than Denver or Michigan did. Anyone who makes an insinuation that BU was not definitively the best team in the nation last year and the most worthy of being called the national champions clearly did not pay any attention to college hockey last year and didn't even read box scores or standings.
In a 16 team tournament, there is little difference between the top and bottom seeded teams. The way the hockey tournament is set up, there are 14 top teams and 2 that usually are significantly lower quality teams - of course this proven not to be the case this year. We played and defeated two top 10 teams during the tournament - to simply look at the numerical seeds and draw a conclusion about the difficulty of the path to the championship and by default the overall worthiness of being called the championship team would be making a sweeping generalization without accounting for the facts of what happened before and during the tournament.