The Frozen Four is set and so it’s time to either:
a) Celebrate because your team is in it.
b) Say goodbye to hockey and move on to something new if your team is not.
c) Pick a team to cheer for out of the remaining teams, just to prolong your hockey watching season.
This year’s Frozen Four features Clarkson, Colgate, Wisconsin and Ohio State, so I am in category C. Some years I probably wouldn’t care but as an Ohioan, I guess I can get behind Ohio State.
While each team that is in the Frozen Four has its own set of storylines and reasons to cheer for them, here are some for Ohio State:
Cheer for a team that endured some bad times and has found the good times.
Since 2014, the Buckeyes have had three different head coaches. That is nuts. I can’t imagine what that would be like. Learning new systems every year, and having a coach put together completely different lines every year. Having to earn the respect of a new coach every year. Having a coach try to put in a new culture every year. Having to put up with a coach who is still learning about the school and earning their own credibility with administration. Saying goodbye to assistants or maybe even a head coach you cared about. I wouldn’t wish that on anyone; that’s not what a college athlete experience is supposed to be like.
Finally, in the 2017-2018 season the players had the benefit of having the same coach for two years in a row. With the chaos behind them, they put up a program best record of 24-10-4, good enough for 2nd place in the WCHA, and a season that’s not over yet.
A Cinderella team that’s not so Cinderella.
The #4 ranked Ohio State is the lowest ranked team in the tournament, but with two regular season wins against #2 Wisconsin, some star power of their own, and Olympians away for the year, Ohio State actually has a shot at winning this thing (in the semi they first need to get past Clarkson, and would play winner of Wisconsin vs Colgate).
Ohio State freshman forward Emma Maltais (Burlington, Ontario) put up a team leading 40 points, good enough to win WCHA rookie of the year. Two Ohio State defensemen have more than twenty points this year. Redshirt sophomore Jincy Dunne (O’Fallon, Missouri) and junior Lauren Boyle (Los Gatos, California) both have 26. Finally in net, the Buckeyes have Kassidy Sauve (Whitby, Ontario), a 2017 2nd team All American, who served Boston College their first shutout of the season last weekend. Boston College has the highest scoring offense in the nation, averaging 4.08 goals per game.
Root for the sole female head coach at this year’s Frozen Four to win it all.
Coach Nadine Muzerall, an Ontario native and former player and assistant coach at the University of Minnesota is in her second year coaching the women in scarlet and gray. Muzerall is one of 8 active female head coaches in NCAA Division I ice hockey, and won the WCHA Coach of the Year award. She has a two year coaching record of 38-28-9.
No female head coach has won an NCAA Championship since 2014 when Shannon Desrosiers, co-head coach of Clarkson did so with Matt Desrosiers. Since so few teams have won the Championship only 6 different head coaches total have won it all (others include Laura Halldorson – Minnesota, Shannon Miller – UMD, Brad Frost – Minnesota, and Mark Johnson – Wisconsin). A female head coach at the Frozen Four is no rarity; Katie Stone of Harvard was there as recent as 2015, and Katie King-Crowley of BC is seemingly there almost every year. With the Frozen Four being held at Ridder Arena, Muzerall’s old stomping grounds, I can’t think of a better place for her to win it all. Muzerall's coaching colleagues include Associate Head Coach Peter Elander and Assistant coach Milica McMillen.
Cheer for a Championship ring, in hopes of a new rink.
Would a National Championship speed up the fundraising for the long awaited new ice rink to be built at Ohio State? One can hope, and that’s enough of a reason to cheer. To be clear, a new rink is merited, championship or not. As an Ohioan, I hear often about the rink shortage in Columbus plus the laments about the Ohio State facilities. Ohio State’s arena situation has long been the topic of impassioned debate. It’s a little bit of a Goldilocks and The Three Bears situation down there. To be brief, the Schottenstein Center where the men play is too big, the OSU Rink where the women play is too small (and old). A brand new 4,000 seat facility for the men’s and women’s programs to play in would be just right.
Both existing OSU rinks are serviceable but for programs who aspire to national championships and must recruit against schools with more impressive hockey facilities, a school of OSU’s athletic department stature is expected to do better. In fairness to OSU, at least they have programs. It’s more than can be said for most schools. In a radio interview in 2017, Muzerall estimated a new rink is set to begin fundraising for in 2019. That makes it sound like a new rink is in the program’s 5 year plan. For a school that has seemingly had a 5 year plan to build a new rink for the better part of two decades, maybe an NCAA Championship would speed up the process, or at least make plans more concrete.
There’s a saying in central Ohio, “Columbus is a hockey town.” I believe it to be true, but an NCAA championship and a new rink would go a long way to put the rest of the country on notice as well.
So there’s some Ohio State Frozen Four storylines, and this weekend, let’s go Bucks.
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