1996 WCHA Men's Ice Hockey Tournament

The 1996 WCHA Men's Ice Hockey Tournament was the 37th conference playoff in league history and 44th season where a WCHA champion was crowned. The tournament was played between March 1 and March 9, 1996. First round games were played at home team campus sites while all 'Final Five' matches were held at the Bradley Center in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. By winning the tournament, Minnesota was awarded the Broadmoor Trophy and received the WCHA's automatic bid to the 1996 NCAA Division I Men's Ice Hockey Tournament.

Format

The first round of the postseason tournament featured a best-of-three games format. All nine conference teams participated in the tournament as did Mankato State which was slated to join the WCHA as a full member in two years. Teams were seeded No. 1 through No. 9 according to their final conference standing, with a tiebreaker system used to seed teams with an identical number of points accumulated while Mankato State was seeded tenth. The top five seeded teams each earned home ice and hosted one of the lower seeded teams.

The winners of the first round series advanced to the Bradley Center for the WCHA Final Five, the collective name for the quarterfinal, semifinal, and championship rounds. The Final Five uses a single-elimination format. Teams were re-seeded No. 1 through No. 5 according to the final regular season conference standings, with the top three teams automatically advancing to the semifinals and the remaining two playing in a quarterfinal game. The semifinal pitted the top remaining seed against the winner of the quarterfinal game while the two other teams that received byes were matched against one another with the winners advancing to the championship game and the losers meeting in a Third Place contest. The Tournament Champion received an automatic bid to the 1996 NCAA Division I Men's Ice Hockey Tournament.

Conference Standings[4]

Note: GP = Games Played; W = Wins; L = Losses; T = Ties; PTS = Points; GF = Goals For; GA = Goals Against

Conference Overall
GP W L T PTS GF GA GP W L T GF GA
Colorado College† 32 26 2 4 56 178 78 42 33 5 4 225 104
Minnesota* 32 21 9 2 44 155 95 42 30 10 2 204 121
Denver 32 17 12 3 37 120 112 39 22 14 3 149 131
Minnesota-Duluth 32 16 15 1 33 116 109 38 20 17 1 139 125
North Dakota 32 16 15 1 33 127 126 38 19 18 1 162 155
Wisconsin 32 14 15 3 31 110 123 40 17 20 3 145 160
Michigan Tech 32 12 14 6 30 108 118 42 18 18 6 145 159
St. Cloud State 32 10 18 4 24 106 132 39 13 22 4 135 153
Alaska-Anchorage 32 8 20 5 20 86 130 37 9 23 5 103 153
Northern Michigan 32 5 25 2 12 64 147 39 7 30 2 83 174
Championship: Minnesota
† indicates conference regular season champion
* indicates conference tournament champion
Final rankings: USA Today/USA Hockey Magazine Top 15 Poll

Bracket

Teams are reseeded after the first round

  First Round
March 1-3		 Quarterfinal
March 7		 Semifinals
March 8		 Championship
March 9
                                         
  1  Colorado College 4 6 —   1  Colorado College 3  
10  Northern Michigan 3 1 — 7  Michigan Tech 4*     7  Michigan Tech 4  
  8  St. Cloud State 3  
  2  Minnesota 6 7 —
9  Alaska-Anchorage 4 1 —
  3  Denver 1 6 0     2  Minnesota 7
8  St. Cloud State 3 4 4     7  Michigan Tech 2
  4  Minnesota-Duluth 4 3 —
7  Michigan Tech 5 4 —
Third place
  5  North Dakota 5 4 — 2  Minnesota 4*
6  Wisconsin 6 5 — 6  Wisconsin 3   1  Colorado College 6
6  Wisconsin 4

Note: * denotes overtime period(s)

Quarterfinals

(1) Colorado College vs. (10) Northern Michigan

Colorado College won series 2–0

(2) Minnesota vs. (9) Alaska-Anchorage

Minnesota won series 2–0

(3) Denver vs. (8) St. Cloud State

St. Cloud State won series 2–1

(4) Minnesota-Duluth vs. (7) Michigan Tech

Michigan Tech won series 2–0

(5) North Dakota vs. (6) Wisconsin

Wisconsin won series 2–0

Quarterfinal

(7) Michigan Tech vs. (8) St. Cloud State

Semifinals

(1) Colorado College vs. (7) Michigan Tech

(2) Minnesota vs. (6) Wisconsin

Third Place

(1) Colorado College vs. (6) Wisconsin

Championship

(2) Minnesota vs. (7) Michigan Tech

Tournament awards

All-Tournament Team[5]

* Most Valuable Player(s)

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Minnesota Men's Team History". Retrieved 2014-06-01.
  2. ↑ "Doug Woog Year-by-Year Coaching Record". Retrieved 2014-06-01.
  3. ↑ "WCHA Awards". College Hockey Historical Archive. Retrieved 2014-06-01.
  4. ↑ "2009-10 WCHA Yearbook 113-128" (PDF). WCHA. Retrieved 2014-06-01.
  5. ↑ "2009-10 WCHA Yearbook 129-144" (PDF). WCHA. Retrieved 2014-06-01.

External links

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 11/12/2014. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.