Since 1999, the NCAA Men’s Ice Hockey Championship has been cleverly deemed the “Frozen Four,” and the 2013 bracket is loaded with a splendid mix of “Cinderella” teams playing hot enough to melt the ice in The Steel City. The Frozen Four 2013 is scheduled to take place at the Consol Energy Center in Pittsburgh, Pa., on April 11 and 13, and the remaining teams will all be vying for the first taste of national championship glory. On April 11, the UMass-Lowell River Hawks will take on the Yale Bulldogs, followed by an evening showdown that will pit the Quinnipiac Bobcats against the St. Cloud State Huskies. The national championship game on April 13 is guaranteed to be an historic affair, as of the four remaining schools, Yale is the lone institution to have advanced this far in the tournament, having fallen in the 1952 semifinals to Colorado College.
Impressively, the New England region of the U.S. has featured a representative in the final four in 56 of the tournament’s 64 years in action, but 2013 is just the second instance in which three squads from the region will play in the final weekend since Maine, Boston College, and New Hampshire joined Michigan State in 1999. Perhaps most surprising is that this will be the first time in the history of the NCAA Tournament that Boston College, Boston University, Denver, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, North Dakota, and Wisconsin won’t be one of the four remaining teams. Cumulatively, these traditional hockey powerhouses possess 46 national championships. It’s looking to be a great time in Pittsburgh, so purchase Frozen Four tickets and see which team makes history.
