W. Hockey Notebook: NCAA Answers Questions With St. Lawrence Selection

HANOVER, N.H.--By selecting No. 4 St. Lawrence over No. 6 Minnesota for the final spot in the Frozen Four, the NCAA answered a number of lingering questions about how it would handle tournament selections.

Selection decisions were based solely on five criteria--a ratings-percentage index, record vs. teams above .500, head-to-head results, record vs. common opponents, and record in the past 16 games.

Minnesota and St. Lawrence never met head-to-head, but the Saints beat out the Gophers narrowly in three of the remaining four criteria and tied in one.

According to selection chair Carolyn Campbell-McGovern, Minnesota's hosting of the tournament had no effect on the selection decision.

Minnesota's regular-season WCHA title was also meaningless in the eyes of the selection committee.

Only wins, losses and ties were considered in the selection decision. Regular season final standings and conference tournament placings in and of themselves meant nothing. Conference tournament games counted just as much towards selection as regular season contests.

As has been true of all recent NCAA decisions across all sports, margin of victory had no effect on the selection decisions. The above was good news for St. Lawrence, who lost 7-1 to Harvard in the ECAC semfinals on Saturday.

One point of controversy in the selection decisions is the inconsistency between the ECAC and the WCHA tournaments. Minnesota was forced to play a third-place game against Wisconsin which it ultimately lost, while St. Lawrence's tournament ended with its semifinal loss to Harvard.

Had St. Lawrence been forced to play fellow semfinal loser Brown in a consolation or had Minnesota not had to play its consolation game, the selection results may well have been different.

Delayed Entry

The start time of Saturday's Harvard-St. Lawrence semifinal was delayed a full hour to 8:30 p.m. because of the preceding Dartmouth-Brown matchup, a thriller of a game that the Big Green won 3-2 in double overtime.

Harvard was not phased at all by the delay.

"Some people get a little nervous when you have a wrinkle in your day--with overtime in the first game--but it certainly didn't affect us a bit," Stone said. "Our preperation has been outstanding in the last few weeks."

This was the fourth year in a row that Brown and Dartmouth had met in the ECAC Tournament, including last year's championship game. The Bears, playing with their season on the line, gave Dartmouth one of its toughest battles of the season.

In the first period, it was all Big Green as Kristen King and Jennifer Wiehn tallied to put Dartmouth up 2-0 to the delight of a 2000-plus crowd. But Brown came back and dominated the second period to tie the game.

Throughout the third period and overtime, Dartmouth was in complete control, but it could not get the puck past Brown goaltender Pam Dreyer. She played the game of her life, stopping over 50 Dartmouth shots on the afternoon.

"There wasn't tremendous pressure down the stretch of that game, because people we're getting tired," Stone said. "The team that continued to mount the greatest pressure was going to win, and that happened to be Dartmouth."

The game came to a riveting conclusion early in the second overtime. As Dartmouth center Lauren Trottier broke in and was stopped by Dreyer, she barreled into the netminder and took her out of the play. The loose rebound popped out to winger Kristen Guarino, who buried the puck into the open net.

The Big Green bench emptied in celebration, while the Brown bench exploded in protestation. After a brief discussion between the referees, the goal was disallowed. Brown would get another chance.

But the Bears' relief was short-lived. Straight off the subsquent faceoff, Third Team All-ECAC winger Carly Haggard manuevered forcefully from the left faceoff circle and wristed the puck over Dreyer's shoulder for the game-winner. The Dartmouth bench empied again in celebration--this time for good.

A Difficult Ending

The 7-1 score of Harvard's pummelling of St. Lawrence on Saturday only begins to describe the misfortune of the Saints.

Halfway through the first period, Harvard co-captain Angie Francisco and St. Lawrence co-captain Caroline Trudeau collided violently against the Saints' box. Trudeau, the right wing on St. Lawrence's top line, would not return for the rest of the evening.

"I'm not sure what happened, but we both went into the boards awkwardly, and I heard her kind of cry out," Francisco said. "It didn't sound too good."

Trudeau crumpled into the St. Lawrence bench in agony after the collision, and was carried into the locker room soon after. It will be a rough way for Trudeau to end her superb career if she cannot return for the NCAA tournament. She is the Saints' all-time leading goal-scorer with 77 tallies.

"I've known Caroline for a very long time, and she's had a history of knee problems from way back in the day, so it's unfortunate," Shewchuk said. "You don't like to see that happen to anybody on the ice. She's an intense, hard-working player, and it's just a shame."

Trudeau's injury further disrupted a St. Lawrence team that was already writhing from a 1-0 deficit at the time. Assistant captain Nicole Kirnan, usually a fourth-line player, took Trudeau's place on the top line.

Trudeau was not the only player the Saints lost on the day. Second-line center Jessica Wilson went down with a concussion midway through the second period.

"Injuries like that are part of the game, but psychologically they throw your mind off," said St. Lawrence Coach Paul Flanagan. "The players who stepped in did a very good job. We moved on."

Sophomore linemates Shannon Smith and Amanda Sargaent were impressive in Trudeau's absence. They connected on the right side of the crease for the lone Saints' goal, but it wasn't nearly enough to match Harvard's firepower.

Star-Struck in Defeat

In each of his two seasons as coach of St. Lawrence, Flanagan has watched Harvard put his season to an end. Despite spliting with Harvard during the regular season each year, his team failed to keep it close in last year's 7-3 ECAC quarterfinal defeat and Saturday's 7-1 ECAC semfinal thrashing.

Even though Flanagan will be better able to handle Harvard next year, once Botterill and Shewchuk have departed for the 2002 Olympics, the St. Lawrence Coach will miss the challenge of facing the two Canadian forwards.

"As a coach, I enjoyed our two meetings with them this year," Flanagan said. "I enjoyed coaching against them, and our first two meetings with them this year were close. Probably a part of me will be glad that they're gone, but I enjoy watching the better players."

U.S. National Team defenseman Tara Mounsey--whose career at Brown ended a year early last season--was one of the first players to leave Flanagan in awe.

"Last year, I remember watching Mounsey play--I hadn't seen her until the first time we played her," Flanagan said. "It was just so exciting to watch her play, even though they beat us, 3-1."

The level of talented players in women's college hockey will be seriously depleted next season due to Olympic defections, which makes the world that much bleaker for Flanagan.

"We want to get our program to where we can beat anyone--we want to beat the best," Flanagan said. "That's why I hate to see some of these other players leave to national team programs."

Among his own team, First Team All-ECAC defenseman Isabelle Chartrand is likely to leave next year for Team Canada, while third-line forward Gina Kingsbury is a Canadian alternate.

Harvard, meanwhile, lost defenseman Angela Ruggiero to the U.S. National Team this fall, although she did make the trip up from Lake Placid to Hanover this weekend in time to work the color commentary for WHRB alongside Brian Schulz. Both Ruggiero and Botterill will be gone again next season for the 2002 Olympics before returning to Harvard for the remainder of their eligibility.