↑ The bracket is set – Congratulations to Wisconsin, Ohio State, Cornell, Minnesota, Colgate, Minnesota Duluth, Penn State, Clarkson, St. Lawrence, Boston University and Sacred Heart on making the 2025 NCAA Tournament.
↓ Selection show – I've talked about this on social media and the #PodKaz, so I don't want to belabor the point, but the tournament selection show on Sunday morning left a lot to be desired and I hope the powers at be at the NCAA and ESPN see and hear the complaints and make changes. The list of issues is long, but ultimately what this comes down to is that it was completely disrespectful to the student-athletes. It's really insulting to not even be able to get the names and basic facts right, but it's also really demoralizing to realize that the NCAA itself and the people responsible for broadcasting the tournament don't respect you enough to put in a minimum of effort or do any better than that.
↑ Milestones – With her win in the AHA Championship, Penn State's Katie DeSa became the program record holder for wins in a single-season. Minnesota's Abbey Murphy became just the seventh player in Gopher program history to record 100 goals over the weekend. Teammate Ava Lindsay tallied her 50th career point. Wisconsin's Caroline Harvey became that program's all-time leader in points with 131. Teammate Casey O'Brien became the all-time leading scorer in Wisconsin hockey history (men or women) with her 268th career point on Saturday.
↓ Ohio State – It's a testament to how steady and good the Buckeyes have been over the past several years that one bad game in stands out so starkly. Even their loss in the WCHA championship last year didn't quite hit like their semifinal loss to Minnesota this year. The team's youth showed a bit this weekend it will be interesting to see how OSU is able to respond this week.
↑ BU, Cornell and Sacred Heart – SHU earned their first-ever NCAA berth while BU and Cornell earned their first bids in a decade or more.
↓ Pronunciation guides – Some teams have phonetic and even audio pronunciation's of their players names on the school website, but far too many do not. When doing the #PodKaz, we often going looking for the correct way to say names before we record and can't find any information. College Hockey Inc posts a national men's pronunciation guide and I've asked them about creating a women's one, but teams also have to be responsible and have that information readily available. Some teams have pronunciations on the line sheets they put out for a game, but only some teams post those line sheets publicly. The players deserve the respect of getting their name said correctly.
↑ You all are So Nice! – No matter how long I've been doing this, it's still so amazing and surprising for me when you all come up to me at the rink and are so kind. It's the nicest feeling and I appreciate it so much! On my hardest days, those are the interactions that keep me going. Thank you so much.
↑↓ NCAA Regional times – Would I love them to be more varied and not overlap much at all? Yes. But this is an improvement from them all happening at the exact same time. If I'm I'm going to criticize the things that go wrong, it's important to also point out improvements. There's room to get even better here, but this is a start and I'll take that since I'm not sure anyone even considered the idea of the games not happening at the same time before the last year.
(Photo: Pexels/Luke Miller)
