Nicole's NCAA Notebook: March 17, 2025

• I can't even leave this to tomorrow's snark. I've been commenting on the (poor) quality of women's college hockey broadcasts (streams) all season. I've tried to be careful about it, because they are usually done by student announcing teams and camera operators. But I'm also really over making excuses. Students or not, they are adults and they are doing a job/providing a service. It continues to baffle the mind that there seems to be no oversight of these broadcasters and no method of feedback or constructive criticism. Time passes, but the broadcasts continue to be poorly filmed and incorrectly called and it's just so frustrating that this is what is acceptable and also our only option for watching NCAA women's hockey. Broadcasters have the same access to rosters, pronunciation guides and even teams' sports information directors as any other media. They have line sheets and game notes available hours before puck drop. Getting names wrong over and over and over is simply inexcusable. We're not talking mispronunciations, we're talking about using the wrong first or last name for someone. I hold the selection show to an even higher standard as those are professionals making good money, but even here, the players deserve basic respect and they aren't getting it. What's the process for hiring student broadcasters and what's the process for making sure they do an even adequate job?
• Clarkson played a near flawless defensive game against Wisconsin on Saturday and had they put away just one or two of their early chances on goal, it could have been a very different game. They ultimately sacrificed their ability to be offensive to a need to block, stick poke and generally disrupt the Badgers, but with Wisconsin's depth, even mostly shutting them down usually means giving up 2-3 goals. Scoring once wasn't going to cut it. The Golden Knights weren't nearly so smothering against BU. It's really difficult to parse style and see the details watching sub-par streams, so after Thursday's game, I wasn't necessarily expecting the strong push Clarkson was able to put on UW. It wasn't just that they were keeping them from scoring - the Golden Knights were matching the Badgers on pretty much every piece of ice and not ever letting them get comfortable. Several UW players looked like they never understood that what they'd always done would not work. Wisconsin had to get some gritty goals from players further down their depth chart to pull this one out. When the sting of the loss fades, I feel like there is a ton for Clarkson to build on here.
• Kudos to St. Lawrence, who controlled their game against Penn State on Thursday. They ran out of steam while Ohio State picked it up on Saturday, but after graduating some big names after last season, I thought they were more vulnerable in this tournament than they turned out to be. My apologies for that underestimation, Saints. I hope we continue to see more growth from the Saints.
• It feels like no team has made a bigger leap from February to March than Minnesota. After some really wobbly games, including in the opening round of the WCHA Tournament, they are not playing around and have played some really solid and consistent hockey the past few weeks. They were fallible in the regular season, but even with the last-second WCHA title game loss, look nearly unbeatable right now. They are poised and confident and doing all the right things to put their opponents off kilter. After losing five games this season to Wisconsin, they're poised to take on the #1 Badgers at home and goodness is that going to be a showdown.
• I mentioned this on socials as it was happening, but it was really touching to see Clarkson's captains, Haley Winn and Nicole Gosling, taking an extra moment with nearly every Wisconsin player going through the handshake line after Saturday's NCAA quarterfinal in Madison, giving several hugs and having short conversations. They've both been through the ranks with their respective national teams and it was clear there were a lot of connections between the groups. Winn also made a point to skate over to the Badger bench area and shake hands with every member of UW's staff after the rest of her team was off the ice. I'm sure they weren't the only ones doing things like this, but this is the game I was at in person and both went above and beyond what you normally see after a game.
• Per the University of Minnesota's ticketing site, the Frozen Four is fully sold out. There are seven tickets to the semifinals listed on StubHub priced in the $300-500 range.
• Goals you need to see:

This ridiculous wrap-around by Minnesota's Abbey Murphy

This solo effort and cheeky top-shelf backhander from Wisconsin's Kelly Gorbatenko

Wrap-arounds were popular and effective this week. This from Cornell's Alyssa Regalado was enough to send her team to the Frozen Four

The skating and puck-handling by Clarkson's Anne Cherkowski on Thursday

Heads-up play and finish from St. Lawrence's Abby Hustler