1998 WCHA Men's Ice Hockey Tournament

The 1998 WCHA Men's Ice Hockey Tournament was the 39th conference playoff in league history and 46th season where a WCHA champion was crowned. The tournament was played between March 13 and March 21, 1998. 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, Wisconsin was awarded the Broadmoor Trophy and received the WCHA's automatic bid to the 1998 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 1998 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
North Dakota† 28 21 6 1 43 127 80 39 30 8 1 188 115
Wisconsin* 28 17 10 1 35 102 88 41 26 14 1 151 121
Colorado College 28 16 10 2 34 111 93 42 26 13 3 174 132
St. Cloud State 28 16 11 1 33 101 90 40 22 16 2 141 121
Minnesota-Duluth 28 14 12 2 30 94 90 40 21 17 2 140 130
Minnesota 28 12 16 0 24 101 94 39 17 22 0 140 133
Michigan Tech 28 10 17 1 21 79 116 40 17 20 3 132 155
Denver 28 8 18 2 18 91 119 38 11 25 2 127 167
Alaska-Anchorage 28 5 19 4 14 45 81 36 6 25 5 59 116
Championship: Wisconsin
† 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 13-15		 Quarterfinal
March 19		 Semifinals
March 20		 Championship
March 21
                                         
  1 North Dakota 5 5 —   1 North Dakota 4  
10 Mankato State 2 4 — 4 St. Cloud State 4     4 St. Cloud State 3  
  5 Minnesota-Duluth 3  
  2 Wisconsin 6 6 —
9 Alaska-Anchorage 1 2 —
  3 Colorado College 3* 6 —     1 North Dakota 2
8 Denver 2 4 —     2 Wisconsin 3
  4 St. Cloud State 6 2 6
7 Michigan Tech 4 3 2
Third place
  5 Minnesota-Duluth 7 0 5* 2 Wisconsin 5
6 Minnesota 3 5 4 3 Colorado College 2   3 Colorado College 6
4 St. Cloud State 1

Note: * denotes overtime period(s)

Quarterfinals

(1) North Dakota vs. (10) Mankato State

North Dakota won series 2–0

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

Wisconsin won series 2–0

(3) Colorado College vs. (8) Denver

Colorado College won series 2–0

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

St. Cloud State won series 2–1

(5) Minnesota-Duluth vs. (6) Minnesota

Minnesota-Duluth won series 2–1

Quarterfinal

(4) St. Cloud State vs. (5) Minnesota-Duluth

Semifinals

(1) North Dakota vs. (4) St. Cloud State

(2) Wisconsin vs. (3) Colorado College

Third Place

(3) Colorado College vs. (4) St. Cloud State

Championship

(1) North Dakota vs. (2) Wisconsin

Tournament awards

All-Tournament Team[5]

* Most Valuable Player(s)

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Wisconsin Men's Team History". Retrieved 2014-06-01.
  2. ↑ "Jeff Sauer 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.
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