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But wait, as they say in the entertainment biz, there’s more! Sure enough, sports fans everywhere might be exhausted from the craziness of last weekend, with the NCAA basketball semifinals and finals, the opening of Major League baseball, and the climactic run by the Minnesota Wild to secure a playoff spot.

Those things aren’t completely resolved, of course, except for Duke securing the NCAA basketball title with an impressive triumph over Wisconsin.

This weekend, in Boston, we can get back to hockey, with the NCAA hockey tournament semifinals on Thursday, the Hobey Baker Award on Friday, and the championship game Saturday night.

The semifinals throw the NCHC together against Hockey East in both games. In the 4 p.m. first semifinal, Nebraska-Omaha (20-12-6) faces Providence (24-13-2), and in the 7:30 second battle, North Dakota (29-9-3) takes on Boston University (27-7-5).

As is the custom, we in the West are looking for an all-NCHC final, with North Dakota in the dream match against Omaha, which is coached by former UND coach Dean Blais. However, BU is its usual powerful self, and Providence is on a strong run that makes the Friars a true threat. If I had to pick, I would choose the field’s only true Cinderella team -- Nebraska-Omaha.

A group of quick and talented freshmen and sophomores lead the Mavericks, with a talented and agile defense, and the best goaltender in the country, in my opinion. Pretty good ingredients. In the pressure cooker of the stretch run in the NCHC, remember, UNO came to AMSOIL Arena and battled UMD to a pair of 1-1 ties, then broke the Bulldogs hearts by winning both games in shootouts. If all four teams play their games to the utmost, Omaha will make the most clever and creative plays.

Watch for Minnesotans like Jake Randolph and Jake Guentzel to lead the offense, with Austin Ortega, who leads the nation in game-winning goals with 11. Luc Snuggerud is the catalyst back on defense. And in goal, Ryan Massa is a senior standing tall amid all those underclassmen. In overall NCHC season statistics, Massa ranks third in goals-against average at 2.04, but he is first in save percentage at .934.  North Dakota’s Zane McIntyre is second in both categories, and if both teams win, their duel would be a highlight of the title match.

In the Midwest Regional, UNO beat Harvard in the semifinals, then RIT, the over-achievers of college hockey, came at Omaha hammer and tongs, but Massa blanked them with 40 saves. Shutouts are not uncommon in pressure games, but 40-save shutouts definitely are rare. He kept the game scoreless until Randolph uncorked a 45-foot slapshot, then the Mavericks added three more to win 4-0. The perfect sendoff for the Frozen Four.

With the college hockey tournament taking a week off last weekend, it seemed like the perfect time to get comfortable and find a big-screen television for some serious sports viewing. A highlight, certainly, had been played Saturday night, when Wisconsin came through with a thrilling performance to end Kentucky’s season-long unbeaten (39-0) streak. Meanwhile, the Wild tied Detroit, but lost in a shootout, earning one point that could prove vital as the season roars to a finish.

Monday was the big day for sports fans, but when it was over, it also was extremely deflating for Duluth-area fans.

At noon, we could watch the Minnesota Twins open the season at Detroit. With ace Phil Hughes on the mound, and a rejuvenated lineup, we were pumped for better pitching and better hitting. But the Twins did neither. They fell with a thud, 4-0, as Hughes got rocked for two home runs and a 3-0 lead in the second inning, while the Twins didn’t get a hit until the first 13 guys went out.

OK, we could recover by watching the Wild play their final home game against the Winnipeg Jets. A victory would clinch a playoff spot for the Wild, but hard as they worked, the Wild offense also fell silent in a 2-0 loss that left their playoff hopes in jeopardy as they embarked on a season-ending three-game road trip. As it turned out, the Wild went to Chicago and, after a long battle, the Wild got a goal. Then Jason Zucker, playing his first game in three months after breaking his collarbone, scored a huge goal for a 2-0 lead. It couldn’t be that easy, of course, and the Blackhawks scored with 1:48 left, but Devan Dubnyk held on and the Wild won 2-1 to clinch that playoff spot after all.

Back to Monday night. There was still the final big hope to salvage something from 12 straight hours of televised sports. We are not in the habit of cheering for Wisconsin teams against our college favorites, but this time we had to be. A great Badger team, fresh from ending Kentucky’s season, against a Duke team starting three freshmen. It was a great game, but when it came down to crunch time, a freshman named Tyus Jones from Duke drilled a long 3 and scored his best college total of 23 points to whip the Badgers 68-63. Jones, always cool, is from Apple Valley High School, and he made 19 of Duke’s 37 second-half points. His brilliant play down the stretch cemented him being named outstanding player of the tournament. So we can take some satisfaction that a Minnesota kid found glory in the NCAA basketball final.

Bulldog Baseball Finds ‘Artificial’ Home

Springtime tradition for UMD baseball fans is to gather up at Bulldog Park, remembering to bring a fleece and maybe a down jacket or else a strongly reinforced windbreaker, and then finding a comfortable spot to watch a ballgame. For some reason, known also to UMD football fans, no matter how mild the temperature reading might be, it is outright cold up on the hill.

Of course, you have to go back a ways to recall that scenario. We had a little snow the last couple of years, so the 2013 UMD baseball team never played a home game. Then 2014 was even worse, and there was no hope for getting the home field cleared, thawed, and ready for baseball.

Now it’s 2015, and I’m not certain Bulldog Park is ready yet. But Wade Stadium has been given a makeover that includes artificial turf over the entire surface – grass and dirt alike, although you have to look closely to realize the different color of the dirt portion is really just more artificial turf.

When I heard Minnesota State-Mankato was in town for a doubleheader or two last weekend, it was the perfect time to get a look at the redone Wade park, and to see an actual UMD home baseball game – even if home wasn’t really home – against a team ranked No. 2.

So I walked in, and saw that UMD had jumped to a 2-0 lead in the first inning. As I watched, a slim left-hander was doing a pretty good job of pitching against MSU-Mankato. He was dented for a run when he walked a couple Mavericks, got a force at second, then a sacrifice fly in the sixth inning. But when it was over, junior Bo Hellquist threw a seven-inning no-hitter, striking out seven, in a 6-1 victory. The two walks that led to Mankato’s lone run were the only two walks he yielded.

Mankato came back for a 5-0 victory in the second game. But the Bulldogs returned to Wade Stadium and gained another vital split with MSU-Mankato on Saturday, making it a big weekend for UMD. Hellquist, incidentally, was named player of the week for his no-hitter.



Bulldogs Name Crowell

After Josh Berlo introduced Maura Crowell as UMD’s second-ever women’s hockey coach last Friday, he said that he and the selection committee were able to hasten their final decision because the school had attracted “such a strong candidate field.”

Crowell, who played at Colgate and coached the Division III program at UMass-Boston, has been an assistant coach at Harvard since 2010, and served a year as interim head coach when Katie Stone was U.S. Olympic coach.

The hiring of Crowell, who will reportedly make $140,000 a year next season, with raises built in to reach $170,000 in her fifth year, officially ends the reign of Shannon Miller, who was the program’s only coach since its inception, and who led the Bulldogs to five Division I NCAA women’s hockey tournament championships, including the first three.

When Berlo informed Miller in December that her contract and those of her staff would not be renewed, he claimed that Miller’s $207,000 salary was the reason. Later, speculation was that an underlying reason was that Miller, her two assistants, and her administrative assistant were all gay. Perhaps with that in mind, and to refute any speculation, Berlo’s introduction said: “We see a bright future for Bulldog women’s hockey, and I’m extremely pleased to welcome Maura and her wife, Shelby.”
   
Crowell said she was excited to get going, because she started to play hockey at age 4 and now gets to coach one of the top programs in the country. “This is one of the best jobs in the country, and I couldn’t be more happy to work in a city that loves hockey as much as Duluth does,” she said. “I look forward to reenergizing this great program, and I feel it’s a perfect match for me.”

Once the position was posted, the normal procedure is that it stands for 30 days to attract the maximum number of candidates, but UMD named Crowell, assistant UMD coach Laura Schuler, and Mercyhurst head coach Mike Sisti as the three finalists after only 10 days. “We talked to a variety of candidates –  a very strong candidate field – and we accelerated the process once we saw how deep and strong that pool was,” Berlo said at the press conference.

Since Schuler was en route to Malmo, Sweden, for the World Tournament when the finalists were named, I asked Berlo if he’d had the chance to give all three finalists a second interview.  “We did a lot of research,” Berlo said. “The finalists were all on campus for about two days, and we did a round of interviews with them during that period.”

One more question. When the norm is a 30-day period after posting the opening, and UMD announced the finalists in about 10 days, the suspicion was that either there was an extremely large group of applicants, or else a very small number. I asked Berlo if it was one of those. “We had a very strong candidate pool,” Berlo said.

Again, I asked if the pool was about 10 candidates, or 100, and he said: “We had a very strong candidate pool, and we were able to accelerate the search because of the strength of the pool. We met all the university guidelines, and there were a few other institutions looking for coaches, so we wanted to get the best one we could.”

To satisfy my own curiosity, and without being chippy, I asked Berlo one more time if he could tell us exactly how many candidates were in that “very strong candidate pool.” He said: “I don’t know that I have that number in my head. I can tell you that we had three finalists, and it was hard to get down to three.”

So it appears that UMD has hired a promising young coach to replace Miller, who was widely considered the best women’s college hockey coach in the country, and she was selected from a very strong pool of candidates, although athletic director Josh Berlo said he couldn’t recall, nor could he estimate, how many were in that pool.