After being the biggest game on the Wisconsin campus from the 1970s through the early ’90s, hockey has fallen behind football and basketball in popularity.
But the opportunity to spring forward is beckoning the Badgers’ boys of winter.
The NCAA’s Frozen Four semifinals are Thursday at the Bradley Center with Wisconsin seeded No. 1. Skating before what’s expected to be a fiercely partisan sellout crowd, the Badgers will meet fourth-seeded Maine at 7 p.m. after No. 2 seed North Dakota, the runner-up in last year’s tournament to Denver, clashes with third-seeded Boston College at 2 p.m.
Wisconsin is in quest of its sixth national championship–after winning the title in 1973, 1977, 1981, 1983 and 1990–but this is its first appearance in the Frozen Four since 1992.
Coach Mike Eaves’ team is going against Maine without having allowed a goal in more than 12 periods, a scoreless span of 252 minutes 49 seconds that goes back to the second period of the Western Collegiate Hockey Association semifinals.
“Statistically, they’re the strongest team defensively in the country and watching them on tape I can see why,” Maine coach Tim Whitehead said.
The bulwark of Wisconsin’s daunting defense is junior goaltender Brian Elliott.
“Your goaltender is your backbone,” Eaves said. “You feed off his confidence.”
To get the Badgers to the Frozen Four, Elliott had to go into a third overtime to defeat Cornell 1-0 in the quarterfinals on a goal by freshman forward Jack Skille with 11:13 elapsed. The Blackhawks’ hierarchy joined Badgers fans in cheering Skille’s goal because he was the seventh pick overall by the Hawks in last summer’s NHL draft and is one of Wisconsin’s four Chicago draftees. The others are senior forward Adam Burish, a ninth-rounder in 2002; junior forward Jake Dowell, a fifth-rounder in 2004; and sophomore forward Matt Ford, an eighth-rounder in 2003.
Although Elliott has more dazzling statistics, the most conspicuous goalie in Thursday’s game will be Maine’s Ben Bishop, who stands 6 feet 7 inches and excels at passing the puck.
“He covers a lot of the net,” Maine defenseman Steve Mullin said. “He’s like a third defenseman. He’ll come out of the net and fire the puck to the blue line as well as any defenseman.”
The matinee will showcase two more of the college game’s finest goalies–North Dakota’s Jordan Parise and Boston College’s Cory Schneider.
Although the Fighting Sioux are in the Frozen Four for a second straight year, they are a younger team.
Each team has a Hawks draftee. Boston College sophomore forward Dan Bertram, whose season was interrupted when he helped Team Canada win the gold medal at the 2006 world junior championships, was taken in the second round last year. North Dakota junior forward Chris Porter, who has played 131 straight games since arriving as a freshman, was chosen in the ninth round in 2003.
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nmmilbert@tribune.com
