30 Mar '04 - + 91 - 76 Frozen Four Fervor
Once again, the excitement surrounding the Frozen Four overwhelmes me.
The two-time defending national champions were eliminated last weekend,
leading to what I can only assume is stunned silence from the media.
By silence, I mean a complete media blackout. With effort, I was able
to find out that Minnesota (the aforementioned champs) lost to
MN-Duluth. With herculean effort, I was able to find out what teams
remained in the tournament, and when the Frozen Four would take place.
The Frozen Four, for those of you who don't live in Canada or the
northeastern U.S., is the hockey equivalent to basketball's Final Four;
the last four teams standing in the NCAA Men's Ice Hockey tournament.
I'm not insulting those of you who are hockey fans from elsewhere - I'm
insulting the national media. The lack of coverage is nothing short of
breathtaking.
Before I forget, this link is perhaps the sole decent source of information on the web for current news on the tournament:
http://www.uscho.com.
It's not the best site I've ever seen. There's no current bracket, at
least that I can find, so it takes some effort to find out what teams
remain. But the information is there, which is more than I can say for
most sites.
Let's take a look at the sports leader, ESPN. "Hey!", you could say.
"They have a site devoted to the Frozen Four. It's beautiful, complete
with pictures, and a full story on the winner. What more do you want?!"
"Well," I might reply, "I'd like them to wait until the tournament
finishes before announcing the winner, for one thing. Let's take a look
at this site you speak of." And I would open my browser to the site in
question:
ESPN's Frozen Four Website.
"Interesting," I would continue. "I see here that this is Minnesota's
first championship in 23 years. The two problems with that are that
last year was Minnesota's second championship in a row and that they've
been eliminated from this year's tournament."
Indeed, if you glance at the logo on the top righthand corner of the
page, you'll see the professional-looking logo that ESPN designed...
for the 2002 Frozen Four. ESPN, the national leader in sports, cannot
even be troubled to put up last year's winner, for Pete's sake.
I might think that they had simply shifted their NCAA ice hockey
coverage to another part of their site, but I'll be damned if I can
find it. I understand that hockey is not the hotbed of ratings that
other major sports are, and that NCAA hockey barely registers on the
interest meter of the most rabid sports fan south of Michigan. But a
lot of that is the complete lack of coverage. Little help here, please
guys?