NCAA Hockey Previews: East Regional

Seriously, we're really excited about the NCAA hockey tournament. Deadspin did a preview of all 64 teams in the basketball edition, so in that tradition we offer you these incredibly uninformative previews of the teams in the hockey tournament. We started posting these by regional yesterday, so today's are the last two. All the regional previews are compiled in a handy PDF here (205K).

East Regional – Blue Cross Arena, Rochester, NY

Clarkson University Golden Knights The Empty Seats Do Raise Questions. Verbatim from Wikipedia: "The Cheel Arena attendance record of 4,125 was set on January 18th, 2003 against arch-rival St. Lawrence University, although many consider it to be unofficial due to the large number of empty seats at the game." Clarkson also owns the dubious distinction of the only school to reach the finals three times and come away without a championship. It Really Was An Awful Film. Then Again, So Was Down Periscope. Roger Ebert coined the "Stanton-Walsh Rule" which states that "no movie featuring either Harry Dean Stanton or [Clarkson alumnus] M. Emmet Walsh in a supporting role can be altogether bad." Ebert later conceded that this rule was broken by 1999's Wild Wild West.

St. Cloud State Huskies Thanks, Unky Herb! Herb Brooks coached the St. Cloud State Huskies in the 1986-87, helping the Huskies move up to Division I play. He was also instrumental in the building of the National Hockey Center in St. Cloud. Ducks Fly Together. That same National Hockey Center became the site where many of the interior scenes were filmed in The Mighty Ducks. No word on whether Brooks helped develop the Flying V.

University of Maine Black Bears We're #2! Strangely, the University of Maine is only the second largest university in the state, and not only that, it loses out to a directional school. Its enrollment of 11,000 students is eclipsed by the University of Southern Maine. Twice As Nice. Maine is one of only two schools (Minnesota-Duluth being the other) to see back-to-back winners of the Hobey Baker Award. This occurred in 1992 when Scott Pellerin won it and then in 1993 when Paul Kariya was honored as the Black Bears won their first national championship.

University of Massachusetts (Amherst) Minutemen Take THAT, Bob Vila! Among the famous non-sporting alumni of UMass include William Monahan, the Oscar winning screenwriter of The Departed, Bill Pullman (not Bill Paxton), Rob Corddry, formerly of The Daily Show and now starring on Fox's The Winner, and Black Francis of The Pixies (did not graduate). The best of these however may be Norm Abram, Class of 1972, "America's most famous carpenter", host of New Yankee Workshop, and Massachusetts' second most famous television Norm. Jack Donaghy will be rooting for the Minutemen. Jack Welch, the former CEO of GE, is a UMass alum (Class of 1957). Known as Neutron Jack for his sometimes ruthless style of cutting employees, he was named Manager of the Century by Fortune Magazine in 1999. Geoff only has nice things to say about him.