Lighter, stiffer, quicker Audi TT stretches beyond cute
SAN FRANCISCO, CA. — Finishing a long day of driving the new 2008 Audi TT through the hills and valleys of Northern California wine country, we pulled off to shoot photos of the car framed by the Golden Gate Bridge, with San Francisco in the background. A tour bus stopped nearby and a middle aged couple hastened over to us, eager to look over our bright red TT Coupe. Turns out, they were from Scotland, on a globe-hopping sightseeing journey, and their interest in the second-generation TT is because they own one of the first-generation TT Coupes — as well as a hot-performing Audi S4 sedan.
Audi fans seem to be everywhere these days, and whether you came from Scotland or Minnesota when you got a late-April glimpse of the new TT from Germany, the car revealed to the nation’s auto journalists in San Francisco resembles its predecessor, which broke all sorts of new ground for size and shape. The 2000 model was a mainstream sports car, coordinating a cute, rounded-blunt exterior, with a fantastic interior filled with round shapes and brushed aluminum trim, even if it was a bit cramped.Almost every sporty car introduced since has copied the TT in some fashion, but nobody has topped it.
The new car is recognizable as a TT, but closer scrutiny shows it is stretched by 5.4 inches in length and over 3 inches in width, making it sleeker, and neat contours carved out from the much more tapered headlights makes it subtly more aggressive, with an increase of 2.5 cubic feet in volume, as well. The redesign from its roof to its wheels makes the new car much more than a concept-come-to-life, and it never feels cramped, either in the 2-plus-2 coupe or the 2-seat roadster.
The new TT comes in either front-wheel-drive with the 2.0-liter 4-cylinder and the S-Tronic automatic, for a base price of $34,800 coupe and $36,800 roadster, while the upscale version has a 3.2-liter V6 with either 6-speed manual or 6-speed S-Tronic, at a base of $41,500 coupe and $44,500 roadster.
Those limits surprised me a bit, because some TT buyers might like a stick to stir the 4-cylinder — which is turbocharged up to a potent 200 horsepower and almost-instant 207 foot-pounds of torque — and have it with Audi’s superb quattro all-wheel drive. Demand for a stick and quattro means moving up to the 250-horse, 236-foot-pound 3.2 V6. Granted, the 3.2 zips from 0-60 in 5.6 seconds, compared to the 4’s 6.1 seconds. But the turbo 4 goes like a V6 when you stomp on it, and will deliver over 30 miles per gallon (EPA highway of 31) in normal driving, while the V6 shows 20 mpg.
It may indeed be that Audi plans to add the quattro and a stick to the 4 a year into production, and beyond that, the 4 with the automatic might be the way I’d buy the car. The S-Tronic is the best in the industry in my humble opinion. It is a 6-speed jewel with instantaneous clutchless manual controls either with the shift lever or with fingertip paddles, and it sounds like an Indy car with a neat little turbo-burble on upshifts and downshifts. It made the roadster my choice, even when it was a bit chilly at 60 degrees, because a little chill is worth it to drop the top for the better audio coming from that engine.
Wanting quattro seems to be a no-brainer, except that the front-drive 4 handles so superbly. In fact, when the nation’s auto journalists arrived at the San Francisco airport, we were each placed in a car to drive alone downtown to our hotel. We had a choice of three routes, and I chose the 2.0 with the S-Tronic and the longest route, at an hour and 45 minutes, because it twisted through the hills and along the Pacific Ocean-front Hwy. 1. At the hotel, I turned over the keys and remarked how the new quattro system worked amazingly well when I was throwing the car through the tightest turns, and an Audi official smiled and said, “But that one doesn’t have quattro.”
That is the ultimate compliment to how well the front-driver tracked around the most abrupt switchbacks. Naturally, the quattro, which now has 60-percent of power going to the rear under normal driving, feels as though it’s on rails going around similar curves, but it also feels a bit heavier. Also, the V6 sounds good, but not as viscerally exciting as the 4.
In either form, however, there is no question that Audi can challenge the top sports cars from Germany, including the Porsche Boxster S and the BMW Z4, which means it goes well beyond the satisfying and cute sporty-car level of the original TT.
The company has set its sights on raising U.S. demand for its cars to levels enjoyed in other countries, and other prestigious imports, as well as domestics, had better pay heed, because Audi hasn’t missed on its recent objectives. It went racing, big time, and won repeatedly at the 24 Hours of LeMans, adding last year’s title with a spectacular new Diesel engine, which has dominated all conventional gas-engine competitors in endurance racing.
Audi has been the equal of BMW and Mercedes in production cars for years, but I always thought it might lag slightly behind those two in engine technology. That is no longer true. In the last few years, Audi first went to 5-valve cylinder heads, then back to 4 when it applied direct injection and turbocharging technology to its superb 2.0-liter 4-cylinder. In creating a small but amazing engine with the power of a V6 and the capability to top 30 miles per gallon in fuel efficiency, the new engine was an easy choice to make the annual Ward’s 10-Best Engine list.
That engine compares with the best 4-cylinders in the world, including my favorites from Honda and Mazda, and exceeds them, if you’re looking for the sweetest combination of power and fuel economy. Coupled with Audi’s unparallelled S-Tronic transmission, Audi rises to the top, and beyond, other auto companies in high-tech stature, using the turbo and astute engine management to get both power and economy.
The 6-speed S-Tronic automatic has a manual gate, with paddle switches fastened within fingertip reach on either side of the steering wheel — right hand for upshifts, left for downshifts. Even if you haven’t moved the shift lever into manual modeI, you can override the drive setting with the paddles when you want to hasten an upshift or downshift. Like any performance-loving driver, I always have preferred the sporty nature of a manual, and Audi has a fine 6-speed manual. But the S-Tronic is the first automatic in any car I’ve driven that I prefer to a stick.
The magic of the Audi S-Tronic is that it is an automatic that has two clutches inside it, coordinated electronically. The computer is smart enough to know that if you are accelerating hard in second, you undoubtedly are going to upshift. So the clutch that isn’t engaged grabs third, and as soon as you hit the upshift paddle, the transmission changes which clutch is engages. Zap, you’re in the next gear.
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Interestingly, BMW and Mercedes were building new automatic transmissions at the same time. The Audi unit outshifts both, by such a significant difference that BMW is redesigning its new sequential automatic, reportedly to go to some form of “two-clutch” design.
That transmission, incidentally, made the 2.0 my preference for the A3 and A4 Audis, and the same unit can be found in Volkswagen’s GTI, GLI, and Passat. But it shows its stuff best, perhaps, in the TT sports car.
The 3.2 V6 is no slouch from a technical standpoint. It also has direct injection these days, as does the corporate V8 for the larger Audis, and while the 3.2 with quattro is the upgrade engine for the TT, it now also comes with the same S-Tronic automatic and those paddles.
Still, my driving partner and I agreed in our preference for the turbo 4, and we didn’t agree on everything. He prefers the coupe, with its wonderfully sweeping teardrop silhouette, and its 2-plus-2 interior, even if the rear seat would best be limited to small kids or occasional, and short, trips, while I prefer the roadster, which is limited to the two bucket seats. The power, no-touch soft top unlatches itself, folds itself back under a self-latching rear deck in a mere 12 seconds, and takes 14 seconds to close — easily done at any stoplight, although Audi folks say you can feel free about opening or closing it at anything under 25 miles per hour.
The second generation TT is the fourth generation of Audi’s space frame unibody design, and Audi has developed new methods of sticking steel to aluminum. The coupe is 69 percent aluminum, 31 percent steel, and is both 50 percent improved in rigidity and 166 pounds lighter than the first TT. The roadster is 58 percent aluminum, 42 percent steel, and its rigidity is stiffened a whopping 120 percent, while measuring 188 pounds lighter. The new roadster, in fact, is stiffer than the first-generation coupe.
That stiffness, plus electro-magnetically charged shocks on the suspension (MacPherson strut front/4-link rear) means that either model stays absolutely flat and stable in the sharpest swerves, while remaining comfortably compliant and never harsh over road irregularities. That also, apparently, means that the front-wheel-drive model has enough stability and precision to fool even experienced drivers — including critical auto journalists — into mistaking the front-drive for uattro.
Gophers elude upset, face tests at Final Five
Ben Gordon was one of the chosen few University of Minnesota hockey players who stepped outside the Mariucci Arena dressing room to express renewed hope – as well as some relief – after the Gophers ducked past Alaska-Anchorage 3-1 in the deciding third game of their WCHA playoff series.
Gordon’s dark hair is now a somewhat unusual shade of blond, intending, perhaps, to be gold in the Golden Gophers’ attempt to take the hair-dyeing approach to playoff unity. It pretty well clashed with his still-dark eyebrows, but it got to the roots of his hair, as a backdrop for Gordon attempting to get to the root of MinnesotaÂ’s late-season difficulties.
“Tonight was a big step,†said Gordon, a veteran as a junior on a MacNaughton Cup-champion Minnesota squad that has only two seniors, Mike Vannelli and Kellen Briggs. “It was our first crucial game, because we had to win it to go to the Final Five, and that is definitely something we want to do.
“It wasnÂ’t really do or die for us, but we want to be in the Final Five, and our goal was to play hard for a full game, because pretty soon, it is going to be do or die.Ââ€
Minnesota has been a curious team over the last couple of months. The Golden Gophers had built up a lot of Pairwise equity over a 22-game unbeaten streak, enough to secure the league championship despite going only 8-8 before SundayÂ’s third-game decider against the Seawolves. A 9-8 record in their last 17 is hardly impressive, but the Gophers held the No. 1 spot in the Pairwise computer ratings, which mimic the NCAA’s computer system used in making selections for the 16-team tournament that starts next week.
Had the Gophers lost to Anchorage, they still would have gone to the NCAA as a high seed, as would St. Cloud State and North Dakota. But Denver and Michigan Tech are right on the bubble, being ranked in a tie for 14th, while Colorado College stands 18th and Wisconsin 20th. So the first round of the playoffs were definitely do or die for Anchorage, Minnesota-Duluth, Colorado College, Minnesota State-Mankato, Wisconsin. Denver and Tech also could be questionable, because automatic seeds from outside conferences bump 14th seeds to 16th, and potential upsets from the major four conferences could bump them further.
So Tech needs to improve its status at the Final Five, and Wisconsin needs to win it to gain the automatic NCAA berth the playoff title contains. Wisconsin, the defending NCAA champ, but a seventh-place finisher in the league, went to Denver and stunned the fourth-place Pioneers 3-2 and 2-1, while fifth-place Michigan Tech surprised Colorado College 2-1 in overtime, then lost 2-0, but came back to win 1-0 in SundayÂ’s finale.
Third-place North Dakota was the only WCHA team that won according to form, beating eighth-place Mankato 5-2 and 2-1. Elsewhere, ninth-place UMD gave it a great shot, winning at St. Cloud State 3-1, losing 3-2 in overtime, then the teams battled through three overtimes before the Huskies prevailed 3-2 on Sunday.
The reshuffling means Wisconsin and Michigan Tech will play in Thursday’s play-in game at Xcel Center – both needing to win three straight games to be sure of an automatic NCAA berth. That winner will face Minnesota in Friday night’s semifinal. North Dakota and St. Cloud State will meet Friday afternoon in the first semifinal.
Minnesota’s triumph over last-place Anchorage may have indicated how tough the WCHA is this season, but it also left the question of whether the wheels have come off the Gopher express – and if so, whether there is time to get them back on and aligned before the NCAA tournament.
The Gophers whipped Anchorage 6-2 Friday, and were cruising along 1-0 Saturday until the Seawolves struck late for a tie, and won it 2-1 in overtime. That forced Game 3, and Kevin Clarke gave Anchorage a 1-0 lead in the opening minutes, a lead that held until 4:22 of the second, when Gordon scored with a slick pass from Jay Barriball on a power play for the equalizer. Mike Carman got the actual game-winner, with a quick shot off Ryan FlynnsÂ’s neat pass midway through the third period.
But the Gophers didnÂ’t really put the Seawolves away until 1:25 remained. Killing a penalty, Tony Lucia rushed in and fired a shot that glanced up off Anchorage goaltender Nathan Lawson and hit the glass, bouncing high in the air. Lawson whirled around and looked up, and Minnesota’s approaching Kyle Okposo also looked up. They looked like a pair of infielders who had lost the ball in the lights. But when the puck hit the ice, Okposo spotted it first and whacked it past Lawson for a shorthaned goal and a 3-1 victory.
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The fact that Okposo seemed to find his missing goal-scoring touch in the series, and that Barriball continued his strong play, means freshmen, including Lucia and Carman, may reignite the Gopher offense. Okposo leads the team in goals with 19, while Barriball has 18, and the two freshmen are tied for the team points lead at 39.
Seawolves coach Dave Shyiak, whose team offered hope for the future with its spirited run at the league champs, was buoyed by his Seawolves resilience, despite being outshot 29-12 in the deciding game.
“They played extremely well, and they were going to play that way all weekend,†said Minnesota coach Don Lucia. “Last night (in Game 2) we played well for two periods, but went into a shell in the third. Tonight, I think we decided to just shut up and play – just go out and compete.Ââ€
Lucia didn’t need reminding that last year, the Gophers were riding high as the No. 1 team in the country, but lost 8-7 to St. Cloud State in the WCHA semifinals, then dropped a 4-0 game to Wisconsin in the third-place game – a game that was a springboard for the Badgers to take off and go all the way to the NCAA title, while Minnesota was eliminated by Holy Cross in the first NCAA game. The Crusaders were better than Westerners realized, but the Gophers haven’t lived it down yet.
“But this is a different team, and a different year,†said Lucia. “We really gave up nothing all weekend. In the Final Five, we mainly have to start playing with rhythm.Ââ€
Some of the Gophers donÂ’t think thereÂ’s a problem. Carman, who joins Barriball and Okposo as freshmen who have become go-to skaters in the Minnesota offense, said: “WeÂ’ve been struggling on offense the last two weekends. I think itÂ’s just jitters. Everyone gets Â’em.Ââ€
Gordon, however, has been through it before. And he didn’t deny that there are some parallels to last year for this year’s Gophers – such as starting strong, running off at No. 1 in the country for weeks on end, then faltering at the finish.
“ItÂ’s a long season,†said Gordon. “We came out hot, and I donÂ’t think anyone expected us to win as much as we did. But in the second half, I think it was going to our heads. Now itÂ’s a battle to get out of the hole.Ââ€
Maybe that’s the analogy with the golden-dyed hair – something that more purposely has gone to the Gophers’ heads. Gordon intimated that he probably would be rinsing out the dye as soon as the playoffs are over.
“I’m not sure they’d let me back home into International Falls this way,†he laughed.
And, of course, Gordon and the Gophers hope they won’t be doing any rinsing away of hair dye for three more weeks – until after the NCAA tournament.
Fighting Sioux stun Huskies 6-2 to reach Final Five final
SAINT PAUL, MN. — The popular theory that the University of North
Dakota is playing the best hockey in the country at the right time was verified Friday afternoon, when 17,511 fans at Xcel Center saw the Fighting Sioux whip St. Cloud State 6-2 in the first semifinal of the WCHA Final Five tournament.
Not only does it keep the Sioux sizzling, with a 15-2-4 record since
Christmas, but the Sioux dismantled a St. Cloud State team that had, itself, been one of the hottest teams in the nation. Beyond that, the six goals came against Bobby Goepfert, just named first-team all-WCHA goaltender, and a Hobey Baker finalist. Next up, of course, is a Saturday night date with arch-rival Minnesota, as North Dakota tries to duplicate the playoff crown it won a year ago.
The Fighting Sioux have been built on a concept of a spectacular first
line, with Jonathan Toews centering T.J. Oshie and Ryan Duncan on what is clearly the best forward unit in the country. Toews got the first and fourth goals against the Huskies. However, a second line, just put together by coach Dave Hakstol in the last week, was every bit as impressive as the first unit.
Chris VandeVelde, a freshman who was just installed on the second line
despite having only one goal, scored twice and assisted on a goal by winger Matt Watkins, while Chris Porter, one of only two seniors in the explosive Sioux lineup, added the final goal and stabilizes the trio at right wing.
The Sioux were typically humble afterward, while the Huskies were
unrestrained in their praise for North Dakota.
“I felt pretty good,” said Goepfert, who faced many triple-A quality
shots among the 35 the Sioux fired. “They’re a good team, and that first line is really special. They made plays when I thought I had good coverage.”
Huskies winger Andrew Gordon, who set up Andreas Nodl for a 1-1 tie, and scored himself to make it a 3-2 game in the second period, was overwhelmed. “At this time of year, after playing 40 games and getting physically beaten down, the way they’re playing is incredible,” said Gordon. “They come at you 110 miles per hour, all the time. They’re peaking at the right time.”
The first goal of the game didn’t come until a North Dakota power play
at 16:20, when Toews came out from the end boards on the right, and humbly said he just threw the puck at the net, when actually he spotted a tiny opening at the extreme upper right corner and zapped a missile into the only hole Goepfert left.
The Huskies tied the game when freshman Andreas Nodl converted an Andrew Gordon feed from behind the goal, with a quick step to his backhand eluding goaltender Philippe Lamoureux at 4:09 of the second. Then the second line went to work, scoring just 1:10 later on a rush by Porter, up the right side. He fed Watkins, who one-timed a return to Watkins for a quick shot. Goepfert blocked it, but VandeVelde — a state tournament star on the same ice two years ago for Moorhead High School — cashed in the rebound.
Four minutes after that, the Sioux made it 3-1 when Watkins caught
Taylor Chorney’s rink-wide pass for another good shot, another good save, and another rebound goal plunked by VandeVelde.
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The Huskies came back again, when Gordon scored on a power play at 10:06 of the wide-open second period, cutting it to 3-2. But Toews padded the lead with yet another rebound after Oshie had outraced the defense for a loose puck, and a whirling shot from the right side at 12:29, and VandeVeld fed out from behind the net for Watkins to score again at 13:12. The two goals in 43 seconds boosted the score to 5-2, and the Sioux coasted through the third period, with Porter getting the only goal.
“We’ve been gettting better every game, and we don’t look at it as being on a roll, just trying to get better every game,” said Toews, one of 11 sophomores, and the middle man on the all-soph super-line.
St. Cloud coach Bob Motzko said: “I thought Bobby Goepfert played well
tonight. For a 6-2 loss, we did a lot of things well. Bobby had a great first period, and toews made an unbelievable play to make it 1-0. We tied the game, then we turned it over twice, and they scored both times. They’ve got something going up there. The top line is so good, and the other lines work so hard…They’re going awfully good right now.
“The think I like about North Dakota is their forwards skate straight
ahead,” Motzko added. “You never see them backing off. We were on our way to getting there, then they got that short-handed goal, right when we thought we were there.”
That would be the second Toews goal, which is listed, officially, as a
short-handed goal, but Andrew Kozek’s penalty had expired at 12:28 —
one second before Toews scored. The mistake is understandable, however. The Sioux are playing so well, and throwing the puck around with such rapid precision, that it often appears they’re playing with an extra man.
Badgers 3-goal rally beats Huskies in OT for 3rd
As far as Wisconsin was concerned, there was no way the Badgers could make up
enough
ground in the NCAA selection committee’s computer ratings for Saturday’s
third-place
game in the WCHA Final Five to matter. But the Badgers put on a display of what
pride
and caring for teammates can do for a team, rallying from a 3-1 deficit to beat
the St.
Cloud State Huskies 4-3 on an overtime goal by Ben Street.
Street, a sophomore on a team with seven seniors, grabbed a blocked shot in the
slot,
stepped to his right to get control on his backhand, and plunked it behind ace
St. Cloud
goaltender Bobby Goepfert with 10 seconds remaining in a five-minute overtime —
the
only extra session that would be allowed in the third-place game.
The loss could hurt St. Cloud State (22-9-7), which is sure of an NCAA slot, but
will
probably drop from first-seed status after two losses in two days. The Badgers
(19-18-4) go home anticipating they will have no chance to defend the NCAA title
they
won last year.
“If this loss is going to crush us, we’re not going very far,” said St. Cloud
coach Bob
Motzko. “We might have lost a No. 1 seed, but if it drops us to North Dakota’s
band
(second seeds) now, so we can’t go to wherever they go, that’s OK with me. We’re
just
darn happy to be in it, and we don’t know what the draw is going to be.”
North Dakota beat the Huskies 6-2 in the semifinals, which is why Motzko has
seen
enough of the Fighting Sioux to want to avoid them by going to a different NCAA
regional. Wisconsin fell 4-2 to Minnesota on an empty-net goal in the other
semifinal.
Wisconsin coach Mike Eaves conceded that if his team had been guaranteed an NCAA
slot, winning the way the Badgers did would have been very satisfying, but maybe
it was
even more satisfying to win when nothing else was on the line but pride. “It was
an
interesting game,” said Eaves. “Our bodies weren’t ready from having played a
tough
game last night, but they got wrapped up in the game, in the competitive
situation. You
could feel the energy on the bench grow as the game went on.
“We’re playing our best hockey right now. We’ve gone 8-3-2 at the end. If it is
our last
game, from a personal and pride standpoint, playing this way and winning this
was
better.”
Eaves explained that he had planned to start Elliott, then, at the first
whistle, pull him
for sophomore Shane Connelly. “Our intention was to start Brian, then have our
players
honor him when he came out after the first whistle,” said Eaves. “Unfortunately,
they got
a goal. So then I said we’ll wait for the next whistle.”
The Huskies jumped ahead when Andreas Nodl came out from behind the net and
fired
one past Elliott after only 29 seconds had elapsed. The next whistle came at
0:45, and
Elliott came out. Connelly, of course, is more than capable. His last game was
the
season-ending battle at Duluth — a 0-0 tie.
“It’s just a shame Brian had to go out with that goal, after all he’s done for
us,” said
Connelly, the heir-apparent to Elliott’s throne next season.
Senior Jake Dowell tied it 1-1 for Wisconsin later in the first period, when he
scored
with a neat backhand against Goepfert after Ross Carlson’s hard pass from the
left
boards. The Huskies, however, took apparent command with a pair of second-period
power plays. Ryan Lasch, their other prized freshman sniper, banged in Dan
Kronick’s
pass to the crease, and John Swanson added another midway through the period.
Down 3-1, in a game that offered them no future, the Badgers stormed back. Andy
Brandt, a senior third-liner, came up with the inspirational goal before the
second period
ended, and it stayed 3-2 until Jack Skille tied it at 13:20 of the third period,
getting in
the way of Andrew Joudrey’s shot for a deflection goal.
St. Cloud State might have put it away when Lasch cruised up the slot in the
clear, but
fired a shot that glanced off the crossbar and up and out of harm’s way.
That set the stage for overtime, and Street came up with the winner, after
Andrew
Joudrey won a left-corner faceoff, Kyle Kluberanz fired from the shot, and when
the
puck hit a cluster of bodies in front, Street plucked it free and scored.
“It’s always nice to win the last game,” said Street. “Typically, it wasn’t
pretty. But we
were down, and came back. We just wanted to finish over .500 and send our
seniors out
with a win.”
Motzko said: “No question Wisconsin is a worthy NCAA team. If they don’t get to
go,
there’ll be a lot of No. 1 seeds that will be real happy they’re out.”
Speaking for the Wisconsin seniors, Brandt said: “It’s been a battle for us all
year long.
But no one quit, no one gave up. The character of our team, and our seniors,
came through.
Some of our seniors will go on to play, and I wish them the best of luck. Others
won’t.
We came in as a group of 11, and we leave as a group of seven.
“After the game, all the players gathered around in the dressing room, and we
looked
each other in the eye. Not just the seniors, but the freshmen and everybody.
Coach Eaves
said to remember it, because this would be our last time together as a family.”
Gophers, Sioux, Huskies carry WCHA hopes into NCAA
The WCHA has high hopes for capturing its sixth consecutive NCAA hockey championship when the tournament begins this weekend, and Minnesota, North Dakota and St. Cloud State clearly stand as the best three teams in the league when it comes to accomplishing that feat.
Minnesota won the league and playoff championships, and is the No. 1 seed at the West Regional at Denver when the Golden Gophers (30-9-3) take on at-large challenger Air Force Academy (19-15-5) in Saturday’s match. North Dakota (22-13-5) the 3-2 overtime loser to Minnesota in the league Final Five title game, remains the hottest team in the WCHA, if not the country, and stands as favorite against Michigan (26-13-1) in the other West semifinal.
That is a colorful foursome. Minnesota coach Don Lucia and Air Force coach Frank Serratore are longtime close friends, dating back to when Lucia played high school hockey at Grand Rapids, and Serratore tended goal for Greenway of Coleraine, seven miles to the east. Their wives, Joyce Lucia and Carol Serratore, are extremely close friends and will sit together while their husbands’ teams battle on the Denver ice below. Lucia’s son, Tony, plays for the Gophers, while the Serratore family includes twin boys, Tom and Tim, who are solid 16-year-old prospects.
Also, North Dakota coach Dave Hakstol, who is attempting to lead the Fighting Sioux to their third straight Frozen Four, was a defenseman and captain of the Minnesota Moose in the International League when Serratore was their coach. That’s a tight clique for Michigan coach Red Berenson to try to break through.
St. Cloud State (22-10-7), meanwhile, made a strong run at Minnesota in the league stretch-run, then got worn down a bit in playoffs, concluding with two stinging losses in the Final Five. But the Huskies should have everything back in place in time for the East Regional at Rochester, N.Y., as No. 2 seed to take on Maine (21-14-2) in a Friday semifinal, while Clarkson (25-8-5) is No. 1 seeded and faces Massachusetts (20-12-5) in the other semi.
That leaves the Northeast regional at Manchester, N.H., where New Hampshire (26-10-2) is top seed and meets Miami of Ohio (23-13-4) in one Saturday semifinal, with No. 2 Boston College (26-11-1) meeting St. Lawrence (23-13-2) in the other, and the Midwest Regional at Grand Rapids, Mich. which opens with Friday night semifinals pitting No. 1 Notre Dame (31-6-3) against Alabama-Huntsville (13-19-3), and No. 2 Boston University (26-11-1) against Michigan State (22-13-3) in the other.
What’s wrong with that picture?
Nothing is wrong, it would seem, for the teams that made it. Except for the unfortunate setting that finds that if Minnesota and North Dakota both win semifinal games, they would meet each other to recreate the classic battle they waged in the WCHA Final Five championship game with only the winner advancing to the Frozen Four in St. Louis two weeks later. Too bad, if that happens, that such a time-capsule match couldn’t be played on the larger stage of a potential national championship showdown.
It’s true that St. Cloud State ranks on paper as favorite against a very good Maine team, and the Huskies did whip top-seeded Clarkson, from the ECAC, in a 4-0, 7-2 series in November, that could give the WCHA two spots in the Frozen Four. The Huskies had a rugged three-game test before ousting Minnesota-Duluth in three overtimes, which may have left them drained during two hotly contested games against North Dakota and Wisconsin at the Final Five.
Wisconsin, by winning two of three games at the Final Five, was too good too late to be considered as a team worthy of defending its NCAA championship. “I know there’s a lot of No,. 1 seeds relieved that they don’t have to play the defending NCAA champs, with that goaltender (Brian Elliott) and the way they’re playing right now,” said Minnesota coach Don Lucia, noting that the Badgers finished with an 8-3-2 flourish.
So after such a hotly contested season, only three survivors move on, and both Minnesota and North Dakota will be pulling for St. Cloud State to make it, and undoubtedly, if the Gophers and Fighting Sioux meet again, whichever one doesn’t win will grudgingly hope its conqueror will go on to bring more fame to the WCHA.
There’s always the chance for a potential NCAA final between St. Cloud State, with star goaltender Bobby Goepfert and a team-oriented attack led by Andreas Nodl and Andrew Gordon, and either Minnesota, behind the freshman duo of Kyle Okposo and Jay Barriball and the suddenly hot Blake Wheeler, or North Dakota, with its fabulous first line of Jonathan Toews centering T.J. Oshie and player-of-the-year Ryan Duncan.
But that’s far off. For now, the three tournament teams can set aside the fact that the WCHA’s intensely competitive season hurt the league when it came to the NCAA selection committee’s criteria. The case could be made that Denver, Michigan Tech, Colorado College, and late-charging Wisconsin could have been strong NCAA tournament entries.
As strong as that argument is, consider that Hockey East has five teams in the 16-team NCAA field, with New Hampshire and Boston College favored to meet in the Northeast final, Maine and Massachusetts getting half the chances in the East, and Boston University standing as a strong threat as No. 2 seed in the Midwest.
And the CCHA has four teams in the field, with No. 1 ranked Notre Dame and No. 3 seed Michigan State good shots at meeting in the Midwest final, while Michigan could overthrow the WCHA in the West Regional, and Miami is a long-shot, but could prove tough, in the Northeast.
Only the ECAC, with Clarkson in the East and St. Lawrence in the Northeast, has fewer than the WCHA’s three entries, once the mandatory selections of the Atlantic Hockey winner (Air Force) and the College Hockey America tournament winner (Alabama-Huntsville) were selected. Their selections bumped Denver, Michigan Tech, and other WCHA candidates out of the field.
Moreover, there is the suspicion that the selection committee is still stung by the fact that the Frozen Four two years ago was comprised of four WCHA teams at Columbus, Ohio, which was great for WCHA bragging rights, but didn’t do much to spread the wealth of college hockey beyond its cult-following level in the NCAA’s view.
Nobody expects the NCAA committee, or its computerized selection process, from doing any favors for the WCHA — although another case could be made that winning five straight championships might deserve extra merit — but it also doesn’t seem fair to punish the WCHA for its excellence. After all, when the WCHA foursome all reached the Frozen Four two years ago, all four of them had to win two tough regional games to earn their places.
This season, the WCHA teams compiled a 51-22-6 record against nonconference opponents. Minnesota was 8-1, including victories over Michigan (8-2), Michigan State, and Alabama-Huntsville, and a season-opening loss to Maine. St. Cloud State was 6-0, including the two victories over Clarkson, North Dakota was 6-2, including a victory over St. Lawrence, and two October losses against Maine.
While limiting the WCHA to three teams may seem an injustice, a greater injustice might be to put Minnesota, ranked No. 2 behind Notre Dame in the country, and No. 1 in the Pairwise computer rankings, and North Dakota, a team that rose from an injury-hampered first half to lose only twice in 21 games since Christmas (15-2-4) before falling 3-2 to Minnesota in the league playoff final, into the same regional.
It would have been easy to place North Dakota in the Midwest, or the Northeast, for that matter. In fact, in any season, the best and possibly only way to measure if one league has an edge over the others would be to disperse its teams to as many different regionals as possible. And it would only seem fair that since Hockey East, which last won the title six years ago, and the CCHA, which last won nine years ago, both have the chance to win three of the four regions, the WCHA should have a similar opportunity.
Did we mention that the WCHA might deserve more respect than to have its top team and its hottest team clash in the same regional? To recount, the WCHA has won the last five NCAA championships in a row, six of the last seven, and seven of the last 10…But now it seems the NCAA’s selection process is penalizing the WCHA for its success.
About the Author
John Gilbert is a lifetime Minnesotan and career journalist, specializing in cars and sports during and since spending 30 years at the Minneapolis Tribune, now the Star Tribune. More recently, he has continued translating the high-tech world of autos and sharing his passionate insights as a freelance writer/photographer/broadcaster. A member of the prestigious North American Car and Truck of the Year jury since 1993. John can be heard Monday-Friday from 9-11am on 610 KDAL(www.kdal610.com) on the "John Gilbert Show," and writes a column in the Duluth Reader.
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