| Year: | 1990 |
| Gender: | men's |
| Division: | Division I |
| Teams: | 12 |
| Frozenfourarena: | Joe Louis Arena |
| Frozenfourcity: | Detroit |
| Champions: | Wisconsin Badgers |
| Titlecount: | 5th |
| Champgamecount: | 6th |
| Champffcount: | 9th |
| Runnerup: | Colgate Red Raiders |
| Gamecount: | 1st |
| Runnerffcount: | 1st |
| Semifinal1: | Boston College Eagles |
| Frozenfourcount: | 13th |
| Semifinal2: | Boston University Terriers |
| Frozenfourcount2: | 14th |
| Coach: | Jeff Sauer |
| Coachcount: | 2nd |
| Mop: | Chris Tancill |
| Mopteam: | Wisconsin |
| Attendance: | 24,569 |
The 1990 NCAA Division I Men's Ice Hockey Tournament was the culmination of the 1989–90 NCAA Division I men's ice hockey season, the 43rd such tournament in NCAA history. It was held between March 16 and April 1, 1990, and concluded with Wisconsin defeating Colgate 7-3. All First Round and Quarterfinals matchups were held at home team venues with the 'Frozen Four' games being played at the Joe Louis Arena in Detroit, Michigan.
This was the first year in which the consolation game was not played since the tournament's premier in 1948.[1]
Boston University's 30 goals scored during the tournament is the highest ever for a single team. The Terriers also played the most NCAA tournament games in one year (7).
The NCAA permitted 12 teams to qualify for the tournament and divided its qualifiers into two regions (East and West). Each of the tournament champions from the four Division I conferences (CCHA, ECAC, Hockey East and WCHA) received automatic invitations into the tournament with At-large bids making up the remaining 8 teams. The NCAA permitted one Independent team to participate in the tournament and placed it in the East Regional with the intent to insert an additional independent in the West Regional the following season. As a result, the two western conferences (CCHA and WCHA) would split four open spots as opposed to the East's three.
| East | West | |||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Seed | School | Conference | Record | Berth type | Appearance | Last bid | Seed | School | Conference | Record | Berth type | Appearance | Last bid | |
| 1 | Boston College | Hockey East | 26–11–1 | Tournament champion | 17th | 1989 | 1 | Michigan State | CCHA | 36–5–3 | Tournament champion | 12th | 1989 | |
| 2 | Colgate | ECAC Hockey | 28–5–1 | Tournament champion | 2nd | 1981 | 2 | Wisconsin | WCHA | 32–9–1 | Tournament champion | 11th | 1989 | |
| 3 | Maine | Hockey East | 31–9–2 | At-large bid | 4th | 1989 | 3 | Lake Superior State | CCHA | 31–8–3 | At-large bid | 4th | 1989 | |
| 4 | Boston University | Hockey East | 21–14–2 | At-large bid | 16th | 1986 | 4 | Minnesota | WCHA | 25–14–2 | At-large bid | 17th | 1989 | |
| 5 | Clarkson | ECAC Hockey | 21–9–3 | At-large bid | 10th | 1984 | 5 | North Dakota | WCHA | 27–11–4 | At-large bid | 12th | 1987 | |
| 6 | Alaska-Anchorage | Independent | 21–9–2 | At-large bid | 1st | Never | 6 | Bowling Green | CCHA | 25–15–2 | At-large bid | 9th | 1989 | |
The tournament featured four rounds of play. The three odd-number ranked teams from one region were placed into a bracket with the three even-number ranked teams of the other region. The teams were then seeded according to their ranking with the top two teams in each bracket receiving byes into the quarterfinals. In the first round the third and sixth seeds and the fourth and fifth seeds played best-of-three series to determine which school advanced to the Quarterfinals with the winners of the 4 vs. 5 series playing the first seed and the winner of the 3 vs. 6 series playing the second seed. In the Quarterfinals the matches were best-of-three series once more with the victors advancing to the National Semifinals. Beginning with the Semifinals all games were played at the Joe Louis Arena and all series became Single-game eliminations. The winning teams in the semifinals advanced to the National Championship Game.
| Scoring summary | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Period | Team | Goal | Assist(s) | Time | Score | |||
| 1st | align=center style=";" | WIS | John Byce – PP | Hill and Andringa | align=center | 1:30 | align=center | 1–0 WIS |
| align=center style=";" | WIS | John Byce – SH | Mendel | align=center | 3:23 | align=center | 2–0 WIS | |
| align=center style=";" | CGT | Joel Gardner – PP | Dupere and Spott | align=center | 4:58 | align=center | 2–1 WIS | |
| align=center style=";" | WIS | Chris Tancill – PP | Andringa and Hill | align=center | 7:33 | align=center | 3–1 WIS | |
| align=center style=";" | WIS | Rob Andringa – PP GW | Hill and MacDonald | align=center | 14:53 | align=center | 4–1 WIS | |
| 2nd | align=center style=";" | WIS | Dennis Snedden | Kurtz and Osiecki | align=center | 25:03 | align=center | 5–1 WIS |
| align=center style=";" | CGT | Steve Poapst – PP | Gardner | align=center | 29:42 | align=center | 5–2 WIS | |
| align=center style=";" | WIS | Gary Shuchuk – PP | Richter and Rohlik | align=center | 33:09 | align=center | 6–2 WIS | |
| 3rd | align=center style=";" | CGT | Jamie Cooke – PP | Woodcroft and Lille | align=center | 49:36 | align=center | 6–3 WIS |
| align=center style=";" | WIS | John Byce – EN | unassisted | align=center | 59:18 | align=center | 7–3 WIS | |
| Shots by period | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Team | 1 | 2 | 3 | OT | ||||||
| align=center style=";" | Colgate | align=center | 5 | align=center | 5 | align=center | 14 | align=center | 24 | |
| align=center style=";" | Wisconsin | align=center | 10 | align=center | 7 | align=center | 3 | align=center | 20 | |
| Goaltenders | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Team | Name | Saves | Goals against | Time on ice | |||||
| align=center style=";" | CGT | align=center | 13 | align=center | 6 | align=center | |||
| align=center style=";" | WIS | align=center | 21 | align=center | 3 | align=center | |||
| align=center style=";" | WIS | align=center | 0 | align=center | 0 | align=center | |||
* Most Outstanding Player(s)[3]