2004 WCHA men's ice hockey tournament explained

Year:2004
Conference:WCHA
Gender:Men's
Dates:March 12–20, 2004
Teams:10
Finalarena:Xcel Energy Center
Finalcity:St. Paul, MN
Champions:Minnesota
Titlecount:13th
Coach:Don Lucia[1]
Coachcount:2nd
Mvp:Kellen Briggs
Mvpteam:Minnesota
Attendance:82,564
Prevseason Year:2003
Prevseason Link:2003 WCHA Men's Ice Hockey Tournament
Nextseason Year:2005
Nextseason Link:2005 WCHA Men's Ice Hockey Tournament

The 2004 WCHA Men's Ice Hockey Tournament was the 45th conference playoff in league history and 50th season where a WCHA champion was crowned. The 2004 tournament was played between March 12 and March 20, 2004, at five conference arenas and the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul, Minnesota. By winning the tournament, Minnesota was awarded the Broadmoor Trophy and received the Western Collegiate Hockey Association's automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament.

Format

The first round of the postseason tournament featured a best-of-three games format. All ten conference schools participated in the tournament with teams seeded No. 1 through No. 10 according to their final conference standing, with a tiebreaker system used to seed teams with an identical number of points accumulated. The top five seeded teams each earned home ice and hosted one of the lower seeded teams.

The winners of the first round series advanced to the Xcel Energy Center for the WCHA Final Five, the collective name for the quarterfinal, semifinal, and championship rounds. The Final Five uses a single-elimination format. Teams were re-seeded No. 1 through No. 5 according to the final regular season conference standings, with the top three teams automatically advancing to the semifinals.

Conference standings

Note: PTS = Points; GP = Games played; W = Wins; L = Losses; T = Ties; GF = Goals For; GA = Goals Against

Bracket

Teams are reseeded after the first roundNote: * denotes overtime period(s)

First round

(5) Minnesota vs. (6) St. Cloud State

Quarterfinal

(7) Colorado College vs. (8) Alaska-Anchorage

Semifinals

(2) Minnesota-Duluth vs. (5) Minnesota

Third place

(2) Minnesota-Duluth vs. (8) Alaska-Anchorage

Championship

(1) North Dakota vs. (5) Minnesota

Tournament awards

All-Tournament Team

* Most Valuable Player(s)]]

[2]

See also

External links

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Notes and References

  1. News: Minnesota Men's Team History . 2013-06-25 . https://web.archive.org/web/20140415072639/http://www.uscho.com/stats/history/minnesota/mens-hockey/ . 2014-04-15 . live .
  2. News: 2009-10 WCHA Yearbook 129-144. WCHA. 2014-06-01.