As the regular season draws to a close, the B1G Conference Administrators Council made an announcement on Thursday morning about the upcoming B1G Hockey Conference Tournament. Originally scheduled for March 18-20, the tournament will now be held March 14-16, 2021 at Compton Family Ice Arena. Below is the statement from the B1G Conference Administrators Council.
STATEMENT ON DATE CHANGE OF THE
2021 BIG TEN MEN’S ICE HOCKEY TOURNAMENT
The Big Ten Conference Administrators Council, which includes the Directors of Athletics and Senior Women Administrators from all 14 member institutions, approved measures to change the dates of the 2021 Big Ten Men’s Ice Hockey Tournament from March 18-20 to March 14-16. The tournament will take place as previously planned at Compton Family Ice Arena on the campus of the University of Notre Dame.
The decision to change the dates of the tournament was made in order to ease compression between the regular season and postseason tournaments in the interest of the health and safety of student-athletes, coaches and officials. The tournament will include Michigan, Michigan State, Minnesota, Notre Dame, Ohio State, Penn State and Wisconsin, and will consist of six games, with three games on Sunday, two games on Monday and the championship game on Tuesday. All six games will be carried live on BTN and the schedule can be found below:
Schedule
Sunday, March 14
12 p.m. ET: Quarterfinal #1
4 p.m. ET: Quarterfinal #2
8:30 p.m. ET: Quarterfinal #3
Monday, March 15
4:30 p.m. ET: Semifinal #1
8:30 p.m. ET: Semifinal #2
Tuesday, March 16
8 p.m. ET: Championship Game
Due to the number of games postponed this season and the limited number of windows remaining to reschedule contests, the Big Ten Champion and Big Ten Tournament seeding will be determined using the protocol for unbalanced schedules approved prior to the start of the season. The first element of that protocol is winning percentage in Big Ten games, with wins in regulation and overtime counted as wins and shootout results counted as ties for the purpose of calculating winning percentages. All institutions affected by postponements will continue to work with the Conference to identify rescheduling options prior to the end of the regular season.
The Wrap Up
The Fightin’ Irish have four games, two weekends left in conference play. This weekend the Irish travel to East Lansing to take on the Spartans, and next week end the Irish will play home against Penn State. Both weekend series are very important, especially now with the tournament seeding the protocol for unbalanced schedules. The current standing as of 2/25/21 are here. The Irish are currently tie for third with Michigan. Michigan has only played eighteen games while Notre Dame has played twenty. Michigan is 10-8-0-1-0-0 while ND is 8-10-2-1-2, the last two spots are OT W(ins) and OT L(oses). So the breakdown gets very complicated for ties. Winning the next four games is just a necessity.
Cheers and Go Irish!☘🏒🥅🚨🌩