At 6:15, the matchups for the first round of the NCAA tournament were announced. While none of the teams selected surprised the collegiate hockey world, the actual pairings were a far cry from what many suspected.

Instead of going the easier route of making match-ups based on a minimal number of flights, the NCAA selection committee created pairings that will have four teams flying to face opponents not in their conference.

For Harvard—which secured home ice for the first round of the NCAA playoffs with its ECAC tournament win—the result was a first round game against Mercyhurst, a team which the Crimson has never played before.

Bright Hockey Center will host the game this Saturday afternoon.

No. 1 Minnesota will take on St. Lawrence, Dartmouth will host Wisconsin, and Minnesota-Duluth will welcome Providence—this weekend’s Hockey East Champion and thus, automatic tournament bid—to its campus.

In general, the mood before the announcement of the first-ever eight-team tournament was one of wonderment, as it seemed no one could really pin down how the NCAA would set up the games.

“What might the overall picture be?” Dartmouth coach Mark Hudak said. “I don’t know.”

The semifinals and finals contests will be played the following weekend in Durham, New Hampshire, at UNH’s Whittemore Rink.

THE OTHER HALF

In Friday’s other semifinal, goals were just as hard to come by as in the Harvard-Yale contest.

That is, until the third period.

Though the teams split their season series and St, Lawrence was up 1-0 heading into the final frame, Dartmouth—the number two seed in the tournament—sent the Saints packing with four goals to win by a final score of 4-2.

The Saints scored first in the second period, but Dartmouth then responded with two goals to go ahead 2-1. The second came in the middle of the third period when Caroline Ethier knocked the puck out of the air with her stick. Despite St. Lawrence’s arguments that a high-sticking penalty should have been called, referee Kevin Keenan called the play a goal and the game continued with Dartmouth up by one.

The two teams then traded goals and the Big Green’s Cherie Piper put in the game winner.

Unlike the earlier matchup of the Crimson and the Bulldogs, the Saints and Dartmouth played a much more physical game with 17 penalties called in total. The game also included a number of hard hits and checks into the boards as the Big Green used its size and physicality to wear away at St. Lawrence and the impressive play of its goaltender, Jess Moffat—who finished with 37 saves.