UMD Bulldogs Advance to Regional Final After Michigan Withdraws
The UMD Bulldogs men's hockey team is competing in the NCAA tournament for their sixth year in a row, and they just advanced without even playing a game.
Earlier today the number two seed Michigan Wolverines had to withdraw from the tournament due to a positive COVID-19 test with someone within the program, so with that, the Bulldogs automatically advance to the regional final game Saturday night in Fargo.
The Bulldogs will play the winner of the game tonight, which was moved up an hour to 7:30 after the announcement of Michigan's withdrawal, between the number one seed North Dakota and the 16th overall seed American International.
Michigan Men's Ice Hockey Coach Pearson said, "I'm devastated for these players. These student-athletes have done a wonderful job all year of making sacrifices to get to this point of the year. It's unfortunate. I don't completely understand the final decision but I have to respect it."
Bulldogs coach Scott Sandelin told TheRinkLive.com, "Certainly we're obviously disappointed to not play the game because we were looking forward to playing them. We felt it was going to be a great game, but as I just told a couple people, the weird year continues. We'll just try and get ready for whoever we're going to play."
In a statement issued by the Division I Men’s Ice Hockey Committee, they said, "This decision was made in consultation with Fargo Cass Public Health. Because of privacy issues, we cannot provide further details."
Yesterday Notre Dame had to withdraw from the tournament after a handful of positive COVID-19 tests were found within that organization, so Boston College, like the Bulldogs, advanced to the next round.
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