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The curtain is about to go up on college hockey's biggest stage. In general, college hockey is an afterthought in the national sporting television landscape. ESPN puts a couple of games a season onto ESPNU, Big Ten Network and NBCSports have consistent weekly coverage, and some schools get RSN attention. But none of those are truly national outlets that command the attention of the average sports viewer.
While the NCAA tournament still doesn't bring the level of attention to the sport that fans crave (with a majority of the games on ESPNU/ESPN3) it's the first real opportunity for the sport to show up on the casual fans radar outside of a few SportsCenter Top 10 Plays throughout the year. So what sort of storylines will the folks from Bristol get to hype this year? Will it be stories of "hot teams" continuing to roll through the tournament? Will there be a Cinderella? And just how many times will 0.6 get mentioned? /crosses fingers for many, many times
All I know is that I'm excited to drop the puck and get going! When that time comes on Friday afternoon, here's how you can watch.
Mobile Devices
The WatchESPN app is available in the following app stores:
IMPORTANT NOTE: You have to sign in using your television provider information. If you're television provider is somehow not participating (all the major ones should be) then you'll need to call up a friend with a different provider and borrow their login.
Live streaming
Just the like the mobile apps, the option requires you to sign in with your television provider login.
TV Schedule
ESPN2 and ESPNU will carry most of the games for the Regional semi-finals and finals weekend. A few games will be streaming only on ESPN3.
Friday, March 27th (All Times ET) |
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| Puck Drop (ET) | Network | Site | Game | Play-by-Play/Analyst | |
| 2 p.m. | ESPNU | Northeast Semi-Final I |
No. 1 Boston University vs. No. 4 Yale | Dan Parkhurst, Billy Jaffe | |
| 4:30 p.m. | ESPN3 | West Semi-Final I |
No. 3 St. Cloud vs. No. 2 Michigan Tech | Clay Matvick, Sean Ritchlin | |
| 5:30 p.m. |
ESPNU | Northeast Semi-Final II |
No. 2 Minnesota Duluth vs. No. 3 Minnesota | Parkhurst/Jaffe |
|
| 8 p.m. |
ESPNU | West Semi-Final II |
No. 1 North Dakota vs. No. 4 Quinnipiac | Matvick/Ritchlin | |
Saturday, March 28th (All Times ET) |
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| Puck Drop (ET) | Network | Site | Game | Play-by-Play/Analyst | |
| 3 p.m. | ESPN2 | East Semi-Final I | No. 2 Denver vs. No. 3 Boston College | John Buccigross,Barry Melrose |
|
| 4 p.m. | ESPNU | Midwest Semi-Final I | No. 1 Minnesota State vs. No. 4 Rochester Institute of Technology | Ben Holden, Blake Geoffrion | |
| 5:30 p.m. |
ESPN2 | Northeast Final | TBD | Parkhurst/Jaffe | |
| 6:30 p.m. |
ESPNU | East Semi-Final II | No. 1 Miami vs. No. 4 Providence | Buccigross/Melrose | |
| 7:30 p.m. |
ESPN3 | Midwest Semi-Final II | No. 2 Omaha vs. No. 3 Harvard | Holden/Geoffrion | |
| 9:00 p.m. |
ESPNU | West Final | TBD | Matvick/Ritchlin | |
Sunday, March 29th (All Times ET) |
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| Puck Drop (ET) | Network | Site | Game | Play-by-Play/Analyst | |
| 5 p.m. | ESPNU | East Final |
TBD | Buccigross/Melrose | |
| 7:30 p.m. | ESPNU | Midwest Final |
TBD |
Holden/Geoffrion | |