(#402) Reacting to the 2024 NCAA Men's Hockey Bracket

The NCAA Men's Ice Hockey Committee unveiled the 2024 men's ice hockey bracket on Sunday night. The bracket almost matches our projection last night, with the only flips being Maine-Cornell going to Springfield and North Dakota-Michigan going to Maryland Heights.

It was an interesting decision by the committee. The decision wasn't because of attendance — ticket sales for the Springfield region were already strong — and it appears the change was made for "atmosphere," which the committee has not made changes to prioritize in recent years.

I wonder if this could be an attempt to find a compromise, with many Western schools beginning to push for on-campus regionals to maximize the atmosphere (and, let's be honest, they want home games).

"We also work really hard to create an exciting championship atmosphere," said committee chair Jeff Schulman, the AD at Vermont. "We think that we've accomplished that with this year's bracket."

I'll have more thoughts on potential changes to the format later this week. On-campus regionals have some inherent flaws, which I'll explain and try to develop a better solution that helps fix the current issues.

I'll post a completed bracket later. But for now, here are my initial thoughts.