Party on.

Navigation: Main page

Author: Murphy, Austin

Half the guests were swearing, half were crying. The party was off to a bad start.

So certain were the Colorado College Tigers that they would receive an invitation to last spring's NCAA tournament that, on the day the pairings were announced, they accepted a more modest invite. A local TV station asked them to come down to the studio for some pizza. The sight of the Tigers celebrating their first NCAA bid since 1978 would make great TV.

And great it was -- if you're the kind of person who enjoys watching people pluck the wings off flies. When the list of the 12 invitees appeared on the screen, Colorado College was conspicuous by its absence. ``A lot of jaws dropped,'' recalls junior center Jay McNeill. ``I just remember looking at our seniors, and some of them were in tears.'' Despite a first-round loss to Michigan Tech in the Western Collegiate Hockey Association tournament, the Tigers had won the WCHA regular season title and finished 23-11-5.

The snubbing of Colorado College raised such a stink that in the off-season the NCAA passed the so-called Colorado College rule. Now, each of the four Division I conferences -- WCHA, Central Collegiate Hockey Association, Eastern College Athletic Conference and Hockey East -- gets two automatic bids: one for the winner of its postseason tournament, another for its regular-season champ.

That's good news for the Tigers, who are 25-9 and comfortably atop the WCHA. They are on the cusp of repeating as conference champs because they have corrected a traditional weakness -- lack of depth. The WCHA's top 12 scorers include five Tigers, the most talented of whom is McNeill, whose 30 goals are tied for the lead in the nation.

``The disappointment of last spring has become a rallying cry for us,'' says Don Lucia, who replaced Brad Buetow behind the bench in 1993. Buetow began the '92-93 season by serving a school-imposed 60-day suspension for diverting athletic department funds to pay a volunteer coach. Then, displeased with the Tigers' goaltending, he invited a junior college player from North Dakota to practice with the team -- another NCAA no-no. In February, Buetow resigned under pressure, and the Tigers lost 11 of their last 12 games and finished the season 8-28.

Lucia's motto last season was lighten up. Recognizing that the team had been ``emotionally wrecked'' by the previous season, he kept things upbeat and fun, conducting, for instance, a Superstars competition during training camp. The team responded by going from worst to first in the WCHA, clinching the school's first conference title in 37 years. Says Lucia, ``The season was like a fairy tale.''

A fairy tale with a David Lynch ending. This season the Tigers have the Colorado College rule to ensure that there will be no repeat of last spring's nightmare. Once the WCHA title is wrapped up, Colorado College will be NCAA tournament-bound. Then it will be safe to order pizza.

PHOTO: With McNeill scoring goals at a nation-leading clip, the Tigers should avoid another NCAA snub. (DAVE BLACK)

~~~~~~~~

BY AUSTIN MURPHY