Big Green & Saints Receive NCAA Tournament Invitations

ALBANY, N.Y. - ECAC Hockey will have two teams vying for a chance at the NCAA title, as Dartmouth and St. Lawrence both received bids to this year's national tournament. The Big Green received an automatic bid as the League's tournament champion, while the Saints were recipients of an at-large bid.

Eight teams are selected for the championship. Of the eight teams, the top four teams will be seeded. Wisconsin enters the tournament as the No. 1 seed, while Minnesota is the No. 2 seed, Mercyhurst is No. 3 and New Hampshire is No. 4.

Two teams will compete at each of the four quarterfinal sites. Quarterfinals will be played Saturday, March 14, at four quarterfinal sites - Mercyhurst, Minnesota, New Hampshire and Wisconsin. The winning team from each quarterfinal will advance to the 2009 Women's Frozen Four.

Wisconsin enters the tournament as the No. 1 seed and will host Dartmouth on Saturday, March 14 at 1 p.m. No. 2 seeded Minnesota will host Boston College on Saturday, March 14 at 4 p.m. Mercyhurst enters the tournament as the No. 3 seed, and will host St. Lawrence, March 14 at 3 p.m. New Hampshire, the No. 4 seed, will take on Minnesota Duluth on March 14 at 1 p.m. All times are local to the site.

Minnesota Duluth won the championship the first three years of the tournament (2001, 2002 and 2003), while the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities claimed the next two (2004 and 2005). In 2006, Wisconsin became the first team outside of the state of Minnesota to capture the NCAA Women's Frozen Four title after defeating the Golden Gophers, 3-0 at Mariucci Arena in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Wisconsin again won the championship in 2007, defeating Minnesota Duluth 4-1 at Olympic Arena in Lake Placid, New York. Minnesota Duluth defeated Wisconsin 4-0 to win the 2008 championship.

The semifinal games will be played at 5 p.m. and 8 p.m. Eastern time, Friday, March 20 and streamed live on NCAA.com. The championship game will be played live at noon Eastern time, Sunday, March 22, on CBS College Sports Network. For more information regarding the National Collegiate Women's Ice Hockey Championship, log on to www.NCAA.com.