NCAA tournament begins Thursday for ex-Dogs

Michael Hawkins/Saint John Sea Dogs

The NCAA men's hockey tournament begins Thursday and two former Saint John Sea Dogs are set to meet.

Kale McCallum and the Providence Friars will take on Nate Tivey and the Quinnipiac Bobcats in the opening game of the Sioux Falls regional on Thursday. McCallum and Tivey are the lone Sea Dogs alumni that have qualified for the 16-team tournament.

There are four regionals with four teams in each. The winner of each regional will advance to the Frozen Four in Las Vegas, which is set to take place April 9 and 11.

Also in the Sioux Falls regional are the North Dakota Fighting Hawks and the Merrimack Warriors. North Dakota is the top-ranked team in the group followed by Providence, Quinnipiac and Merrimack.

McCallum and the Friars won the Hockey East regular season title but were upset in the single elimination quarterfinals, falling to the No. 8 seeded Warriors who went on to win the tournament. 

Similarly, Tivey and Bobcats were ECAC regular season champions but were upset in the quarterfinals, getting swept in a best-of-three series by the No. 8 seeded Clarkson Golden Knights. The Dartmouth Big Green ultimately won the ECAC tournament.

Here's a look at the full NCAA tournament bracket. 

College Hockey News

The tournament format is neat in theory – but it comes with some problems and is a cautionary tale for the CHL if they ever wanted to do something similar with an expanded Memorial Cup format. Thursday's game between Province and Quinnipiac, for example, is being played on a Thursday afternoon 1,500 miles away from where the two schools are based. The regionals struggle to replicate one of the major aspects that make college hockey so much fun to watch: the atmosphere of the arenas.

Here's a final look at how former Sea Dogs skaters performed in their first college hockey seasons.

Player	Team	GP	Goals	Assists	Points
Charles Savoie	Lindenwood	23	9	18	27
Noah Reinhart	Michigan Tech	38	9	12	21
Cam MacDonald	New Hampshire	33	7	7	14
Kale McCallum	Providence	30	5	9	14
Nate Tivey	Quinnipiac	36	3	5	8
Matteo Mann	Colorado College	28	0	2	2

Charles-Edward Gravel of Mercyhurst was the only ex-Dogs goaltender to play NCAA hockey this season.