BOSTON — The size of a dog doesn’t matter in a hockey fight.
“We’re going to go for 9-8,” cracked Carle, anticipating a free-wheeling, high-scoring shootout Thursday against Michigan, with the winner advancing to play for the national championship. That’s right about where the similarities stop. The Wolverines are a beast from the Big Ten with a student body of more than 50,000 strong and ridiculous annual athletic expenditures of $180 million. The Pioneers have an enrollment of 12,000 with a sports budget believed to be in the neighborhood of $40 million, and are proudly everything Michigan is not.
The enduring, romantic appeal of the NCAA basketball tourney is the occasional Cinderella story that brings madness to the big dance. This year, the underdog we fell in love with was St. Peter’s, a commuter school in New Jersey with an academic endowment that falls short of the $86 million contract of Kentucky Wildcats coach John Calipari.
The real beauty of the Frozen Four? The size of your school doesn’t matter. A passion for hockey counts far more than the financial wherewithal of a university. Building a championship hockey program isn’t cheap, but you don’t have to burn Benjamins in a bonfire, hoping and praying to stay within four touchdowns of Alabama, as is the case in college football.