Western Michigan, Michigan #1 Seeds in NCAA Hockey Tournament
Western Michigan University's Bronco hockey team was selected a number one seed in the Worcester regional of the 2022 NCAA hockey tournament, and the third seed overall while, the University of Michigan Wolverines are the overall number one seed of the tournament pairings announced Sunday evening.
First number seeding for Western ever
The number one seed for Western is the highest seeding in the history of the program. The Broncos will face-off against Northeastern University on Friday at Noon on ESPNU. In a season of first, a win over the Huskies would be the Broncos first NCAA tournament win ever.
While the ESPN announcers on the selection show spoke highly of WMU, they spoke even more highly of many of the other seeded teams, which could give WMU added incentive going into the playoff. Should Western win on Friday, they could facing the defending champs, Massachusetts.
Michigan is the top seed of the tournament and has many NHL draft picks on it's roster and do many of the teams. Northeastern has seven, including Hobey Baker Award candidate, goalie Devon Levi.
Western has two NHL draftees, 2019 3rd round selection Ronnie Attard, and 2020 7th round pick Wyatt Schingoethe, though Ethen Frank is the NCAA goal-scoring leader goalie Brandon Bussi has had a solid season between the pipes. Both will be attractive free agents after the season is over.
The NCHC had the most teams chosen (five) on Sunday night. while Michgian Tech was the third team from the state to be selected. The other NCHC teams in are all powerhouses including former back to back champions Minnesota-Duluth, along with North Dakota, Denver and St. Cloud State, who were the national runners-up in 2021.