WHO: No. 4 Notre Dame (14-13-2) vs. No. 1 Boston College (17-5-1)
WHEN: Saturday, March 27 – 1 p.m. ET
WHAT: NCAA Tournament – Albany Regional Semifinal
WHERE: Times Union Center, Albany, N.Y.
WATCH: ESPNews & Watch ESPN
LISTEN: 94.3 FM | UND.com
NOTES (PDF)
SETTING THE STAGE
- The University of Notre Dame hockey team has made the NCAA Championship field for a fifth consecutive edition of the tournament.
- The Fighting Irish will be the No. 4 seed in the Albany Regional and will take on No. 1 seed Boston College in the first round on Saturday, March 27 at 1 p.m. ET on ESPNews.
- The Regional’s other first round game will feature No. 2 seed St. Cloud State versus No. 3 seed Boston University at 6:30 p.m. ET on Saturday.
- The Regional Finals are slated for Sunday, March 28 at 5:30 p.m. ET on ESPN2.
- The games will take place at the Times Union Center, where head coach Jeff Jackson won his first NCAA title as a head coach in 1992 with Lake Superior State with a 5-3 win over Wisconsin.
IRISH NCAA TOURNEY TALK
- Notre Dame is making the 12th NCAA tournament appearance in program history, including the 11th time under head coach Jeff Jackson.
- With last season being cut short due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Notre Dame has a program-best streak of five consecutive NCAA Tournament appearances in tact.
- It is also the second-longest active NCAA appearance streak, trailing only Minnesota Duluth (6).
- The Fighting Irish advanced to a regional final for the third consecutive season in 2019, having won regional final games in 2017 and 2018 to advance to back-to-back Frozen Fours.
- Notre Dame is one of three teams to make it to the NCAA Regional Finals in each of the last three NCAA Tournaments, joining Denver (not in the 2021 NCAA Tournament field) and Minnesota Duluth (the No. 3 seed in Fargo).
- The Fighting Irish have now made eight of the last 10 NCAA tournaments, which is tied with North Dakota and Minnesota Duluth for the second-most (Denver, 9).
- Notre Dame was a No. 4 seed three previous times and is 5-3-0 as a No. 4 seed, including 2004 (lost in the first round to Minnesota), 2008 (advanced to the NCAA Championship game versus Boston College) and 2017 (advanced to the Frozen Four).
- Seniors Matt Hellickson and Colin Theisen have the most NCAA experience on the Irish roster, with each player having appeared in six NCAA Tournament games including all four games in Notre Dame’s run to the 2018 NCAA Championship game.
QUICK HITS
- Junior forward Alex Steeves and junior defenseman Spencer Stastney earned Second Team All-Big Ten honors, marking their first career Big Ten All-Star nods.
- Notre Dame finished its regular season road schedule with a 9-2-1 mark, including series sweeps at then third-ranked Michigan (Nov. 27-28) and at then first-ranked Minnesota (Jan. 15-16).
- The nine road wins rank tied for third nationally, while the .792 winning percentage ranks fifth.
- After playing mostly in a rotation to start the season, senior goaltender Dylan St. Cyr took over the starting goaltender role in the second semester when sophomore Ryan Bischel missed three weeks due to injury.
- St. Cyr has started 15 of Notre Dame’s last 16 games dating back to the 2-1 win at Minnesota on Jan. 16 while posting a 2.21 goals against average and a .933 save percentage during that span.
- Notre Dame finished the regular season tied with Wisconsin, Bowling Green and Michigan Tech for the most games played at 28 (both Notre Dame and Wisconsin were able to play each game on their schedules).
- Alex Steeves leads the Irish with 15 goals and 32 points and has at least one point in 22 of 29 games this season.
- Steeves’ 15 goals rank tied for fifth nationally, while his 32 points rank eighth heading into the NCAA Tournament.
- Steeves enters the tournament with a seven-game point streak (5-5-10), as does freshman forward Landon Slaggert (3-7-10).
THE NOTRE DAME-BC SERIES
- Longtime rivals and four year Hockey East foes, Notre Dame and Boston College have met every season since 1995-96 with the exception of the 1999-2000, 2005- 06 and 2017-18 seasons.
- In Jerry York (1,108) and Jeff Jackson (530), the game will feature two of the top active leaders in NCAA DI head coaching wins.
- Boston College holds a slight edge in the all-time series, 23-20-3, which began Dec. 20, 1969.
- Last season, Boston College swept a home-and-home series on Dec. 6 and 8, 2019 by scores of 4-0 and 6-1.
- Notre Dame posted a 4-0 win at the Compton Family Ice Arena on New Year’s Eve 2018 that featured goals from current Irish Matt Hellickson, Matt Steeves, Colin Theisen.
—ND—