All member teams were eligible for the tournament and were seeded No. 1 through No. 6 according to their final conference standing, with a tiebreaker system used to seed teams with an identical number of points accumulated. As a result of their receiving the Broadmoor Trophy, North Dakota's home venue, Winter Sports Center, served as the site for the Championship game regardless of which teams qualified for the penultimate match. Each series were two-game matchups with the team that scored the most goals advancing to the succeeding round. The top two seeded teams received byes into the semifinal round while the third seed and sixth seed and the fourth seed and fifth seed met in the first round. The teams that advanced to the semifinal were re-seeded according to the final regular season conference standings, with the first seed matched against lowest remaining seed in one semifinal game and the second seed meeting with the other advancing team with the winners meeting in the championship round. The Tournament Champion received an automatic bid to the 1982 NCAA Division I Men's Ice Hockey Tournament.
Conference Standings[3]
Note: GP = Games Played; W = Wins; L = Losses; T = Ties; PTS = Points; GF = Goals For; GA = Goals Against
|
|
Conference |
|
Overall |
GP |
W |
L |
T |
PTS |
GF |
GA |
GP |
W |
L |
T |
GF |
GA |
North Dakota† | 26 | 19 | 7 | 0 | 38 | 119 | 81 | | 47 | 35 | 12 | 0 | 218 | 143 |
Wisconsin* | 26 | 18 | 7 | 1 | 37 | 126 | 80 | | 47 | 35 | 11 | 1 | 255 | 126 |
Minnesota | 26 | 13 | 11 | 2 | 28 | 103 | 102 | | 36 | 22 | 12 | 2 | 153 | 125 |
Denver | 26 | 9 | 15 | 2 | 20 | 119 | 132 | | 43 | 21 | 19 | 3 | 233 | 197 |
Minnesota-Duluth | 26 | 9 | 16 | 1 | 19 | 114 | 141 | | 40 | 16 | 21 | 3 | 192 | 201 |
Colorado College | 26 | 6 | 18 | 2 | 14 | 105 | 150 | | 36 | 11 | 23 | 2 | 152 | 196 |
Championship: Wisconsin † indicates conference regular season champion * indicates conference tournament champion Final rankings: USA Today/USA Hockey Magazine Top 15 Poll |
Bracket[4]
Teams are reseeded after the first round
|
First Round March 4–6 |
|
Semifinals March 9–10 |
|
Championship March 13–14 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
3 |
Minnesota |
3 |
6 |
|
1 |
North Dakota |
4 |
5 |
|
|
6 |
Colorado College |
1 |
3 |
|
4 |
Denver |
3 |
2 |
|
|
|
|
|
1 |
North Dakota |
0 |
1 |
|
|
|
2 |
Wisconsin |
9 |
3 |
|
4 |
Denver |
5 |
5 |
|
2 |
Wisconsin |
3 |
6 |
|
|
|
5 |
Minnesota-Duluth |
2 |
5 |
|
3 |
Minnesota |
4 |
2 |
|
Note: * denotes overtime period(s)
First Round
(3) Minnesota vs. (6) Colorado College
(4) Denver vs. (5) Minnesota-Duluth
March 4 |
Denver |
|
5 – 2 |
|
Minnesota-Duluth |
DU Arena |
|
March 5 |
Denver |
|
5 – 5 |
|
Minnesota-Duluth |
DU Arena |
|
Semifinals
(1) North Dakota vs. (4) Denver
North Dakota won series 9–5 |
|
|
|
(2) Wisconsin vs. (3) Minnesota
Championship
(1) North Dakota vs. (2) Wisconsin
Wisconsin won series 12–1 |
|
|
|