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Frozen Four 2012 Preview: Best Of College Hockey Comes To Tampa Bay Times Forum

The four best hockey teams are in Tampa this week for the Frozen Four. How did these teams get here?

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There's the Final Four for college basketball, but what about the Frozen Four for the NCAA Hockey championships? This year's semi-finals and championship game will be held at the Tampa Bay Times Forum in Tampa. Four teams have the dreams of being the last team standing, but who are the teams that are participating, and how did they get here?

The first semi final game will be between the Ferris State University Bulldogs from Grand Rapids, MI and the Union College Dutchmen from Schenectady, NY. The Bulldogs punched their ticket to the Frozen Four with a 2-1 victory over Denver in the opening game and 2-1 victory over Cornell University in the quarterfinals.

Union College made it to the Frozen Four by defeating Michigan State, 3-1 in the first game and defeating the University of Massachusetts Lowell in the quarterfinals, 4-2. This semi-final will be on April 5 starting at 4:30 p.m. and will be broadcast on ESPNU.

The second semi-final game will be between the top-seeded Boston College Eagles, the 2010 national champion, and the Minnesota Golden Gophers. Boston College got to the Frozen Four by defeating Air Force in the first game, 4-0. The Eagles then defeated the defending hockey champions, Minnesota-Duluth, 4-0 in the quarterfinals.

The Golden Gophers reached the Frozen Four by defeating Boston University in the first game, 7-3. Minnesota then defeated No. 4 seed North Dakota, 5-2 in the quarterfinal game. This semi-final will start at 8 p.m. and will be broadcast live on ESPN2.

Photographs by cstreet.us, thelastminute, turtlemom nancy , fesek, kthypryn, justinwright, sue_elias, pointnshoot, and scrapstothefuture used in background montage under Creative Commons. Thank you.