The 2003 WCHA Men's Ice Hockey Tournament was the 44th conference playoff in league history and 49th season where a WCHA champion was crowned. The 2003 tournament was played between March 14 and March 22, 2003, at five conference arenas and the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul, Minnesota. By winning the tournament, Minnesota was awarded the Broadmoor Trophy and received the Western Collegiate Hockey Association's automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament.
Format The first round of the postseason tournament featured a best-of-three games format. All ten conference schools participated in the tournament with teams seeded No. 1 through No. 10 according to their final conference standing, with a tiebreaker system used to seed teams with an identical number of points accumulated. The top five seeded teams each earned home ice and hosted one of the lower seeded teams.
The winners of the first round series advanced to the Xcel Energy Center for the WCHA Final Five, the collective name for the quarterfinal, semifinal, and championship rounds. The Final Five uses a single-elimination format. Teams were re-seeded No. 1 through No. 5 according to the final regular season conference standings, with the top three teams automatically advancing to the semifinals.
Conference standings Note: PTS = Points; GP = Games played; W = Wins; L = Losses; T = Ties; GF = Goals For; GA = Goals Against
Bracket Teams are reseeded after the first round
Note: * denotes overtime period(s)
First round
(1) Colorado College vs. (10) Alaska-Anchorage
(2) Minnesota vs. (9) Michigan Tech
(3) Minnesota State-Mankato vs. (8) Wisconsin
(4) North Dakota vs. (7) Denver
(5) Minnesota-Duluth vs. (6) St. Cloud State
Quarterfinal
(4) North Dakota vs. (5) Minnesota-Duluth
Semifinals
(1) Colorado College vs. (5) Minnesota-Duluth
(2) Minnesota vs. (3) Minnesota State-Mankato
Third Place
(3) Minnesota State-Mankato vs. (5) Minnesota-Duluth
Championship
(1) Colorado College vs. (2) Minnesota
Tournament awards All-Tournament Team F Grant Potulny* (Minnesota) F Junior Lessard (Minnesota-Duluth) F Shane Joseph (Minnesota State-Mankato) D Tom Preissing (Colorado College) D Keith Ballard (Minnesota) G Justin Johnson (Minnesota) * Most Valuable Player(s)
Tournament Three Stars 3 Justin Johnson (Minnesota) 2 Peter Sejna (Colorado College) 1 Grant Potulny (Minnesota)
See also Western Collegiate Hockey Association men's champions
References
External links WCHA official site 2002–03 WCHA Standings 2002–03 NCAA Standings