Frozen Four 2013: Yale Wins First National Championship in School’s History with 4-0 Victory

Another national championship has been handed out and more history has been made. For the first time in the school’s long history, Yale is hoisting a national championship as the Bulldogs skated to a 4-0 win over Quinnipiac in the Frozen Four national championship. Yale’s national championship victory ends an epic run that saw them tear through the Frozen Four tournament despite being a 15-seed.

Quinnipiac came into the game heavily favored as a No. 1 seed, but failed to play off their own magic on their own ride to the national championship. The Q’s crawled out of a close first round matchup with Canisius but blew through Union in the second round before ending the dream season that St. Cloud State was having in order to set up their showdown with Yale.

But while Quinnipiac managed to be rather dominant up until the national championship game, it’s Yale’s story that has people thanking the hockey gods for yet another memorable ride. The Bulldogs had zero expectations coming into the tournament, but their frist round upset over No. 2 Minnesota sparked them on a run that now has them champions of college hockey.

Yale actually ran through two massive WCHA titans in the Minnesota Gophers and then the North Dakota Sioux before winning a nail bitter over Mass.-Lowel in the Frozen Four.

But while they were shaky in their final game before the title game, Yale was incredibly dominant against the Q’s, shutting Quinnipiac out and never letting them get into the game whatsoever. The game got tight in the second period when Yale broke a scoreless game, but pulled away in amazing fashion with three third period goals.

Andrew Miller, Jesse Root and Charles Orzetti all scored third period goals, but it was Clinton Bourbonais’s goal in the second period that gave the Bulldogs some breathing room and the confidence to come out guns blazing in the third.

Quinnipiac defeated Yale three times this season, but the Bulldogs weren’t about to go through that a fourth time, and they now end up with a national championship to reward their efforts. It has been an amazing season in college hockey, and we now have an amazing ending to it all. Yale went all in and they now have made history and are kings of the college hockey world.