Last year, I blogged about the amazing success achieved by my alma mater‘s women’s ice hockey team. The Hamilton College Continentals made a lot of noise in their first-ever NCAA tournament run, knocking off several colleges before getting up-ended by Amherst in the semifinals.
Look, any time my college makes any sort of NCAA tournament, I take notice. As I’ve blogged before, when I was a student at Hamilton, way back in ancient times, our sports teams were part of a league that forbade any post-season tournaments that took place more than seven days after their final regular season contest. So our men’s basketball team could dominate all year, win the NESCAC league tournament, and then … nothing. We weren’t allowed to play in the NCAA Div III tournament because our sports conference had this quixotic belief that students should study and not participate in month-long tournaments.
Just imagine of someone ever said that to students at Gonzaga or Duke. Yeah, just imagine that.
It wasn’t until 1994 when Hamilton’s sports teams joined a different athletic conference, and then the men’s basketball team made frequent appearances in the NCAA tournament. And in 2007, the Hamilton College women’s lacrosse team because our first-ever NCAA championship squad, beating Franklin & Marshall up and down the field.
Yeah, I still think it’s a helluva move that our first-ever NCAA championship came from a sport that was not only a non-varsity club sport when I was an undergrad, but was won nearly 40 years after Hamilton finally gave up the “better dead than co-ed” mentality and dropped its all-male enrollment in favor of a more inclusive co-educational format.
So … yeah. Right now, Hamilton received an at-large bid in the NCAA Division III women’s ice hockey postseason tournament, and will host Nazareth on campus on Wednesday night. Here’s the link to the NCAA announcement of the 2024 Division III women’s ice hockey tournament.
Let me just say this. I’m allowed to have my buff and blue college pride right now. And I don’t care if it’s women’s ice hockey or men’s cross-country. An NCAA championship is an NCAA championship, and damn it, we haven’t claimed one of those in 17 years. We’re overdue.
Here’s a link to the interactive bracket, in case you want to do your own “March Madness” setup. Hamilton hosts Nazareth Wednesday night, then after Hamilton sends Nazareth back to Pennsylvania, the Continentals travel once again to Michigan to face Adrian College, whom Hamilton BEAT in last year’s NCAA tournament. We would then face the winner of Wisconsin-River Falls or Gustavus Adolphus for the chance to enter our second consecutive “Frozen Four” spot.
Yeah, I’m ready. Can’t wait. Bring on Nazareth. We’ll take the load off, Annie.
Chuck The Writer 
The Band called to say thank you.
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