March 11, 2013
Notre Dame, Ind. – The Notre Dame hockey team returns to action at 7:05 p.m. on Friday, March 15th when the Irish open the best-of-three CCHA Quarterfinal round versus the Bowling Green Falcons at the Compton Family Ice Arena.
Game two of the series will be played at 7:05 p.m. on Saturday, March 16th and game three, if necessary, will start at 7:05 p.m. on Sunday, March 17. All three games of the series will be televised by Comcast and can be seen on South Bend Comcast Cable Channel 3.
Tickets for all three games of the first round series are on sale now and can be purchased at the Murnane Family Ticket Office in Purcell Pavilion, online at UND.com or by phone at (574) 631-7356.
The Irish finished the 2012-13 CCHA regular season in second place with a 21-12-3 overall record and a 17-8-3-2 mark in the conference, good for 56 points, three behind first-place Miami. Notre Dame received a first round bye in the CCHA playoffs that began last weekend.
Bowling Green will enter the weekend series with a 15-19-5 overall record and was 10-15-3-1 in the CCHA for 34 points and ninth place in the league standings. The Falcons opened the CCHA postseason last weekend, taking the best-of-three first-round series at Lake Superior State, two games to one. After dropping the series opener, 2-0, on Friday night, Bowling Green roared back to take 6-3 and 7-0 wins against the Lakers to advance to the quarterfinals.
The two teams met four times this season in the final year of CCHA play with Notre Dame taking three games to one for the Falcons. The teams split at Bowling Green with the Irish winning, 4-1, on Dec. 15 while the Falcons took a 4-2 decision at home on Jan. 15. They then met in the final weekend of the regular season at the Compton Family Ice Arena with Notre Dame taking 4-3 and 4-1 victories.
This is the first time that the teams have met in CCHA postseason play since the 1994-95 season when Bowling Green swept the Irish in Ohio with 7-2 and 5-4 wins. The two teams have played a total of five CCHA postseason games with the Falcons holding a 4-1 advantage.
Notre Dame and Bowling Green have met a total of 103 times in the all-time series with the Irish holding a 57-38-8 edge. At Notre Dame, the Irish are 31-13-5 versus the Falcons. Bowling Green’s last road win came last season when the Falcons took a 3-2 win on Feb. 4, 2012 at the Compton Family Ice Arena where the Irish are 3-1-0 in four meetings.