NHIAA DIVISION 1 TOURNAMENT
FIRST ROUND – Wednesday, March 1
#11 Pinkerton Academy vs #6 Bow, 7:30pm at Everett Arena
#10 Hanover vs #7 Londonderry, 3pm at Tri-Town Arena
#9 Keene vs #8 Exeter, 2:50pm at Rinks at Exeter
QUARTERFINALS – Saturday, March 4
Keene/Exeter winner vs #1 Concord, 5:30pm at Everett Arena
#5 Trinity vs #4 Bedford, 4:00pm at Sullivan Arena
Pinkerton/Bow winner vs #3 Bishop Guertin, 5:30pm at Skate 3
Hanover/Londonderry winner vs #2 Windham, 8pm at Salem Icenter
SEMIFINALS – Wednesday, March 8
5:00pm and 7:30pm at JFK Coliseum
STATE FINAL – Saturday March 11
TBA at SNHU Arena
The post season is upon us and while we have some expected seedings, we certainly have our fair share of surprises. Eleven teams qualified for the NHIAA Division 1 tournament and the first five seeds get a bye to the quarterfinal round. The remaining six teams will battle it out in the Preliminary Round on Wednesday, March 1st. Let’s see how the Division 1 playoff matchups shape up.
#1 Concord closed the regular season with a perfect 18-0 record and the top seed in the playoffs. They advance directly to the quarter-final round and will host the winner of the Exeter(8)/Keene(9) matchup. This season Concord defeated Keene 5-2 in their only meeting and knocked off Exeter twice, 5-4 and 3-1. Interesting side note however; Exeter was able to hand Concord it’s only loss this year (non-divisional) beating the Tide in a Christmas Tournament back in December.
#2 Windham ended the season with a 14-4 record and secured the second seed in the tournament. They will advance directly to the quarter-final round on Saturday and will host the winner of the Londonderry (7)/Hanover (10) matchup. Windham toppled Londonderry 8-3 earlier this season and beat Hanover 5-3.
#3 Bishop Guertin went 13-5 on the season and finished third overall in Division 1. They’ll host a quarterfinal game against the winner of the Bow (6) and Pinkerton (11) matchup. The Cardinals handled Bow 4-1 and doubled up Pinkerton 4-2 in their previous games this season.
#4 Bedford closed out their season with a 12-6 record and that was strong enough to secure the fourth seed in the division. They will skip to the quarterfinal round game on Saturday and they will host the fifth seed Trinity (5). Trinity became a steady climber in the ranks as the season progressed and they finished the season with an 11-6-1 record which was good enough for fifth place overall. Bedford and Trinity met once this season and the Bulldogs came out on top, 4-3.
Perhaps one of the biggest surprises given how their season started is Bow (6) grabbing the sixth seed and securing a home game in the prelim round. The Bow Falcons started their season 1-6 but never lost faith. They finished strong winning their last five games to finish at 10-8. They’ll be taking on eleventh seed Pinkerton Academy (11) who went 7-10 on the season. Bow won the only matchup between the two teams this year by a score of 4-3.
The Londonderry Lancers (7) closed out their season with a 10-8 record which landed them the seventh seed in the division and a home prelim round game. They will battle the tenth seeded Hanover Bears (10) who went 8-10 overall. Londonderry’s 4-2 win over the Bears marked the only time these teams played this season. Separated by only a few percentage points in the standings are the eighth seed Exeter (8) and the ninth seed Keene (9). Exeter closed out the regular season with a 9-8-1 record while Keene ended with an even 9-9 record. Exeter will get to host the prelim round game on Wednesday and in their only meeting this season, Exeter came out on top, 2-1.
