By KEVIN OKLOBZIJA
The first Atlantic Hockey championship game to be played on the campus of Rochester Institute of Technology is already sold out.
RIT will play American International College at 7:05 p.m. Saturday in front of 4,300 fans at the Gene Polisseni Center in the winner-take-all title game.
Along with the Jack Riley Memorial Trophy, the winner also received an automatic bid in the NCAA tournament.
Tickets went on sale at 10 a.m. today and were gone well before noon. Season ticket holders have until noon on Friday to claim their seats, so there is a chance a small number of tickets could be released to the public Friday afternoon.
RIT has won the AHA playoff title three times: in 2010, defeating Sacred Heart 6-1 in the final game; in 2015, defeating Mercyhurst 5-1; and in 2016, ousting Robert Morris 7-4. The Tigers lost the title game twice, both to Air Force, 1-0 in 2011 and 4-0 in 2012.
AIC has reached the championship game three times and never lost, winning in 2019, 2021 and 2022.
As regular season AHA champs, the Tigers earned the top seed and right to host the title game. They advanced with a quarterfinal sweep of Robert Morris (7-0 and 5-1) and a semifinal sweep of Niagara University (4-1 and 5-2).
Fifth-seeded AIC defeated Air Force 3-1 and 3-2 in the quarterfinals before rallying to eliminate second-seeded Holy Cross in the semifinals, losing the opener 5-2 before posting 3-0 and 3-1 victories the next two nights.
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The Tigers and Yellowjackets split the two games they played during the regular season in Springfield, Mass. AIC won 3-2 in overtime the first night before RIT rebounded with a 5-2 victory the following afternoon.
Should RIT win on Saturday, the USCHO.com bracketology predictor gives the Tigers an equal chance to be the No. 14 or No. 15 seed in the NCAA tournament. The most likely scenarios have RIT playing in a regional either in Springfield, Mass., or Sioux Falls, S.D. The other regionals are in Providence, R.I., and Maryland Heights, Mo.
Atlantic Hockey played its semifinals and final at a neutral site from 2007 through 2019 before moving to a fully on-campus tournament in 2021.
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