The No. 9 Michigan hockey team was just a few goalposts away from beating the nation's top ranked team - Notre Dame - Saturday night in the CCHA Championship game. But Sunday afternoon, as the NCAA Tournament pairings were announced, you might not have noticed the Wolverines even earned a bid.

Michigan drew a familiar foe in No. 6 North Dakota, whom the Wolverines lost to in the first round last year on the Fighting Sioux's home ice. This time around, they will meet on entirely unfamiliar ice at 7:30 p.m. Saturday at the Pepsi Center in Denver.

In the West Regional, where Michigan is the No. 2 seed and North Dakota No. 3, the winner will face the victor of the Saturday-afternoon matchup between top seed Minnesota and the No. 4 seed Air Force.

Despite earning the higher seed against the Fighting Sioux, the Wolverines received little attention from the ESPN2 commentators once the pairings were announced. Watching the show from their locker room at Yost Ice Arena, Michigan's players certainly took note.

"It was almost kind of funny," sophomore Billy Sauer said. "We were the No. 2 seed, they were the No. 3 seed, but it really looked like we didn't even exist when we watched it. Yeah, it's motivating - it kind of pisses everybody off a little bit."

In addition to the slight by television announcers, the Wolverines experienced the added disappointment of being shipped off to Denver rather than skating in Grand Rapids, where they would likely draw a large crowd.

After Michigan dropped Michigan State in the CCHA semifinals, jumping slightly ahead of the Spartans in the PairWise rankings, the Wolverines strangely lost out on a spot in Grand Rapids - an interesting quirk to the pairing system.

"It's about the system, and that's the way it works," Michigan coach Red Berenson said. "I don't fully understand it, but that's how it works. We've got to play somewhere. It's how we play, that's the most important thing. Grand Rapids has been a good place to play, but we've lost there too."

Disappointments in hand, the Wolverines must now prepare to face a foe that easily disposed of them in the first round of the NCAA Tournament last year. In addition, the Fighting Sioux have been one of the nation's hottest teams in recent weeks, having amassed a six-game unbeaten streak before losing to Minnesota in overtime in the WCHA Championship game on Saturday.

While Berenson and his staff haven't had much time to digest North Dakota's game thus far, study of the Fighting Sioux has already begun.

"I can't tell you that I've seen much of them," Berenson said. "But I will, starting today. We haven't faced them, we haven't seen them. I know the kind of season they've had, and they've played their best hockey of late."

What Berenson can learn from the film is the key to whether or not he can walk away happy from this year's tournament.

Michigan has qualified for the NCAA Tournament for a record 17 consecutive seasons, but hasn't had much success since reaching the Frozen Four in 2003.

"I'm our biggest critic," Berenson said. "(In the playoffs) we need to win more."