Matt Beattie '12 Takes Home National Championship with Yale

Yale sealed the first NCAA National Hockey Championship in school history on Saturday, shutting out the Quinnipiac Bobcats 4-0 in a stunning upset. Although the two schools are not even eight miles apart on a map, they could not have been further apart on paper. The Bulldogs were the number 15 overall seed in the 16-team playoffs while Quinnipiac was number one overall.The Frozen Four final already represented the second Division I national championship game that a former Exonian was involved in this season. The March Madness Final Four championship in early April pitted Louisville against Michigan and featured Josh Bartelstein ’09. Connor Green ’12 also won the NCAA Division III basketball championship with Amherst College back in March.Finally, on Saturday, Matt Beattie ’12 was crowned a national champion in Pittsburgh. The Vancouver Canucks’ seventh round draft pick (and the franchise’s first ever non-Canadian selection) featured in 15 games for the Bulldogs this season but was not dressed for the championship.In his sole postgraduate season as a Big Red skater, Beattie led all New England prep players with 73 points (39 goals, 34 assists) as he manned Exeter’s left wing and won the Lloyd Bishop Hockey Trophy as Big Red’s most valuable player. With Beattie's firepower combined with fellow Class of 2012 graduate Brian Hart's (who plays for archrivals Harvard) talents, Big Red enjoyed one of their most successful campaigns in recent memory, as Exeter recorded the fewest losses in school history in the modern era of hockey.