Burr Ridge's Maday, Notre Dame Hoping to be Part of Frozen Four

The annual NCAA men’s Division I basketball tournament, otherwise known as March Madness, officially begins on St. Patrick’s Day and concludes during the first weekend in April with the Final Four at Houston, Texas.

But March Madness isn’t exclusive to college basketball. NCAA Division I men’s hockey also will be in the grip of its own March madness later this month. The winners of four regionals—East, West, Northeast and Midwest—will then make up what’s known as the Frozen Four at St. Paul, Minn. April 7-9.

The Irish, ranked ninth in the NCAA Division I poll, wrapped up their regular and conference season last weekend by finishing second in the Central Collegiate Hockey Association (CCHA) with an 18-7-3 record (21-10-5 overall). They’re ranked just ahead of CCHA champion Michigan.

Notre Dame right winger Billy Maday—a Burr Ridge resident and Benet Academy graduate—isn’t jumping the gun, but he likes his team’s chances of qualifying for the tournament, making a deep run and hopefully becoming one of the Frozen Four.

“I’ve seen what our team can do when we’re playing our best,” said Maday, who’s the team’s fifth-leading scorer with seven goals and 15 assists. “As long as we can recreate that on a consistent basis, not too many teams can compete with us. But it’s a long road.”

The road to St. Paul begins for the Irish at the CCHA tournament’s quarterfinals March 11-13 (Notre Dame received a first-round bye). If the Irish win the tournament, they’ll receive an automatic bid to the NCAA tourney. If not, they’ll likely be in the mix to get one of 11 at-large NCAA bids.

The Irish, whose offense is second in the league (averaging 3.39 goals per game), are enjoying a renaissance season compared to last year when they were 13-17-8 overall.

“Last year was a little different,” said Maday, who finished as the Irish’s No. 4 scorer in 2009-10 and has already surpassed his point total from last year. “We had some injuries and had an up-and-down season, but this season we’re back to national prominence and back as a legitimate hockey team.”

Born in Hinsdale, Maday is in his junior season with the Irish, but he didn’t make the jump directly from high school to college hockey after graduating from Benet. Maday, in fact, didn’t play for Benet’s team at all. He suited up with the Chicago Chill and competed for the Chill’s Midget Junior team as a sophomore.

During his junior and senior years, he played for the Chill’s Midget Major team. In 74 games with the Midget Major squad, Maday registered 38 goals and 87 assists (125 points) and led the Chill to the USA Midget Major championship game.

“The Chill is a club team and plays at more of an elite level,” Maday said. “It gets you good exposure to scouts if you want to move on to a higher level [of hockey].”

Maday explained that he committed to play college hockey at Notre Dame during his senior year at Benet. However, he chose to delay going to South Bend for two years and opted to play junior hockey for the Waterloo (Iowa) Black Hawks of the USHL.

“It’s kind of a common route to do this,” he said. “You go play juniors and get bigger and stronger, get accustomed to playing more games and then come [to college] as a more seasoned player.”

Maday spent the 2006-07 and 2007-08 seasons at Waterloo. He led the team in scoring his final year with 24 goals and 35 assists. Over that two-year span, Maday also took classes at Hawkeye Community College in Waterloo.

“We agreed that I would take classes at the community college, and that kind of eased the transition into admission [at Notre Dame],” he said.

Maday is part of a hockey program at Notre Dame that’s become very popular over the years. The Irish are playing their last season at the Joyce Center, and will begin the 2011-12 campaign at the new Compton Family Center—a 5,000-seat, state-of-the-art facility made possible in part through a generous donation by Kevin and Gayla Compton, who own the NHL’s San Jose Sharks.

“[Building the arena has] been the talk around campus,” Maday said.

After college, Maday said he would like to play professional hockey. He hasn’t been drafted by an NHL team, but he did participate in an NHL prospects camp conducted by the New York Islanders during the summer of 2009.

“I’d love to extend my hockey career and play professional hockey as long as I could,” he said, “whether it be in the NHL or some other pro league. I take pride in my ability to play [at] both ends of the ice.”