With the college hockey season well under way, I thought it was time to fire up the machine.

Big news?  Well, the preseason poll was right on the money in some spots, and way, way off in others.  Six of the preseason top ten teams are top ten teams now:  Miami, Denver, North Dakota, Cornell, Yale, and UMass-Lowell, if you count them and their preseason ranking at #11.  So what happened to these other four or five teams ranked in the top ten in the preseason?  Preseason #2 Boston University has played just plain awful and is currently ranked #29, with only one single vote; they are only .500 at home!  Joining BU this week at the #29 spot are Princeton and Minnesota, ranked #10 and #9 in the preseason poll.  Wow, that’s bad for those three teams!!!  Michigan has fared better, at #21, ranked #4 in the preseason poll (are they still smarting from that major spanking from Air Force in the NCAA tournament?).  And Notre Dame has fared the best of these five teams, ranked currently at #14 after their preseason #5 ranking.

So what’s the exciting news?  Where did the four currently top ten ranked teams come from, as regards the preseason poll?  Let’s start with truly new blood in the name of Quinnipiac, currently ranked at #4, ranked #32 in the preseason poll.  UMass-Amherst, currently ranked #9, was ranked #26 in the preseason poll; Colorado College, currently #6, was #24 preseason, and a name we should all remember, Bemidji State, is currently #5, and was #22 preseason.

Now that we’re sort of all caught up, what were the big results from top ten teams in the last week?  #1 Miami of Ohio lost to #5 Bemidji State 3-2, and then tied #3 North Dakota, 3-3.  #2 Denver split a pair with #20 St. Cloud State; #4 Quinnipiac beat #9 UMass, and UMass beat #19 Vermont.  Those were the biggies from the last week.

This weekend we have a great matchup of #2 Denver and #6 Colorado College who will play two, home/road.  #4 Quinnipiac travels to #10 Yale tonight.  #3 North Dakota travels to #12 Minnesota-Duluth for two games.  #8 UMass-Lowell will host #9 UMass-Amherst Saturday nigh:  People of Massachussets, your tax dollars hard at work.  In a traditional rivalry that has everything that the Denver/CC or Michigan/Michigan State rivalries have, historically speaking, #15 Boston College faces #29 Boston University on Saturday night.  Hopefully history can come to life for the two teams, at least for the sake of those in attendance; the low rankings seem to diminish the excitement factor here, at least on the surface.

So here’s a look at the current top ten teams, rankings, records, and last week’s results:

That’s it for now.  Stay tuned, and go Terriers!

— Tom