I meant to get this week’s update to you earlier, but unfortunately I suffered a setback with the loss of a good friend.  A parent of a student at my sons’ high school, probably my best friend of those I know at my sons’ high school and one of my best friends here in San Francisco, a reader of this update, and a wildly enthusiastic college hockey, and Miami Redhawk fan, Frank Mattson, died early this week.  Frank would regularly call me about the updates, and about how happy he was to see Miami doing so well these past few years.  He would often send out emails to me, his brother and cousin, who are on this distribution list.  Frank was so convinced that Miami was going to win the NCAA last year, when they were up by two goals over BU with only two minutes left, he called his mother and had her turn on the TV to see it happen, only to see a most unlikely ending with BU scoring two in a minute to tie, and then win it in overtime.  After a week or so, that series of events became woven into a good number of our phone calls.  In Frank’s honor, if BU can’t turn it around this year (and it’s a deep hole they are in), I will be pulling for the Miami Redhawks.  Frank was a great guy, and a great friend.  He leaves behind his wife and three children, a 25 year old daughter, graduate of UC Berkeley, a son who is a junior at Princeton, and a daughter who just graduated with my son and is now a freshman at UC San Diego.  Cleary Frank and his wife produced, and did well encouraging, extremely bright and hard working kids.  Frank will be sorely missed.  Please hope and pray for is family to make a successful transition to their new lives without Frank.

On to the update, where the story this week is probably (and certainly in this column) Frank Mattson’s Miami Redhawks.  Miami had a down week two weeks ago, but swept two from Notre Dame to hold in tightly to their #1 ranking, and secure 36 of 50 first place votes.  The #2 Denver Pioneers managed a tie and a win in two games against #6 Colorado College.  And #8 Yale stomped on #7 Quinnipiac while #9 UMass-Lowell dismissed #15 UMass-Amherst, knocking them out of the top ten.  Boston College enters the top ten this week with a very strong record, and three wins this week, including a thumping of Boston University in the most recent edition of the Battle of Comonwealth Avenue.  This week there are no top ten matchups, and the schedule is a little light.

This provides the top ten teams, rankings, records, and last week’s results:

That’s it for now.  Be thankful for every day you have with those important to you.  It doesn’t last forever.

— Tom