Last weekend some key outcomes had some serious impact on the top ten rankings.  First off, Miami of Ohio suffered its first loss in 11 games – since January 10 – Saturday night to University of Nebraska-Omaha.  With that Denver is now ranked # 1 after sweeping Michigan Tech, and Miami drops to # 2.  # 3 Wisconsin and # 4 St. Cloud State met up in Madison, Wisconsin for a pair, and split the weekend, both remaining in their # 3 and # 4 spots.  St. Cloud played superior defense on Friday night, holding the badgers to one goal, and Wisconsin came out with an offense on fire Saturday night, winning 7-4.  In the other game I mentioned last week, North Dakota blitzed Minnesota-Duluth twice over the weekend, and North Dakota rose from # 11 to # 8 in the rankings; the two losses dropped Minnesota-Duluth from # 6 to # 10.  Yale, Bemidji State won both games over the weekend, and Boston College and Cornell split their weekends.
 
This weekend offers no top ten matchups, but there are a couple of pairings that should be great.  First, # 8 North Dakota will travel to play two at # 13 Colorado College.  And # 9 Cornell will host # 15 Union College for one game on Friday night.
 
With only two weekends left in the regular season, it’s perhaps time to start wondering if the conference tournaments might produce any upsets, and get any teams into the NCAA tournament by winning a conference championship, that otherwise would not go to the NCAAs.  Next week we’ll start to take a look at some of the teams who may not be having great season, but might have a shot at sneaking into the NCAA tournament.
 
This provides the top ten teams, rankings, records, and last week’s results:
 
Team                            (First Place Votes)        Record Points Last Poll
1 Denver                                  (39)                  22- 6-4   988     2
   2w Michigan Tech 5-2/5-3
2 Miami                                    (11)                  23- 5-6   957     1
   w/l UNO 6-2/2-4
3 Wisconsin                                                      19- 8-4   887     3
   l/w St. Cloud St. 1-5/7-4
4 St. Cloud State                                              20-10-4   829     4
   w/l Wisconsin 5-1/4-7
5 Yale                                                              18- 6-3   811     5
   2w StLwr 7-5, Ckn 5-4
6 Bemidji State                                                 21- 7-2   700     9
   2w Niagra 3-2/6-1
7 Boston College                                              18-10-2   668     8
   l/w Northeastern 2-3/7-1
8 North Dakota                                                16-11-5   638     11
   2w Minnesota Duluth 5-2/5-1
9 Cornell                                                          16- 8-3   551     10
   w/l Harvard 3-0, Dartmouth 4-5
10 Minnesota-Duluth                                        18-13-1   499     6
   2l North Dakota 2-5/1-5

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