All top ten teams swept their weekends, except those with names starting with the letter “N.”  Remaining at #1, Yale found itself tied early in the third with Clarkson and midway in the second with St. Lawrence, but prevailed over both.  New at #2, up from #3, BC beat Boston University and UMass-Lowell.  As a result, BU finds itself at #16, down from #15.  New at #3, up from #4, Denver swept Alaska Anchorage.  At #4, down from #2, North Dakota split with Nebraska Omaha; the split moved UNO up to #15 from #16.  And holding at #5, Minnesota Duluth swept Michigan Tech.

Holding at #6, Michigan swept Alaska Fairbanks, and holding at #7, New Hampshire beat Providence, but lost to BU (something had to go right for BU sooner or later).  New at #8, up from #9, Wisconsin swept Mankato, and New at #9, down from #8, Notre Dame was slammed in the first game of a split with Ohio State.  And rounding out the top ten, RPI finds itself back at #10, up from #14, after beating Harvard and Dartmouth.  Dartmouth held at #18 after this loss, and a win against Union College.

Miami of Ohio held on to the #11 spot after splitting with Michigan State, and new at #12, down from #10 is Maine, after settling on a tie with Northeastern.  New at #13, down from #12, is Union, which in addtion to the loss to Dartmouth, posted a win over Harvard.  New at #14, down from #13, is Merrimack, after losing to UMass Lowell.

Western Michigan held at #17 after securing two ties with Lake Superior State.  Princeton moved up to #19  from #20 after an idle weekend; since the poll was taken, Princeton has notched a win against Sacred Heart.  And back in the rankings at #20, Colorado College swept a weekend against Alabama Huntsville.

This week’s feature is last Saturday night’s St. Cloud State at Bemidji State game, as reported by our ace contributing

field reporter, Greg Schreader:

Greetings from Minnesota’s version of frozen tundra…Bemidji. The Beavers of Bemidji State hosted the St. Cloud State Huskies in a WCHA tilt at the beautiful Sanford Center, BSU’s new home ice near the frozen shore of Lake Bemidji. The Beavers didn’t provide the Huskies with a warm welcome: -46 Friday morning followed by a small “heat wave” to -25 Saturday morning. These numbers are actual temps. with no wind chill added!

My college hockey cohorts for the weekend (Dave Ramsey, Steve Emblom and Craig Miller) agreed that the new Sanford Center (capacity 4373) looks like a smaller rendition of XCEL Energy Center — the home of the NHL’s Minnesota Wild in St. Paul.

In front of a capacity crowd Saturday, the Huskies spanked the Beavers 5-1. The Beavers came out really flat following a tough 2-1 OT loss Friday night where the Huskies scored the game winning goal with only 28 seconds remaining in OT. This sweep was predicted by an old, old SCSU hockey alum John Hughes McLean, Sr.

Saturday’s first goal was scored by Garrett Roe (an LA Kings draftee) on a rebound with the 2nd shot on the Beaver net barely 1 minute into the game. Roe followed that with a nifty assist on a goal by Cam Reid (a Nashville Predator draftee) less than 3 minutes later to make it 2-0 Huskies. Virtually any doubt of the games’ outcome was removed by a beauty of a backhand from David Eddy at the mid-point of the 1st period. He scored his 2nd goal and the Huskies 5th on a power play at the 12 minute mark of period 2. The Beavers finally got on the board near the end of the 2nd period with a slapshot goal from the right slot by Jamie MacQueen. SCSU thoroughly dominated the game.

NOTES: The Beaver-Husky rivalry goes back to 1948. (I believe that Mr. McLean was a 6th year senior that year.) The Beavers lead the series 44-39-3. In this, the Beavers inaugural WCHA season, the Huskies earned 6 of 8 points. Lastly, Mike Gibbons, SCSU Asst. Coach, BSU grad and a key member of the Beaver’s NAIA national title team in 1979, dropped the ceremonial first puck.

Thanks, Greg.  Sounds like a clinic was put on by St. Cloud.

A reminder — if you see a college hockey game live, please let me know, and submit a brief game summary so we can include it.

This weekend there are a handful of top twenty matchups.  #1 Yale will travel to play the other two highly ranked teams in the ECAC, facing #13 Union on Friday night, and #10 RPI on Saturday night.  #4 North Dakota will travel to #20 Colorado College for two games; and #9 Notre Dame will host #11 Miami of Ohio for two games.  #16 Boston University will travel to play two games at #12 Maine.  And in the always a great rivalry category, #6 Michigan will play Michigan State in the Joe Louis Arena in Detroit — man, can these two teams sell a lot of tickets when they play each other!

This provides the top twenty teams, rankings, records, and last weekend’s results:

[table id=15 /]

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

— Tom