What a weekend we just had — there were a load of top 15/20 interconference matchups.  #1 Boston College took one from #11 Dartmouth — in this one, Dartmouth kept coming back like the mafia to Al Pacino in the Godfather III, but BC blew it open with three goals in the third.  Meanwhile out in the Rockies there was quite a weekend.  #15 Yale stunned #5 Denver Friday night, as Colorado College fought to a tie with #2 New Hampshire.  The next night was our marquee matchup as Denver went in at #2 and UNH at #3, and in this one, UNH came out on top with a two goal win.  And down the road apiece, Yale squeaked out another close win, this time over CC.  As a result, Denver dropped to #5, and CC dropped from #14 to #18; UNH moved up to #2, and Yale busted into the top twenty at #15.

If that’s not enough, #6 Notre Dame hosted #7 North Dakota for two games, and Notre Dame lost a close one Friday night to the Sioux.  But Saturday night Notre Dame came back with a convincing win, splitting the weekend, and both teams holding their ranking spots.  A couple of other games were mentioned last week — Boston University beat a recently beleagured St. Lawrence team Saturday night by a big margin.  BU rose up to #9, trading places with an idle Western Michigan.  And St. Cloud State lost a close one against Minnesota-Duluth Friday night, but showed the Bulldogs who is ranked and who isn’t with a convincing Saturday night win in this battle of canine mascots.  The Huskies dropped two slots to #14 on the split, which was a little surprising.

Elsewhere, #3 Minnesota swept Vermont, and Union swept Penn State.  Penn State.  Sheeeesh!  As if these guys haven’t done enough to disgrace sports in America, this is the bunch of bozos who have led to the demise of the WCHA, and will likely put some hockey programs that are currently in both the WCHA and CCHA into some financial trouble in the next few years.  Penn State is going to grace us with their presence in DI hockey next year, and they have forced the formulation of “Big Ten” hockey.  Big Ten has around thirteen schools in it, and their hockey will have only six, and they will be taking away regularly scheduled games for smaller programs against big-name schools such as Michigan, Michigan State, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Ohio State, that nearly guarantee sellouts for home games of smaller school programs.  All in the name of Big Ten “pride” and greed.  And Penn State is running around this year playing schools such as Arizona State.  Goodness knows they couldn’t have been a d3 school for a few years, put the program together, and then joined the CCHA, right?

Anyway, speaking of Big Ten teams, #12 Cornell pounded a lopsided win out of Michigan, knocking them out of the top twenty.  Wait a minute — didn’t I just write this one?  Oh no, that was at the start of the season.  No, wait, Michigan lost to RIT at the start of the season.  Oh, that’s right, Michigan lost to Cornell in the opening round of the NCAA’s in March, ranked as a #1 seed, and Cornell only the #4 seed in the region.  Suffice it to say for any Michigan fans who thought their overtime loss to Cornell last March was a fluke, Cornell hammered the daylights out of that theory and put to rest any notion at all that Michigan can intimidate this team.  Lastly, Nebraska-Omaha swept Alabama-Huntsville, and somehow jumped up two spots to the #13 ranking.  For beating Alabama-Huntsville?  Don’t get me wrong, I love it that they have college hockey down there, and I would love to see them get admitted to a conference, but it surpises me to see that UNO is ranked ahead of St. Cloud on those wins.  Actually the #12-14 ranked teams are very close in points in the poll, but I don’t even think Dartmouth should be ranked ahead of St. Cloud State.  #5 Miami of Ohio, and as mentioned earlier, #10 Western Michigan, were both idle.

A note on Notre Dame’s weekend against North Dakota.  Anders Lee!  What a one-man wrecking crew this guy is, eh?  Notre Dame lost Friday night’s game by a slim 2-1 margin.  Their only goal?  Anders Lee!  That was a brutal game with no scoring in the last 35 minutes.  Saturday night Anders Lee started the scoring seven minutes into the first, and later scored what would be the game winner, with about seven minutes remaining in the second to make it 3-1.  Yes it was a very different game on Saturday night — three goals were scored in the last minute and a half.  Of these, the first one by Notre Dame made it 4-1, and the assist was by . . . Anders Lee!  What a weekend for this guy, eh?

This weekend showcases two top fifteen matchups.  First, #1 Boston College will play a home/road series with #9 Boston University.  There was a time when these were some of the all-time college hockey games.  The Battle of Commonwealth Ave.  Carnage.  There was a time BU dominated this matchup, a time when it see-sawed, but that is in the past.  BC’s dominance in college hockey has certainly included this matchup.  These teams first played in 1918, and have faced each other 259 times.  BU leads the series 127-115-17, but that edge used to be much larger — BU had a 21 game edge in 2001, but BC has wittled it down, most recently having won eight of the last ten games.  BU held the lead in the series from 1929 to 1942, BC held it from 1948 to 1971, and BU has held it again since 1975.  The two coaches, Jerry York of BC, and Jack Parker of BU, played against each other in high school in Boston, in college at BC and BU, and are the number two and number three winningest college coaches of all time, and are the number one and two winningest active coaches.  BU has played .500 hockey since November 11, whereas BC has won ten straight, and has only one loss this season.   And oh, by the way, BC beat BU 4-2 three weeks ago.  Looks like it could be really tough for BU to hang on to that #9 ranking.  How big could these games be?  NBC Sports Network will be broadcasting both of these games this Friday and Saturday night, with both games starting at 4:30pm Pacific Time.

#3 Minnesota will host #13 Nebraska-Omaha for two games this weekend.  Nebraska-Omaha only started playing hockey in 1997, joined the CCHA in 1999, and then switched to the WCHA in 2010, making this their third WCHA season.  Yet UNO has made it to the NCAA tournament twice, in 2006 and 2011.  The big news for UNO came when Dean Blais took over as head coach in the 2009-10 season.  Blais was highly successful in ten years as head coach at North Dakota, winning two NCAA Champioships.  Minnesota is of course another story altogether, with five NCAA championships and a program that started in 1921.  It also boasts the legendary Herb Brooks as its coach for seven years in the seventies, winning three NCAA Championships in that stretch.  Current coach Don Lucia the “Darling of Minnesota,” has been there thirteen years, and boasts two NCAA Championships during his tenure.  Minnesota is unbeaten in its past six outings, including two ties, and has nine wins this season.  UNO has won six straight games and has eight wins.  Minnesota looks pretty good this year, and if UNO is planning on making a statement in Minneapolis this weekend, they better bring their best game.

Do you have a view on the top ten or top fifteen teams?  This week I’m providing my view on the top ten, and providing another view from our Contributing Field Reporter, Greg Schreader, and here’s what we came up with — you can compare it to the rankings below.  If you have your own view, feel free to post it in comments on the site.

• Greg:  1.BC 2.UNH 3.Minn 4.Denv 5.Miami 6.N Dak 7.N Dame 8.Union 9.W Mich 10.BU
• Tom:  1.BC 2.UNH 3.Minn 4.Denv 5.Miami 6.N Dame 7.N Dak 8.Union 9.BU 10.W Mich 11.St. Cloud

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

[table id=49 /]

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

— Tom