Last weekend’s two marquee matchups started out Friday night with then #1 Boston College getting beat by #9 Boston University by a 4-2 score, and with then #3 Minnesota geting beat by #13 Nebrasaka-Omaha by a 3-2 score.  On Saturday night, both higher-ranked teams prevailed in their split weekends, with BC really putting it to BU by a 5-2 margin, but with Minnesota again in a dogfight, but winning 3-2.  Boston College dropped to #2 in the poll, Minnesota dropped to #4, BU rose to a tie at #7 with Western Michigan, and UNO dropped a notch to #14.  Elsewhere, New Hampshire had a convincing sweep of UMass-Lowell, and rose to the #1 ranking, while Miami of Ohio swept Alaska Fairbanks, and ascended to #3.  And new at #5 is Notre Dame, after sweeping Lake Superior State.

#6 Denver continued to be off track as they tied, and then lost to, Wisconsin; and #7 Western Michigan swept a stubborn Northern Michigan.  #9 North Dakota split with Colorado College, and #10 Dartmouth won one game against Bentley.  #11 Cornell racked up two wins against Clarkson and St. Lawrence, #12 Union Lost to Quinnipiac and tied Princeton, and #15 Yale notched a one-goal win over Brown.

In Boston University’s Friday night four-goal effort and win, their four goals were scored by four different players, and their eight assists came from seven different players (Matt Nieto had two assists on Friday night).  In this game there was no scoring in the first 29 minutes of the game; BU scored first and then seven minutes later made it 2-0.  But only thirty seconds later BC answered to make it 2-1 with three minutes left in the second.  BU scored again two minutes into the third to make it 3-1, and fought off attack after attack from BC, including holding BC to no scoring on six power play opportunities on the night (BU was also scoreless on two power play opportunities on the night).  With two minutes to go, Jerry York pulled the BC goalie while BU was on the penalty, giving BC a 6-on-4 advantage — but immediately after a faceoff at center ice, BU’s Wade Megan snared the puck away from a BC player, skated around him, and found himself with only one BC defender between him and the empty net, and scored to make it 4-1.  Another BU penalty allowed BC to go up six-on-three with an extra attacker, and BC scored again with half a minute remaining to make the final 4-2.  In Friday night’s game, only one of the six goals scored was a power play goal.

In their Saturday night two-goal effort and loss, their BU’s two goals came from two different players and their four assists came from four different players.  The only player on the team to record two BU goals on the weekend was sophomore wing Evan Rodrigues.  On the weekend, the six BU goals and twelve assists were accounted for by eleven different players, so they certainly can spread the game around well on the team.  But in Saturday night’s game, while BU scored a quick answer to BC’s first goal in the first, they were then shutout for forty-one minutes as BC scored four straight goals.  BU did not score until nine minutes after BC’s last goal, to make the score 5-2 with seven minutes remaining.  In Saturday night’s game, six of the seven goals scored were power-play goals; only BC’s fifth and final goal, scored in early in the third, saw both teams at full strength.  BU did itself no favors with eight penalties for sixteen minutes; BC scored on four of eight power play opportunities where BU scored on only two of six power play opportunities.  BC’s third goal, scored with six minutes remaining in the second, saw BU double-shorthanded.

Joe Marsh And St. Lawrence Hockey

This week’s post provides a video, produced by St. Lawrence University, and the Pittsburgh Penguins.  It commemorates the retirement of St. Lawrence coach Joe Marsh, who racked up 468 wins in 26 years coaching there.  The video is great because it really captures what college hockey is about, using St. Lawrence as the lense.  It shows the inside of the beautiful Appleton Arena, which is as old style as it gets, but has been beautifully maintained and restored, and shines as if you were taken back in time to 1951 for its grand opening.  I rate this right there with the wonderful piece John McLean provided last year about St. Cloud Hockey, but in this case, you just click and watch.  So you can read on and get a preface as to what is in this video, or you can just click and watch.  I have provided an overview and commentary by Bruce Carlisle, the radio voice of the St. Lawrence Saints in the late seventies.  It’s really worth the read because it gives you the reader a view of yet another wonderful place where people grow up as kids in an interconnected community, and are interconnected through something big and vital in that town; in this case hockey, as hockey can be the focus of many, many towns and communities where the snow, cold, and ice, and the excitement and love of the game, bring people together.  Bruce’s touching enthusiasm for the game, place, community, and times he discusses, will often make you feel transported back in time, standing by his side at his age of 11, 15, or 19, as he recalls it.  If you watch the video, which I strongly encourage you to do, keep in mind it is a thorough piece, narrated by Tom Brokaw, so grab a glass of red wine or an Irish Coffee, and soak this up.  Why not?  It’s getting to be near Christmas.

http://www.stlawu.edu/video/marsh.html

Or read on, as our Contriuting Field Reporter, Bruce Carlisle writes: Joe Marsh retired as Head Coach at St. Lawrence after last season with 468 Wins (4th among active coaches at the time, I believe) and 27 years as Head Coach at St. Lawrence.  As you may have read, he was honored at Appleton before the UAB game. While this video is about Joe Marsh, it is accidentally much more. Nothing I have ever seen on St. Lawrence hockey better captures the essence of growing up as a St. Lawrence hockey fan in Canton, NY, going to SLU games, the history, the general coolness of Appleton Arena and some of the best players of the last 25 years. Among Marsh’s many former players is Ray Shero, presently GM of the Pittsburgh Penguins and son of Freddy the Fog who coached two Flyers teams to the Stanley Cup in the 70’s.  He and another former player paid for the Penguins video team to produce this and run around doing interviews with other coaches including Jerry York (BC, was the young Head Coach at Clarkson in my day — I interviewed him on air several times), Jack Parker (talking about the longest NCAA game ever played where we beat Rick DiPietro in the 4th overtime to go to the Frozen Four in 2000), Dick Umilie (UNH), Don Vaughn SLU ’82 (presently Head Coach at Colgate – former Marsh assistant at SLU and one of my mother’s better former students at what was then the SUNY junior college in town).

The tape is narrated by Tom Brokaw and there is a hockey story to that. Tom Coakley was from Canton, the captain at Brown in the mid-sixties, he later went to Vietnam where he lost a leg, he then ran campus operations at SLU for 25 years or so  — Tom’s wife Nellie was a nurse in Vietnam.  The Coakley’s became good friends with Brokaw when Brokaw was writing “Boom” his follow up to the  “The Greatest Generation” in which both Coakleys are the subject of a chapter.  I went to High School with Tom Coakley’s sister, Carol, who married another classmate of mine, Ron Spadacini (who was the starting Goalie at Colgate ’75-’78. Their son, Joe recently graduated from SLU, where he was a back-up goalie for four years (but he started several games) and if you want to go for the weeds, Ron’s brother Rick backstopped my 1971 Bantam team, St. Lawrence County Bank, to the town championship in 1971 — Sadly, the apex of my own organized hockey career.  In any event, I’m told Tom Coakley asked Brokaw to narrate this video, which he did.

There is a great interview time with Chris Wells ’92, whose father was a longtime SLU Government professor, and subsequent Mayor of Canton, whom my father was involved in bringing to St, Lawrence in the early sixties. After working his way off the bench over four years as a player for Marsh (great highlight of his OT goal at Boston Garden on the video), Chris was the SLU Men’s Assistant Head Coach and is now Head Women’s Coach at SLU (and won the women’s ECAC title last year before losing to BC in the NCAAs). Chris indulges me by answering my hockey tweets.

There are interviews with the new Men’s Head Coach, Greg Carvel ’92, former Asst. Head Coach with the Ottawa Senators and Anaheim Ducks (and a Rhodes Scholar finalist his senior year). I don’t know Greg, but his Dad ran Public Works for the town of Canton and I had a memorable water bill dust-up with him my Senior Year.  There is a great interview with, Kyle Flanagan ’13, that really captures why all these guys stay in Canton and play for SLU instead of leaving town and going to other D1 schools) – Kyle is currently the SLU captain, currently leading the nation in scoring, currently a leading Hobey Baker candidate — his uncle Paul Flanagan ’80 (not in the video) was in my Canton High School graduating class, as was Kyle’s mother. Paul was SLU captain in ’80, then a Marsh assistant coach who then took the SLU women’s Head Coach job and went to the Frozen Four five times before taking the Syracuse Women’s Head Coach job a few years ago.  Finally there is a film research credit for Mike Elberty ’79. His Dad was a Geology professor at SLU and his mother was my Eighth Grade English teacher.  Mike was in my class, lived a block away and, probably up until 5th grade, we played street hockey it seems like almost every winter day well into the darkness (which comes early up there) on Pine Street, behind my house and mostly what we talked about was SLU hockey. Mike is now the Assistant Coach and runs strength training for the current Saints Men’s team.   I wouldn’t pretend that I know all of these guys well by any means but they have almost all entered my extended orbit one way or another at one time or another.

Also on the tape are:

• Bill Torrey ’57, NHL Hall of Famer, GM of four Stanley Cup teams with the NY Islanders. His son Willie was at SLU when I was there and good friends with my ex-wife.
• Pierre McGuire, the current NBC color guy, a former NHL head coach, and it turns out, a former SLU Assistant Coach to Joe Marsh.
• Jamie Baker, from the ’88 NCAA Finalist team, 10 years in the NHL, now the Sharks radio commentator.
• Tom O’Connor ’75, who was the Senior goalie when I began doing radio broadcasts (and btw, whose father was Chairman of N.W. Ayer, if you remember that ad agency).  Incidentally Tom usually played ahead of backup goalie..Jacques Martin ’75; most recently Head Coach with the Montreal Canadiens and the scary guy who banged on my door to collect my late New York Times subscription money when I was a Freshman.  Martin famously fired his former SLU teammate, Mike Keenan when he was GM of the Florida Panthers.

Thanks, Bruce, for steering this to us and giving us your heartfelt commentary as such a true college hockey fan.

This weekend we have a couple more marquee matchups.  #7 Boston University will have the distinct, rare pleasure of playing the #1 ranked team on two consecutive weeks — having just played BC, they will now face the new #1, New Hampshire, for one game tomorrow, Thursday night.  Could be rather tough for BU to hang on to that #7 ranking.  And #6 Denver will travel to play two at #10 North Dakota.

Do you have a view on the top ten or top fifteen teams?  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.UNH 2.BC 3.Miami 4.Minn 5.N Dame 6.Denv 7.BU 8.N Dak 9.W Mich 10.Corn
• Tom:  1.UNH 2.BC 3.Miami 4.Minn 5.N Dame 6.Denv 7.N Dak 8.BU 9. W Mich 10.Dart

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

[table id=50 /]

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

— Tom