First of all, this post is old news — it will report on games that were played between January 8, 2013, and January 13, 2013.  Also, the rankings table listed below will be old news as of the time of this post, and will report the January 14, 2013 poll.   Now that that is out of the way . . .

Between January 8 and January 13, there were three marquee matchups.  First off, Minnesota faced Notre Dame, with the two teams ranked #1 and #2, respectively.  This one was all Minnesota, as the Golden Gophers romped and stomped Notre Dame by a 4-1 margin.  This one was so bad that they’re not even trying to blame the loss on Manti Teo’s imaginary fake girlfriend.  Minnesota went on to sweep Alaska Anchorage, and retain the #1 ranking, while Notre Dame went on to split with Michigan State, dropping down three rungs to the #5 ranking in the January 14 poll.  Next up, BC took on UNH, with the teams ranked #3 and #4, respectively, going into the weekend; the teams split, and given Notre Dame’s difficulties, both moved up a notch with BC at #2 and UNH at #3 in the Jan. 14 poll.  And our third big matchup saw Denver gain a win and a tie on the weekend against Nebraska-Omaha; Denver was ranked #7 and UNO #13 in the Jan. 14 poll.

#4 Qunnipiac’s rolling train continued on that weekend of January 11-13, as they earned a tie with RPI, and beat Union.  Hmmmm….  so in their last 16 games, Quinnipiac had gone 14-0-2 —  a sixteen game unbeaten streak.  Seems like a lot, wouldn’t you say?  Quinnipiac is making this winning thing look rather easy.  And, oh, by the way, these guys are 11-0-1 in the ECAC and are eight points ahead of the two teams tied for second.  #6 North Dakota split the weekend with Colorado College, while #8 Miami of Ohio split the weekend with Northern Michigan.  Again, all these rankings are as of the January 14 poll.  #9 Boston University dropped a game to Harvard, and I painfully watched this one.  What a stinker.  BU had these guys down 5-2 with about 14 minutes left in the third, and it looked as though they went on vacation at that point — actually BU’s approach from the opening faceoff looked a little bit as if they thought they had the game already won, but they were quick on the pursuit and managed to get three goals up on Harvard.  The game ended in regulation tied at 5-5, and in OT a Harvard defender managed to grab a weak pass and break down the ice and shoot past the BU goalie who came out a bit to defend.  I must give credit where it is due, and Harvard never gave up, and the winning goal was a skating piece of beauty; at the same time, BU failed to drop defenders back to assist the goalie.  Nauseating.  BU has been awful since the Christmas break — they did go on to beat Merrimack on that weekend.

#10 Western Michigan tied and beat Lake Superior State, while #11 Dartmouth did what a ranked team is supposed to do, and beat Harvard.  #12 Yale swept St. Lawrence, #14 Mankato was swept by Wisconsin, and the Atlantic Hockey’s #15 Niagra swept American International.  Closing the loop on another Atlantic Hockey team I mentioned in the last posting, Air Force beat and tied Army, 4-1, and 3-3.

At the end of the weekend of January 11-13, there were two top fifteen matchups coming up —  #1 Minnesota was slated to host #6 North Dakota for a pair, and #11 Dartmouth was scheduled to play one game at #12 Yale.  All the other top fifteen teams were not scheduled to play any other top fifteen teams — seems as though they were set up to pile up a lot of wins, wouldn’t you say?

This provides the top fifteen teams as of the January 14 poll, their rankings, records, and most recent results as of January 14:

[table id=56 /]

That’s was all for then.  Do stay tuned as I get caught up, and go Terriers!

— Tom