It seems in most seasons that there is a lot of settling down by now – the top ranked teams move on, with an exception or two, and the lower ranked teams don’t have too much of a chance of climbing up.  But this doesn’t look like most seasons.   In fact, for some teams this second half of the season seems as though it is an entirely different year, and a couple of seasons removed from the first half at that.  A number of top ten and top fifteen teams suffered unexpected losses over the weekend, and some of the teams are on downward slides that defy what they had done prior to the Christmas break.  And while this is all true, there are also a few teams that are really flying high right now.  With all that is going on, I’ve expanded the coverage to all top twenty teams – we’ll see how long I can continue to do that.

So let’s start with the marquee matchups from the last posting.  #1 Minnesota is clearly one of the teams flying high right now, coming out of a weekend with #5 North Dakota, with a win and a tie.  And the win was a serious 5-1 beating down of the Fighting Sioux.  Yale beat #12 Dartmouth and also beat Harvard on the weekend, and jumped up to the #8 ranking.  Dartmouth managed to get a win over Brown on the weekend.

Another team that is flying about as high as you can fly is Quinnipiac, now ranked #2, the highest ranking in the history of the school’s hockey program.  Quinnipiac won on Tuesday night, after this week’s poll came out, beating Connecticut, and extending their unbeaten streak to 17 games, having now gone 15-0-2 since their last loss.  #3 Boston College took a surprising loss to UMass-Amherst, and it wasn’t close either – but BC tends to have a cool streak every year, and they provide tons of evidence they are not done, and last weekend was no exception, as they rebounded with a 9-3 thrashing of Northeastern.  #4 New Hampshire also took a loss to Providence, and #6 Miami was not able to sweep Wisconsin, which moved the Badgers to #20 in this week’s poll.

And a team on a downward slide would be Notre Dame, which just had three consecutive losses:  one to Bowling Green and two to Alaska-Fairbanks, last weekend.  That makes four losses in a row, and they are 1-5-0 since the Christmas break.  And they are not alone.  Is there a curse out there?  The fake ghost of Lennay Kekua?  At least Notre Dame has an excuse and can point to the great suffering and sadness they are going through over learning that Mani Teo’s fake imaginary girlfriend not only never died, but never even existed either.  Perhaps they are distracted by the search for the white roses that Teo supposedly sent to the imaginary funeral.  But at least it’s an excuse!  Notre Dame dropped to #8 in the rankings.  And what of this Bowling Green team?  Potential ranking wrecker they are.  Western Michigan faced them and  split the weekend with them, and Western Michigan is now ranked #9.

Denver faced St. Cloud State, and did Denver get drilled!  St. Cloud State was only 4-5-0 since December 1^st, and was 0-2-0 since Christmas break.  Denver was pretty hot, and then this!  St. Cloud State just hammered Denver, scoring ten goals in two nights, and holding Denver to three in two nights.  So Denver dropped to #10 in the rankings, and St. Cloud State moved up to #16.  Was this a turning point for one or both of these teams, or just a fluke weekend for St. Cloud?  Seems pretty real by the score, but time will tell.

Another team on a downward slide?  Try Boston University.  Before the Christmas break they were 10-5-0.  Last weekend they were beaten by Northeastern and by UMass-Lowell.  They have gone 2-4-0 since the Christmas break.  In the Lowell  game, BU was down 4-1 with fifteen minutes remaining in the third; BU rallied and played great, leveraged their good team speed, and scored two goals in five minutes to make it 4-3.  BU had several shots off the pipes during the night, so they could have been in the game all along.  Team captain Wade Megan, of Canton, NY, was everywhere he could be to get BU the win, but what the heck, how about Garrett Noonan hooking the goalie, yes the goalie, for a major penalty?  BU had eleven penalties on the night.  That major by Noonan was pretty much the end of that game, and Lowell won it 4-3.  BU dropped to #11 in the rankings, and Lowell is now at #15, having beaten Providence before beating BU.  So who has the longest winning streak in the nation right now?  Yes, UMass-Lowell:  they have won nine straight; these guys were 4-7-1 on December 8^th, and they are now 13-7-1.  Again, one team in a spiral, and one flying high.

Manakto stayed on its roll of late (they are 12-3-1 in their last sixteen games), earning a win and a tie against Alaska-Anchorage, and holding at #14 in the rankings, and Niagra dropped to #17 after splitting with Holy Cross.  #18 Cornell beat #19 Union, and RPI; Union went on to beat both Colgate and Harvard.

So what great top twenty matchups do we have this weekend?  The WCHA showcases a couple of scorchers as #1 Minnesota plays a home/home series with# 14 Mankato State — this could be a killer considering that streak the Mankato is on; and #5 North Dakota hosts #16 St. Cloud State for a pair — again, could be a rea killer of a game with St. Cloud coming off that shelling of Denver.  Add to that #8 Yale travelling to #18 Cornell for two games.

Do any of the high schools in Minnesota have hockey?  Well, the folks there claim that they are the state of hockey, and for the past seven years they have arranged “Hockey Day Minnesota,” which is a day on which at least one high school team plays on an outdoor, frozen lake rink, a college team plays, and then the Minnesota Wild NHL team plays.  This year the high school games were on frozen Lake Pokegama, in Grand Rapids, MN, original hometown of our contributing field reporter, Greg Schreader.  And wouldn’t you know it, Greg’s alma mater, Grand Rapids High, played Benilde-St. Margaret in the headline high school game, following the girls’ game, and the first boys’ game.  And wouldn’t you know it, the first boys’ game featured Eagan High, from the current hometown of our contributing field reporter, John McLean.  Here’s how the day went up there:  It was a bad day for the private schools, and a good day for the public schools.  First, you need to know that up there, it’s normal to name the team mascot the same name as the school.  So if the school is St. John’s, it’s the “Johnnies,” and so on.  Some schools opt for a special mascot nickname, to avoid any strangeness.  For example, The University of Minnesota opted for the “Golden Gophers,” presumably to get out of being called the “Minnies,” and Grand Rapids opted for the “Thunderhawks,” presumably to avoid being called the “Grannies,” or the “Rappers,” or possibly the “Grannie Rappers.”

Here’s how the day went on Satuday the 19^th.  In the girls’ game, the Grand Rapids-Greenway “Greenies” torched the Hibbing-Chisholm “Hibbie Cheesers” 6-0.  Having sent two teams, the first boys’ game saw the Eagan “Eagers” crush the “Hibbie Cheesers” 9-3.  The marquee matchup saw the ceremonial puck drop by 1980 Olympic Legend Bill Baker, and featured #12 Grand Rapids High against #4 Benilde-St. Margaret, which admitted boys several years ago.  And what a game this was, with the Margies taking an early 2-0 lead in the first.  But the Thunderhawks fought back, braving the battling Margies, and the elements (gusting winds in the high twenties – hey, there’s a name for a team, the gusties, but I digress . . . ), to tie it at 2-2 and Grand Rapids won it in OT, 3-2.  Here’s the clincher – Margie team captain Besse has committed to play at Wisconsin, and team captain Labosky at Colorado College; Thunderhawks captain Bishoff has committed to play at Minnesota.  We could be seeing photos of these guys right here in the near future.

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

[table id=57 /]

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

— Tom