College Hockey Update:  Welcome back college hockey fans!  First off I’d like to welcome our new subscriber this year, David Warner, who played on two consecutive NCAA Hockey Championship Teams at Boston University in 1971 and 1972, and who was captain of the 1973 BU team.  So . . . . welcome!

College Hockey is now organized differently than last year, and what we are used to.  The CCHA is gone, the NCHC is new, the Big Ten (with six whole teams, yipppeee!) is new, the WCHA is realigned (and thankfully that gives Alabama-Huntsville in a conference),  Hockey East now contains Notre Dame, and the ECAC and Atlantic Hockey are unchanged.  This has caused the start of the hockey season to look a little different than in past years, and it might be a good change to the start of the season.  Because the Big Ten is so small, they will play a ton of non-conference opponents before starting their conference play (which is in about early to mid December), as opposed to playing each other five times each.  Also, with some conferences now so large, they will only play conference opponents twice, instead of three times, so they also will play more non-conference games at the start of the season.  So, even though it is late October, this report contains primarily non-conference games from both last weekend and this weekend.

And last weekend provided six top-twenty head-to-head matchups.  Let’s start with these.  #3 Miami-Ohio split the weekend with #6 North Dakota, while #4 Michigan took a tie and win against #14 New Hampshire.  #5 Boston College really stuck it to #11 Wisconsin, and Wisconsin then drove down the road to get slammed by #13 Boston University as well — Boston University had lost the night before to #12 RPI.  And #9 Quinnipiac swept two from #18 UMass-Lowell.  Lowell dropped nine slots in the poll on these losses, and to think — they were #1 in the preseason poll!

Elsewhere, #1 Minnesota handily swept Bemidji State.  In Minnesota’s Friday night 6-1 win, all six goals were scored by six different players.  #2 Notre Dame swept Michigan Tech, and #7 Yale won an exhibition game against Ontario Institute of Technology.  #8 Providence sort of stomped on American International, and #10 St. Cloud State was idle.

Lake Superior State entered the poll at #15 after they swept Union College, and #16 Mankato swept Connecticut. #18 Denver was swept by Alaska-Fairbanks, Cornell won an exhibition game against York, and Northeastern entered the pol at #20 after sweeping Holy Cross.

College hockey has been greatly impacted by building teams with players are not coming in straight from high school, but who have played instead in elite junior leagues.  But there is more to the story than that.  In a really, really candid interview, recently retired Boston University coach Jack Parker outlines his view of the impact of junior hockey on the NCAA game.  Great reading for all of you, and thanks to David Warner for calling this to my attention:

http://www.hockeyjournal.com/news/colleges/hockey_east/A_Terrier_Retrospective_Parker_talks_career_changes

So what top twenty matchups do we have this weekend?  Some barn-burners!  #1 Minnesota will host #5 Boston College for two games, and #3 Miami of Ohio will travel to play two at #8 Providence College.  #4 Michigan hosts #13 Boston University tonight, and hosts #18 UMass-Lowell tomorrow night.  And #12 RPI hosts #14 New Hampshire tomorrow night.

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

[table id=67 /]

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

— Tom