College Hockey Update:  What do you know about the U. ?  The University of Minnesota is affectionately called “The U.” by all Minnesotans, and what you now know about them is that they are #1 no longer, as St. Cloud State has taken over the top spot in this week’s poll.  More on the that, and the U., below.

Let’s begin with a top-twelve matchup of Quinnipiac and Union College.  What a battle this one was!  Union hosted the game at their Achilles Center, and the two teams traded goals back and forth through the first two periods, with Union scoring a minute or two after each Quinnipiac goal.  The second ended 3-2 with Union on top.  Up to that point, the shooting was even, with Union taking 18, and Quinnipiac taking 19.  The third was a wild ride, and Quinnipiac came out on fire early, and scored four minutes into the period to tie it, and then a minute later, a goal by Kellen Jones, assisted by his twin brother Connor, gave Quinnipiac their first lead of the night at 4-3.  But Union was not quite done as a minute later Michael Pontarelli scored is second goal of the night to tie it up.  The game stalemated for the next eight minutes, until a goal by Matt Wilkins gave Union the lead at 5-4.  Late in the game Quinnipiac added an extra attacker, and with only three seconds remaining, Union found the empty net to make the final 6-4, Union.  Union outshot Quinnipiac 12-5 in the third.  Quinnipiac had tied RPI the night before, and fell a couple of slots to #7 in the rankings.  Union had beaten Princeton the night before, and nudged up to #10 on the weekend.

Elsewhere, St. Cloud State, the new #1, as previously mentioned, swept Minnesota-Duluth, knocking UMD out of the top twenty, while Minnesota was managing a tie and a close win against unranked Michigan State, dropping down to #2.  Michigan beat Ohio State last week, mid-week, completing a sweep that had started two weekends ago, and Michigan held at #3.  Ferris State swept Lake Superior State, and moved up to #4, as a Providence tie with Northeastern nudged them down to #5, and as Boston College jumped up to #6 on their sweep of New Hampshire.

Clarkson is now ranked #8 after sweeping St. Lawrence, and UMass-Lowell dropped to the #9 spot after a win against American International, but a loss to Maine.  Yale dropped three spots to #11 after a loss to Dartmouth, and a tie with Harvard, while Miami of Ohio held at #12 after splitting the weekend with Denver.

So what do you know about the U. ?  For starters, if you took it outside of the twin cities, and put it in an open field, do you know what you’d have?  With its 53,000 students, you’d have the 17th biggest city in the state.  Bigger than Minnetonka which gave us all those Tonka trucks!  The U. is huge!  37,000 of the students are undergrads.  It was founded in 1851, and its mascot is the Golden Gopher, which the informed College Hockey Update reader knows, is not a real animal (for details, read this March 5, 2013 post — www.collegehockeyupdate.com/2013/03/05/are-golden-gophers-real-animals/ ).  As with the description of UMass-Lowell last week, the campus straddles a river, this one being huge, and called the Mississippi.

Hockey-wise they are lead by their coach, Don Lucia, who is pretty much the patron saint of the state of Minnesota, and is universally loved by all Minnesotans for his great contribution to hockey at the U. — all Minnesotans, regardless of where they went to college,  love and appreciate him for what he has done for hockey in the state of Minnesota.  Lucia played college hockey at Notre Dame, and during his four years there, the team’s winning percentages were .389, .600, .389, and .474.  He was the head coach of Alaska-Fairbanks for six seasons, from 1987-93, and his team posted three 23 win seasons.  He went on to coach at Colorado College for six seasons, from 1993-99, where his teams posted 23 wins or more in all six seasons, and 25+ in five.  From there he came to the U. and has coached fourteen seasons.  During that this time his teams have posted only one losing season, and thirteen winning seasons, with 25+ wins in nine of those seasons.  The cumulative record of teams he’s coached is 635-335-90, and he has coached teams into the NCAA Championship Tournament in fifteen seasons — five at Colorado College, and ten at the U. His teams have reached the championship game six times — two at Colorado College, and four at Minnesota, and they have won the NCAA Championship twice at Minnesota in 2002 and 2003.  In twenty-six seasons of coaching, his teams has posted only two losing seasons (one at Alaska-Fairbanks and one at the U. ), and one season at .500 (at Alaska-Fairbanks), and twenty-three winning seasons.  His teams win a ton of games!  Additionally, he sports a hairstyle known in Minnesota as “The Looch,” and nearly all men in Minnesota sport this hairstyle.

The roster at the U. is another that has a good deal of upper classmen experience, as it has five seniors, six juniors six sophomores, and eight freshmen.  I would report to you the number that come directly from high school vs. the number who spent time in elite junior leagues after high school, but Minnesota does not disclose that information on their roster.  I suspect that an extremely high percentage of these players come from the elite junior leagues, and not directly from high school.  Should anyone have a line on that information and want to share it, please do.

Wow, do we have a few scorching hot games coming up on the ice in terms of top-twelve matchups.  Tonight, in about three hours, #3 Michigan will host #4 Ferris State.  I can’t imagine that there is much love lost in this intrastate rivalry.  Should be a really good test of both teams.  Then this weekend we get another scorcher as our new #1, The Huskies of St. Cloud State, will host the recently surging #10 Dutchmen of Union College.  Could these games turn into blow-outs by St. Cloud State?  I suppose so, but I have a feeling that these are going to be two great contests.  If any of our readers is attending one or both of these, please give us a game summary as a live spectator!

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

[table id=74 /]

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

— Tom