College Hockey Update:  Last weekend only four of the top ten teams were active — but they faced off in pairs!  Last Wednesday night, Ferris State travelled to Michigan.  Ferris State got on the scoreboard first, with six minutes remaining in the first period, but Michigan responded a minute later to tie it up, 1-1.  In the second, Michigan scored again, only seconds into the period, to go up 2-1.  The game stalemated for the next thirty-four minutes, until Ferris State scored again, with six minutes remaining, to tie it up at 2-2, which is how it ended.  On Saturday, Ferris State travelled to Michigan State, and won by a 2-0 margin.  These two games, coupled with the pair I am about to write about, boosted Ferris State up a couple of notches to the #2 ranking, and Michigan held at #3.  Here’s a question — Michigan looks pretty darn good this year:  Do you think they’ll win it all, or will recent ghosts make an appearance?  More on that below.

Then we have the case of Union College travelling to play a couple of games in St. Cloud, Minnesota.  This might have been a case of a team looking the other way; it might have been a case of a team on a roll, going supercharged into a weekend; it might have been both.  But Friday night’s game couldn’t have gone much worse for St. Cloud State, or much better for Union.  Union scored with five minutes remaining in the first, and then again just a minute later, to go up 2-0 early in the game.  In the second, St. Cloud State came out and took charge, and netted one half-way through the period, to make it 2-1.  But the tide turned slowly back to Union, and in the third period, the Dutchmen scored seconds into the period to go up 3-1, and then again half-way through the period to go up 4-1, which is how it ended.  Union was able to capitalize early on St. Cloud’s penalties (of which they had six in the game), scoring both first period goals on power plays.  St. Cloud’s lone goal was also on a power play, as both teams were able to score on 33% of power play opportunities.

Saturday night St. Cloud State aimed to turn things around, and scored first, with eight minutes remaining in the first.  But Union sprang to life bigtime in the second, scoring  with fourteen minutes remaining in the period, and scoring three goals in the period in a four minute span, to go up 3-1.  In the third, St. Cloud was resilient, and Saturday night was Union’s in the penalty box, with five penalties to St. Cloud’s two.  Union did score their first goal on a power play opportunity.  In the third, St. Cloud capitalized on two power play opportunities, the first with seventeen minutes remaining, made the score 3-2, Union.  At the end of the game the combination of St. Cloud State adding an extra attacker, and another Union penalty, combined to give St. Cloud State another goal, skating with a six-on-four advantage, with only twenty ticks remaining in the game, ending it in a 3-3 tie.  The weekend dropped St. Cloud State a few pegs down to the #4 ranking, and lifted Union up for notches to the #6 ranking.

So what do we know about Michigan?  The mitt?  The University of Michigan was founded in 1817 and is another huge, huge school, with 44,000 students, 28,000 of whom are undergrads.  They boast a US president, Gerald Ford, as an alum, and are consistently regarded as one of the premier publicly-funded Universities in America and the world, and one of the top Universities in the US and the world, including all types of Universities.

As regards hockey, they hold more NCAA championships that any other school, with nine, and more NCAA tournament appearances than any other school, with thirty-five.  Most all of these championships are ancient history, with six of them having been won in a nine year stretch between 1948 and 1956.  Another was won in 1964.  And then they went thirty-two years before winning it again in 1996, and then again in 1998.  They are led by their coach, Red Berenson, a 1962 alum, who had a spectacular Michigan hockey career as an All-American his junior and senior years; he was the first college player ever to go straight from the college game to playing in the NHL, where he had a great seventeen year career.  In fact, in 1968, Berenson scored six goals in one game, with four of them in a nine minute stretch.  He went on to coach the St. Louis Blues mid-way through the 1979 season.  He took the job at Michigan in 1984, when the program was on its knees.  After three losing seasons, Michigan started winning, and hasn’t really looked back.  Well, we’ll touch on that in a minute.  He led the team to twenty-five straight winning seasons, and then had a losing season last year.  He is in his thirtieth season this year, and has a lifetime record of 780-373-82.  During this time Michigan has won ten conference regular season championships, nine conference tournament championships, and they won both in the same season five times.  Also during this stretch, Michigan appeared in the NCAA Tournament twenty-two straight years — the most by any school ever.

Then there’s the recent history of the last five years . . . .  In 2011, Michigan had a strong showing in the NCAA Tournament, making it to the championship game, losing only in overtime to Minnesota-Duluth.  In 2010, they were knocked out in the second round in a close 3-2 game with Miami.  But there have been some very painful moments for the Michigan team and its fans recently as well.   In the 2009 NCAA tournament, they were shut out 2-0 by Air Force in the first round.  Air Force?  In the 2012 NCAA tournament there was the rather surprising first-round 3-1 loss to Cornell.  The 2009 loss to Air Force, it seemed, was quite a shock to the team and fans, which they all hoped to put in the rear-view mirror forever.  But the 2012 first round loss to Cornell seemed to bring it all back, and send the team and its fans to new depths of despair, as was indicated by last season’s performance, and first no-show at the NCAA tournament in twenty-three years.  Which kind of Michigan team will end this season, and which kind of ending will it be?  Only time will tell.

This weekend we have one, yes, exactly one division one college hockey game that will be played.  Not just one top-ten game, but one game in total.  It will happen Friday night, when #5 Providence travels to West Point to play Army.

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

[table id= 75 /]

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

— Tom