College Hockey Update:  Last weekend showcased four top-fifteen matchups, and the higher ranked team won in every case, except one — and that would be when Wisconsin travelled to Michigan for two games, and Michigan came out of it with a tie and a win, elevating Michigan a couple of spots to the #10 ranking, and dropping Wisconsin three notches to #12 — Michigan in the last couple of weekends has turned around their post-Christmas break slump.  Since we started out with the lowest ranked of the four top-fifteen matchups, let’s work our way up the list.  Cornell travelled to Yale and the two battled to a 2-2 regulation tie; Yale led 2-1 after one, and Cornell scored five minutes into the second to tie it up, 2-2, and the two teams skated scoreless for the last thirty-five minutes, with Cornell scoring the winning goal with only eighteen seconds remaining in OT to take it 3-2.  Cornell moved up a couple of spots to #9 (having also beaten Brown the next night), and Yale held at #13 (having beaten Colgate the next night).  The new-look Union (with player suspended after their melee with RPI ten days ago) managed to beat Clarkson after falling behind 2-0 in the second and 3-2 in the third; Union held at #4 (despite taking a loss the night before at St. Lawrence, in which the Saints outshot Union 35-22).  Clarkson rose up a spot to #14 on the weekend, having shut out RPI the night before.  And Boston College travelled to Providence, shut out their hosts, and held at #2.

After the poll came out, Boston College also played Monday night in the late game of the first round of the Beanpot Tournament against Boston University — two programs that could not be more opposite in terms of the direction they are heading, with BC cleaning up everything in their path lately, and BU gasping for air.  I watched this game, so here’s a little recap — BC scored first on a power play when the puck was passed from the faceoff circle up to the point, to the center at the blue line, and back to the player at the faceoff circle, who was then heading to the goal, and he scored to make it 1-0, BC.  For most of the first, BU kept the puck in the BC zone, and fired off ten shots, but they were all long shots as BC kept BU away from the crease.  BC managed only five shots in the first, but four of them were from point-blank range.  Only a minute into the second, the BC lineup of Arnold, Gaudreau, and Hayes, which had scored twenty-seven goals in the previous twelve games, had a rush into the BU zone.  BU managed to stop Gaudreau as the puck came to him, but he managed to get it to Arnold, who broke to the goal, drawing the pair of BU defenders with him, and he slid it across the crease to a wide-open trailing Hayes, who scored to make it 2-0.  When BC scored, they made it look pretty easy.  Midway through the second, BU’s Somerby committed a nasty back-check and was whistled for a major 5 minute penalty.  But BU seemed to rise to the occasion, turning the puck over many times, and even creating some very good short-handed scoring opportunities, but converting on none.  BU did keep the heat on in the last five minutes of the second, and into the third.  In the third, on a power play opportunity, BU had two shots by Rodrigues bounce off the pipes, and had a scramble-to-get-the-puck-in-the-crease shot also ricochet off the pipe, and settle under BC’s goalie, Demko.  A lot of this traffic happened when BU was setting up behind the goal and passing out, giving them close opportunities.  Seven minutes into the third, a BU player had the puck behind the net, and this time passed it out to the top of the zone, and BU’s Baillargeon snagged it, and quickly skated a step and fired in a goal from out front, making it 2-1 BU.  With all the effort BU had put into that, it almost seemed as if they should have come out of it with three or four goals, but one was all they managed to get.  After that, BC held on defensively, and with 1:20 remaining, BU added an extra attacker.  About thirty seconds later, Rodrigues again had an opportunity, but his shot was saved by Demko’s shoulder, and a few seconds later BC got the puck out of the zone to an open Gaudreau, who went down the ice and deposited the puck in the BU empty net to make the final 3-1 , BC.  With this win, BC became the first team in the country to notch twenty wins this season.

Elsewhere, Minnesota’s tie and win with Michigan State kept them at #1, and Quinnipiac’s 8-1 fleecing of Dartmouth kept them at #3.  St. Cloud State dropped a slot to #6 on their split with Nebraska-Omaha, and UMass-Lowell swept Merrimack and edged up to the #7 spot.  An idle Ferris State rose up a notch to #5, an idle Northeastern dropped a spot to #11 (Northeastern badly spanked Harvard in the early game of the opening round of the Beanpot Tournament Monday night, after the poll came out), and an idle Denver rose up a spot to #15.

This weekend presents another big batch of top-fifteen matchups, as #1 Minnesota travels to play two at #12 Wisconsin, #3 Quinnipiac hosts #14 Clarkson for one game, #4 Union hosts #13 Yale for one game, and #6 St. Cloud State hosts #15 Denver for two games.  In addition, the Beanpot Championship game Monday night in Boston will feature #2 Boston College against #11 Northeastern, following the earlier consolation game.

Cornell is #9, and what do we know about Cornell?  Cornell was founded in 1865.  What??  Every one of the other seven Ivy League schools was founded before the start of the Revolutionary War, and Cornell was founded after the Civil War??  Well, good for Cornell.  Cornell is a pretty big school, with 14,000 undergraduates, and total enrollment of 20,000.  It is in Ithaca, a town of 30,000 people in a population area of 100,000, in the Finger Lakes Region of New York, and it gets cold there.  The average minimum low temperature in February is 15 degrees.  The Cornell campus is 2,300 acres, and Cornell has another 3,000 acres known as the Cornell Plantation.  Cornell was founded when Ezra Cornell (the founder of Western Union), a New York state senator, donated his farmland for the University.  Hmmmm….. so Yalies are called “Elis,” so should we start calling Cornellians “Ezras?”  Cornell is an interesting combination of a private university and a state institution; Cornell has nine colleges, four of which are funded by the State of New York:  Agriculture and Life Sciences; Human Ecology; Industrial and Labor Relations; and Veterinary Medicine.  The Cornell Faculty includes three Nobel Laureates, and Cornell has a total of forty-one Nobel Laureates affiliated with it in its history.

On the sports front, the Cornell is called the Big Red, and their unofficial mascot is a brown bear nicknamed “Touchdown.”  Among their notable athletic alumni are football icon Pop Warner, and hockey legend Ken Dryden.  In hockey, Cornell has won twelve ECAC Tournament titles, and two NCAA championships, in 1967 and 1970.  Their 1970 team went 29-0-0 and is the only undefeated Division I college hockey team ever.  Cornell plays its games at Lynah Rink, which seats 4,267.  The seating is around the arena like a horseshoe, with seats on each side, and in one end zone only.  Built in 1957, the building is shaped like a Quonset-hut, and the front and rear facades are bricked.  Cornell has won 80% of all home games at Lynah, and the place is known for its traditionally very loud student section.  Cornell is coached by Mike Shafer, who is in his nineteenth year, a 1986 alum who assisted at Cornell for four years right out of school, then for five years at Western Michigan, and then back to Cornell where he’s been ever since.  He currently has a lifetime record of 359-202-71, and in his first eighteen seasons his teams posted fifteen winning seasons against only three losing seasons.  His teams have had three twenty-five game winning seasons:  Twenty-five wins in 2001-02; Thirty in 2002-03; and Twenty-seven in 2004-05.  In addition they have won three ECAC regular season championships, five ECAC Tournament championships.  His teams have also made nine NCAA Tournament appearances, including a Frozen Four appearance in 2003.  This year the team is already 12-4-5, including wins over New Hampshire and Clarkson, and sweeps of both Yale and Nebraska-Omaha.  Cornell’s roster this season is balanced with upper classmen experience and new blood, as it has six seniors, seven juniors, four sophomores, and ten freshmen.  Twenty-five of the players come from elite junior leagues, and only two directly from high school  This weekend Cornell travels to play one game at Colgate.

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

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

— Tom