College Hockey Update:  Well last week’s headline was “Three Top Ten Teams Tested,” and this week’s version could have been be “six top ten teams routed.”  And, last week I went on to say that the next week’s  three matchups that included top-ten ranked teams “should all be killer matchups,” and my forecast on those three matchups should have been written as, “these three top ten teams could get killed.”  A lot of the losses by top ten ranked teams were to unranked teams, which just goes to show us once again, that there is a lot of great hockey being played everywhere out there.  Oh where to start . . . .

North Dakota found itself of the short end of a lopsided game against Minnesota-Duluth Friday night, but then returned the favor on Saturday.  North Dakota dropped two spots to #3, and Minnesota-Duluth moved up two spots to #5.  Harvard also found itself on the short end of a lopsided game against Yale, and Harvard dropped a spot to #4, while Yale moved up a spot to #18.  And Nebraska-Omaha swept Denver, which (along with some losses by previously higher ranked teams, detailed below), shot UNO up five spots to #8, and dropped Denver down three spots to #13.

Mankato State swept Lake Superior State, and that play, coupled with the lackluster play of the three teams previously ranked ahead of them (two mentioned above), sling-shot the Mavericks to the #1 ranking.  Boston University was the other team ranked ahead of Mankato, and was another top ten ranked team that got roughed up, as Friday night the Terriers found themselves down 3-1 with only two minutes remaining in the game, to . . . . Wisconsin?  A team that only has two wins all season long?  BU added an extra attacker and gained a goal with 1:52 remaining, to make it 3-2, and fought and fought and fought and then with only three seconds remaining, scored again to tie it 3-3.  Neither team scored in OT, and BU had to settle on this last second, come-from behind tie with a near winless team; BU got on track the next night and took a one-sided win, but the antics of the previous night kept BU ranked at #2, despite North Dakota’s loss.

Elsewhere, UMass-Lowell, which has been completely on fire lately, flamed out against Connecticut but held at #6 despite the loss.  Bowling Green earned a win, then settled on a tie — in much the same fashion as BU when they found themselves down by three with eleven minutes to go, then scored three goals with the tying goal coming with only 22 seconds left — against Alaska Fairbanks, and shot up four spots to #7.  Miami of Ohio was swept by St. Cloud State, and dropped four slots to #9, while Vermont took a lopsided win over Dartmouth, and moved up a couple of spots to #10.  Besides Denver, two other high profile teams this season — both ranked #1 for multiple weeks — were shoved out of the top ten:  Michigan Tech dropped three spots to #11 after splitting with Northern Michigan, and Minnesota dropped seven spots to #16 after being swept by Michigan; Michigan broke into the top twenty at #19.  After starting out 7-1-0, Minnesota has surprisingly gone 3-6-1.  Time for  a quick turnaround.  The good news, seemingly, for Minnesota is that since they are in the Big Ten (this six team “conference” has only two teams ranked in the top twenty, at #16 and #19, and only one other team getting any votes in the poll — a total of two votes — and the Big Six will receive an auto-bid to the NCAA Tournament), and their schedule is almost entirely against Big Ten teams for the rest of the season, they only have a total of three games against ranked opponents remaining on their schedule.

Last weekend Bowling Green had huge help from sophomore defenseman Sean Walker, of Keswick, Ontario, who tallied an assist in his team’s 3-0 win Friday night, and then scored two goals in his team’s 4-4 tie Saturday night, both against Alaska-Fairbanks.  Currently he is tied for sixth on the team in goals, with four, and is tied for fifth on the team in assists, with seven.  Last year as a freshman, he ended the season tied for fourteenth in goals with two (tied for second among defensemen), and tied for fifth in assists, with eleven (second among defensemen).  Prior to Bowling Green, he played high school hockey at Our Lady of The Lake, and he played for the Newmarket Hurricanes of the OJHL.  His hometown of Keswick has a population of 25,000, and and sits right on the shores of Cook’s Bay on Lake Simcoe (which I suppose is currently under about eight feet of ice), about a one-hour car ride north of Toronto.

Bowling Green is coached by Chris Bergeron, who is in his fifth season there, having started in 2010.  His record in his first four years is 57-88-20, including last year’s record of 18-15-6.  And so far this year the team is 13-3-4, bringing his cumulative record to 70-91-24 — he is rapidly closing in on an even record.  Bergeron played at Miami of Ohio from 1989-93, and was captain his last two years.  In his senior year he scored 21 goals and added 40 assists.  He then spent seven years on minor league professional teams, after which he returned to Miami as a recruiter, from 2000-10.

Bowling Green was founded in 1910 by the passage of a state bill, and classes were first taught there to 304 students in September, 1914, as Bowling Green Normal School.  Its first graduates were thirty-five certified teachers in 1915, and in 1917 it awarded its first bachelor’s degrees in teaching.  In 1927 Falcon nickname was established for its teams.  In 1933 its students, faculty, and administration fought off its conversion to a mental institution, and in 1935 it was granted University status, and changed its name to Bowling Green State University.  In 1936 the College of Business Administration was added, and master’s degree programs were added in Education, English, History, Social Science, and Mathematics.  After World War II, Army ROTC was added in 1948, and in 1950, enrollment eclipsed 5,000 students.  In 1951 Air Force ROTC was added, and a great deal of building took place in the 1950s and continued through the 1970s.  The University Honors Program was added in 1978.  In the 1990s, a great deal of building renovation took place, as well as continued new building.  In 2011 the $36 million, 5,000 seat Stroh’s Center was completed.

Bowling Green’s 1,338 acre campus sits on the northeast side of the town of Bowling Green, and is about a mile and a half long, and about a mile wide, containing 120 buildings, including Olscamp Hall, which has 28 classrooms, and lecture halls seating 2,000 students.  Bowling Green operates its own bus line, and locals use it as well to get around town.  85% of Bowling Green’s 15,000 undergraduates and 3,000 graduates are Ohio residents, and it has a student:teacher ratio of 20:1.  It has an academic staff of 2,000, including 800 full-time faculty, 300 adjunct faculty, and 900 graduate assistants.  Some former Bowling Green students you might recognize include actor Tim Conway and actress Eva Marie Saint, as well as Nate Thurmond, Dan Bylsma, Orel Hersheiser, and Dave Wottle.  Wottle gave us an extremely memorable US Olympic performance in the 1972 800 meter final when he attempted to come from the back of the pack to win the race at the finish line; it’s well worth watching this entire piece to see his effort, as the race is only 1:45 long —  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ejjvP1cM7J4 — and it’s pretty gripping stuff.

The Bowling Green Falcons wear orange and brown, and compete in most sports in the Mid America Conference; their big rival is Toledo, which is twenty miles away.  The football rivalry is called the battle of I-75, and the teams play to determine who will take home the trophy of the Peace Pipe.  The Falcon hockey team plays its games at the 5,000 seat Bowling Green Ice Arena, completed in 1967.  Bowling Green won the NCAA Hockey Championship in 1984, under the direction of its coach . . . . Jerry York, the current coach at BC.  Bowling Green also placed two players, Ken Morrow and Mark Wells, on the 1980 US Olympic Hockey Team.

The town of Bowling Green, Ohio, is home to 30,000 residents, and is the county seat of Wood County, in northwest Ohio.  It was first settled in 1832, became a town in 1855, and an incorporated city in 1901.

This weekend, and I mean very quickly here, features one top-ten matchup, as #2 Boston University will host #6 UMass-Lowell tomorrow night.  There are two top ten teams that will face top ranked opponents, as #2 Boston University will also host #17 Boston College tonight, in about four hours, and #7 Bowling Green will play two games at #11 Michigan Tech, in what should be a test of both teams.  Both of these teams seem to have a very good chance of ending the season ranked in the top ten, as Bowling Green only has this one matchup with a ranked team on the remainder of its schedule; Michigan Tech has this matchup and its late February matchup with #1 Mankato State as the only games against ranked teams on the remainder of its schedule.

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

[table id=101 /]

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

— Tom