College Hockey Update:  Last weekend presented three top twenty matchups, and Quinnipiac ran into a little test in the ECAC tournament in their series with Cornell, but prevailed, taking a convincing win Friday, a narrow loss Saturday, and a convincing win Sunday, which advanced them to the ECAC Semi-finals and edged them down to #2, and dropped Cornell down three spots to #18.  Michigan swept Penn State in the final weekend of regular season play of the little six, moving Michigan up two spots (also on losses of teams previously ahead of them) to #7, and dropping Penn State down five notches to #19.

[Please note that instructions for entering the NCAA Tournament Pool next week are at the bottom of this posting, right above the rankings table.]

Mass-Lowell (the wonders of my spellcheck autocorrect software will not let me type UMass-Lowell to start a paragraph, a 300 word tirade reserved for another occasion) hosted BU in the Hockey East Tournament, and  I saw Friday night’s game.  BU was on the board first, in the first, when Jakob Forsbacka-Karlsson moved out from the corner and simply beat the goalie with a shot.  But a couple of minutes later, UMass-Lowell moved the puck rapidly around the ice on a power play, finding Joe Gambardella, who wrapped it around the goalie to tie it at one apiece.  BU had outshot Lowell 11-5 in the first.  In the second, things slowed down a bit into a defensive stalemate in which Lowell outshot BU 8-6.  BU dominated the first half of the third, keeping the puck in the Lowell zone, but did not convert.  Midway through the third Lowell’s Michael Louria took a pass and skated across the zone from left to right, into the slot, with a BU defender on him.  Right as they lined up with the goal, Louria fired a shot just inside of the defender, screened from the goalie, and the puck flight was weird, sort of the same as a sinker-ball pitch in MLB and it found the net to the right of the goalie,  2-1 Lowell.

Four minutes later, defending a charge to the goal, BU’s Matt Grzelcyk was called for slashing the Lowell player and on the ensuing power play, Lowell kept the action on the right side along the board, moving the puck out, and then back down, and when all eyes were over there, they found a breakdown in the defense right at the net, of all places, where a wide open Adam Chapie one-timed a blistering pass into the net for a 3-1 Lowell lead.  But half a minute later, as if to make up for his sin, BU’s Matt Grzelcyk fired a shot form the left point, through a couple of players, and made it 3-2.  BU then dominated the play, went with an extra attacker with about ninety seconds remaining, and outshot Lowell 18-6 in the period.  But almost all of the shots were short range, in plain sight of the goalie, right at him, and BU only converted on the one shot by Grzelcyk in the period, and went home with the 3-2 loss.  BU came back Saturday night and it was all Lowell, as they scored early and often, blanking the Terriers by a 5-0 margin, sending them home as only spectators of the Hockey East Semifinals at the Boston Garden this Friday night.  The weekend lifted Lowell three spots to #8, and dropped BU three spots to #11.  The headline today could have, I suppose, read “What happened to Yale, N. Dame + BU?” but in this case BU was swept by the team previously ranked #11, and seeded ahead of them in their conference tournament, so perhaps not quite as big of a surprise.

So let’s end the suspense and get to that question, what happened to Yale and Notre Dame? Yale’s plight is almost unexplainable, as they were swept at home by a Dartmouth team that did not get a single vote in last week’s poll.  The weekend dropped Yale three pegs down to #10, and Dartmouth came in at #23 in the voting as they advanced to the ECAC Semifinals.  Notre Dame seemed the favorite in their series as well, but they were hosting a red hot Northeastern team that left Notre Dame with a pair of two-goal losses.  Notre Dame dropped three slots to #13, and Northeastern jumped up 7 spots to #14(!) as they advanced to the Hockey East Semifinals.

North Dakota crushingly swept Colorado College to advance to the NCHC semifinals, and edged up to #1 on Quinnipiac’s stumble; Providence swept Merrimack to advance to the Hockey East Semifinals and edged up to #3 (also on BC’s weekend); and St. Cloud State swept Western Michigan to advance to the NCHC Semifinals and edged up to #4 (also on BC’s weekend).  Boston College, as Quinnipiac, was tested in their series with Vermont, but prevailed after winning Friday, losing Saturday, and needing OT to win on Sunday; the weekend dropped BC a couple of notches to #5.

Denver swept Nebraska-Omaha, (wait, didn’t I just write that one?) and advanced to the NCHC Semifinals and held at #6 while UNO dropped five spots to #22; Harvard swept Rensselaer and advanced to the ECAC Semifinals and jumped up three pegs to #9 (also on losses by Yale and BU); and Michigan Tech swept Alaska-Fairbanks and advanced to the WCHA semifinals and edged up to #12.  Mankato State was tested by Lake Superior State but prevailed, winning Friday, losing Saturday, and winning Sunday, to advance to the WCHA Semifinals and edging up to #15.  Minnesota-Duluth swept Miami-of-Ohio and advanced to the NCHC semifinals and jumped up four notches to #16; St. Lawrence swept it’s “Route 11 Rival” Clarkson in two extremely close contests (Friday OT, Saturday 2OT), edging the Saints up to #17 and dropping Clarkson a couple of slots to #26 (this link to the highlights of these two screamer games was sent to me by Bruce Carlisle https://youtu.be/qCkzRng-mg4 ); and Minnesota split with Wisconsin in little a little six regular season final series, edging the Gophers down to #20.

Last weekend Umass-Lowell had huge help from its junior forward Joe Gambardella, of Staten Island, NY, who scored a goal in his team’s 3-2 win Friday night, and scored a goal and added an assist in his team’s 5-0 win Saturday night, giving them the series sweep of #11 Boston University, and advancing Lowell to the Hockey East Semifinals.  The 5′ 9″ 200lb forward is tied for sixth on his team in goals scored with seven, and is first on his team in assists with twenty-four.  He has been a key player for his team all three years, as he scored fourteen goals and added sixteen assists last year, and he scored five goals and added five assists as a freshman. Before he came to Lowell, he played for the Des Moines Buccaneers of the USHL, where he scored nineteen goals and added twenty-seven assist in seventy-nine games over his two seasons there.  UMass-Lowell started the season with only one loss in its first fifteen games, going 10-1-4 during that stretch, but had a “bumpy” December.  Since December 28th they are 13-4-2, for a current record of 23-8-5, and they are ranked #8 as they head into their Hockey East Semifinal game Friday night at the Boston Garden against #3 Providence.

Gambardella’s hometown of Staten Island is actually one of the five Boroughs of New York City, and is the southernmost point of both New York City and the state of New York.  Its 473,000 residents are spread among its 48 square miles who have no subway access to Manhattan or Brooklyn.  It sits across inner New York Bay from Manhattan, is connected to the Borough of Brooklyn by the Verrazano Narrows Bridge (named for Italian explorer Giovanni de Verrazanno who sailed through the Strait in 1520 — note the misspelling of his last name in the name of the name of the Straight and the Bridge), and is separated from New Jersey by the narrow Arthur Kill and the narrow Kill Van Kull.

Staten Island was named by Dutch explorer Henry Hudson in 1609, and was first permanently settled in 1661, just six years prior to the Dutch giving the territory to the British in a 1667 treaty.  In 1898 Staten Island became part of New York City; the results of a 1993 election were that 65% of the Staten Islanders voted to secede from New York City, but this was blocked by the New York Assembly.  Ahhh, government . . . .  A variety of notable Staten Islanders include Robert Loggia, Patti Hansen (wife of Keith Richards), Cornelius Vanderbilt, Christina Aguilera, Joan Baez, David Johansen, Method Man, Ingrid Michaelson, Jeb Magruder, and Randy “Macho Man” Savage.  The ethnic origin that accounts for the highest percentage of its residents is Italian, at 35%.

This weekend presents the semifinals and finals of all conferences of respectable size.  For the little six, there is a four-team bracket to determine the two teams that will advance to the semi-finals to face Michigan and Minnesota, both of which have a bye out of the preliminary four-team bracket.  The lineup for this weekend is:

Atlantic Hockey, In Rochester, N.Y.

• Rochester Institute of Technology vs. #25 United States Air Force Academy
• United States Military Academy (Army) vs. #21 Robert Morris University

ECAC, In Lake Placid, N.Y.

• #17 St. Lawrence University vs. #9 Harvard University
• #23 Dartmouth College vs. #2 Quinnipiac University

Hockey East, In Boston, MA.

• #14 Northeastern vs. #5 Boston College
• #8 UMass-Lowell vs. #3 Providence College

NCHC, In Minneapolis, MN.

• #6 University of Denver vs. #4 St. Cloud State University
• #16 University of Minnesota-Duluth vs. #1 University of North Dakota

WCHA, In Grand Rapids, MI.

• #24 Bowling Green State University vs. #15 Mankato State University
• Ferris State University vs. #12 Michigan Technological University

Little Six, in St. Paul, MN.

Thursday night is Michigan State vs. Ohio State, and Wisconsin vs. #19 Penn State, with winners advancing to play either #7 Michigan or #20 Minnesota.

Here’s what will happen next for us readers:  I will send out the NCAA tournament bracket on Monday night, March 21st.  When you receive it, please make you picks and send to me right away, following the directions on how to send me your picks (in a single typewritten line), by the deadline, which will be on Thursday.  It’s right around the corner, the NCAA Tournament and the Frozen Four!  Who do you think will make it to the Frozen Four?

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

[table id=130 /]

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

— Tom