College Hockey Update:  In last week’s only top ten matchup, North Dakota scored early, took a 2-0 lead, and beat Union College 3-1, edging North Dakota up to #7; Union College held at #10.  Denver tied and lost to Providence College, edging Denver down to #3; Harvard beat RPI, and held at #4; and UMass-Lowell beat both Colgate and Dartmouth, winning Dartmouth’s Ledyard Bank Classic, and edging Lowell up to #6.  Boston College lost to Quinnipiac and tied Ferris State at the Three Rivers Classic in Pittsburgh, dropping BC a couple of spots to #8; and Minnesota beat both Mercyhurst and UMass-Amherst, winning their Marriucci Classic — the “Moochi” — and lifting Minnesota a couple of pegs and into the top ten at #9.  An idle Minnesota-Duluth held at #1; idle Penn State edged up to #2 on Denver’s loss/tie; and idle Boston University held at #5.  A number of teams had/have multiple players off of their rosters last week and until Saturday, playing at the World Juniors Championships, including Boston College; Boston University has seven players off of their roster until Saturday.

Last weekend Minnesota had big help from their sophomore forward Brent Gates, Jr., of Grand Rapids, MI, who scored three goals in their 5-1 win Friday night over Mercyhurst at the Moochi.  The 6’2″ 198lb forward is tied for second on the team in goals scored, with nine, and is tied for sixteenth in assists, with one.  As a freshman, Gates tied for twelfth on the team in goals, with three, and tied for fifteenth in assists, with four.  Minnesota is 11-5-2, ranked #9, and has two weeks off until they host Michigan for two games on Friday and Saturday, January 13th and 14th.

In Friday night’s game against Mercyhurst, Gates started the scoring eleven minutes into the first period, and then struck again only a minute later, to give Minnesota a 2-0 lead, both on power play opportunities.  A Mercyhurst goal three minutes later made it 2-1 which stood going into the break.  In the second, Leon Bristedt scored with only three minutes left in the period to make it 3-1, which stood going into the break.  Five minutes into the third Gates struck again to make it 4-1, and then Justin Kloos closed it out with a short-handed goal when he found an empty net with three minutes remaining, to make it 5-1.  Shots were pretty even in this game as Minnesota took 30 and Mercyhurst took 28.

In Saturday night’s game against UMass-Amherst, Tyler Sheehy scored a power play goal to put Minnesota up 1-0 only two minutes into the game.  In the second, Justin Kloos scored a shorthander to give Minnesota a 2-0 lead five minutes into the period.  A UMass goal eight minutes later tightened the score to 2-1, but Minnesota went up 3-1 just a minute later on a power play goal by Mike Szmatula.  With only a minute left in the game, Vinni Lettieri found an empty net to give Minnesota the win with the final score 4-1.  Shots were fairly even in this game as Minnesota took 39 and UMass-Amherst took 34.  Minnesota goalie Eric Schierhorn recorded sixty stops in the two nights, surrendering only two goals on the weekend.

This week features one top ten matchup when #5 Boston University hosts #10 Union College on Thursday night.

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

[table id=141 /]

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

— Tom