College Hockey Update:  Last weeks’ tournaments featured four top twenty matchups, and Notre Dame moved up two spots to #3 after beating Penn State in a Big Ten semifinal, edging Penn State down to #13;  while Ohio State edged up to #5 after beating Michigan in the other Big Ten semifinal, as the Wolverines held at #11.  North Dakota moved up two pegs to #12 after sweeping Nebraska-Omaha in the NCHC Tournament, knocking UNO down four notches to #17;  and Northern Michigan moved up three slots to #16 after taking three games to beat Bowling Green in a WCHA semifinal series, knocking the Falcons down four spots to #19.

Elsewhere, St. Cloud State held at #1 after taking three games to beat Miami of Ohio in the NCHC Tournament; and Cornell held at #2 after sweeping Quinnipiac in the ECAC Tournament.  Denver held at #4 after taking three games to beat Colorado College in the NCHC Tournament; Mankato State dropped three pegs to #6 after losing two of three to Michigan Tech in a WCHA semifinal series; and Northeastern held at #7 after sweeping UMass-Amherst in the Hockey East Tournament.

Minnesota-Duluth held at #8 after sweeping Western Michigan in the NCHC Tournament; Providence held at #9 after sweeping Maine in the Hockey East Tournament; and Clarkson held at #10 after taking three games to beat Colgate in the ECAC Tournament.  Boston College shot up four slots to #14 after sweeping Merrimack in the Hockey East Tournament; Boston University moved up two spots to #18 after sweeping Connecticut in the Hockey East Tournament; and Union College dropped four notches to #20 after getting swept by Princeton in the ECAC Tournament.  An idle Minnesota held at #15.

Last Saturday night Boston College had huge help from freshman forward Christopher Grando, of Islip, NY.  After Friday night’s 1-0 win by Boston College, Saturday’s game started out much the same, with the two teams skating scoreless in a first period in which Merrimack had nine shots on goal, and BC only five.  The largely defensive and scoreless play continued on for more than half of the second period — between Friday night’s game and this game, the two teams played 92 minutes with only a single goal scored.  But things changed considerably two seconds later, when Mike Booth netted one for BC, and then only three minutes later, when JD Dudek added one (assist by Christopher Grando) to give BC the 2-0 lead.  But Merrimack struck back only nineteen seconds later to make it 2-1, and then with only seven seconds left in the second, Merrimack scored on a power play to send the teams into the break knotted at two apiece; Merrimack had continued to drive the tempo of the game in the second, out-shooting BC 13-8 in the frame.

In the third BC was able to slow Merrimack down a bit, and the teams were nearly even in shots as Merrimack had nine and BC had seven.  Julius Mattila scored to give BC the 3-2 lead, four minutes into the third.  Eleven more minutes of scoreless hockey were played and some were probably beginning to count this as another BC win, when Merrimack scored again with five minutes left to tie it up at three apiece.  From there the two fought it out, scoreless to the final buzzer, sending the game into overtime.  The game was remarkably short on penalties, with only two in regulation, both against BC, and Merrimack had converted on one of the penalty opportunities.  In OT BC earned their third trip to the penalty box at the three minute point, and now folks from Merrimack were probably starting to think this was their big chance.  But a minute into the penalty, BC got the puck away and out to Christopher Grando, who scored the winning short-handed goal, making the final 4-3, BC.  The assist on the game winning goal was by Connor Moore, who scored the only goal of the game in BC’s 1-0 win Friday night.

At 5’10” 165lb, Grando is tied for seventh on his team in goals scored, with six, and is tied for ninth in assists, with ten.  Before coming to BC, he played played for the North Jersey Avalanche U18 team in 2014-15, and scored six goals and added 19 assists in 18 games.  He then played for the Green Bay Gamblers of the USHL in 2015-16, and scored 13 goals and and added eight assists in 55 games; he scored  nine goals and added 17 assists in 60 games for the Gamblers in 2016-17.  His hometown of Islip, NY, was first settle in 1664, and sits right on the Atlantic on Long Island, about a one-hour, fifty mile drive from Manhattan; it is home to 335,000 residents.

Boston College was founded in 1863 and is a Catholic, Jesuit College, and it is located in Newton, MA., in the very affluent Chestnut Hill neighborhood.  It enrolls 9,400 undergraduates and 4,600 graduate students.  Its athletic teams are the eagles and wear maroon and gold, which often looks like brown and beige, with the colors they pick out for some of he uniforms, especially hockey.  BC started hockey in 1917, and had a handful of coaches who averaged about .500 seasons for the first twelve seasons, until 1929, and the teams averaged about ten games per season.  BC resumed hockey in 1932, and since then they’ve had only six coaches, with three of them coaching a total of only six seasons; three coaches have coached the balance of that time — 78 seasons.  John Kelley coached 35 seasons, from 1932-42, and from 1946-72; Len Ceglarski (who just passed away on Dec. 16, 2017, at the age of 91) coached from 1972-92; and current coach Jerry York has coached since 1994.  BC won the NCAA Championship in 1949, and has been a very successful program since then, with eight NCAA Tournament appearances from 1948-68 under John Kelley; nine from 1972-91 under Len Ceglarski; and seventeen between 1998 and 2016 under Jerry York, including four NCAA Titles (2001, ’08, ’10, and ’12) an additional four times as the runner-up in the championship game, and an additional four times in the Frozen Four (that makes a total of 12 Frozen Four appearances in 17 trips to the NCAA Tournament).

Current Coach Jerry York coached Clarkson for seven seasons from 1972-79, then coached Bowling Green for fifteen seasons from 1980-94, before returning home to BC, where he played hockey and was a prolific scorer for his team (he is a Boston area native).  In his fifteen seasons at Bowling Green his teams made six NCAA Tournament appearances, including one NCAA Championship in 1984.  Add to that his teams’ four NCAA Championships at BC and he has coached a total of five, which ties him for second most ever, with the most ever being six.  York has currently coached a total of 1,053 wins in college hockey, by far the most ever; his coaching record at Clarkson was 125-87-3; at Bowling Green it was 342-248-31; and at Boston College it is 588-292-83, making his current career coaching record a staggering 1,053-627-117.  It would be hard not to call the stretch from 1998-2012, and possibly even until 2016 (with two more Frozen Fours thrown in there), the era of BC in college hockey.  And who says it’s over?  Boston College is currently 20-13-3, is ranked #14, and plays against #18 Boston University in the early game Friday night in the Hockey East semifinals at the Boston Garden.

This weekend presents the final weekend of conference tournaments, after which the NCAA field of sixteen teams will be determined, and then the NCAA Tournament will get underway.  This provides the slate of games for this weekend; all games are single-game eliminations.  Four of the six conferences will have semi-final games on Friday, with the two winners facing each other for the conference championship on Saturday.  Two conferences, the Big Ten and the WCHA, already have determined the finalists for their conference championship game, which will be played on Saturday night.

Atlantic Hockey — Friday Semifinals

• Robert Morris University vs. #21 Mercyhurst University
• United States Air Force Academy vs. Canisius College

Big Ten — Saturday Championship

• #5 Ohio State University vs. #3 Notre Dame

ECAC — Friday Semifinals

•  Princeton University vs. #2 Cornell University
• #10 Clarkson University vs. Harvard University

Hockey East — Friday Semifinals

• #18 Boston University vs. #14 Boston College
• #9 Providence College vs. #7 Northeastern University

NCHC — Friday Semifinals

• #12 University of North Dakota vs. #1 St. Cloud State University
• #8 University of Minnesota at Duluth vs. #4 University of Denver

WCHA — Saturday Championship

• #23 Michigan Technological University vs. #16 Northern Michigan University

THE NCAA TOURNAMENT POOL

Here’s what will happen next for us readers:  I’ll send the NCAA tournament bracket Monday night, March 19th via email.  When you receive it, please make your picks and email to me right away, following the directions on how to send me your picks (in a single typewritten line), by the deadline, Thursday, March 22nd.  It’s right around the corner, the NCAA Tournament and the Frozen Four!  Who do you think will make it to the Frozen Four?

NOTE:  You should be receiving two notices when there is a new posting:  1) One via an email directly from me, during the day when the posting is made; and 2) One via an email from the system hosting the website, at night, after I have sent out my email.  If you are only receiving the night time email from the system hosting the site each time there is a new posting, you will not receive a bracket from me, since brackets are sent via my personal email, so you should send an email to me right now advising me of this, and I’ll add you to one of three email lists to which I send notices.   Send an email to my personal email address:  [email protected]

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

[table id=172 /]

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

 — Tom