College Hockey Update:  Last weekend presented four top-fifteen matchups, and Minnesota-Duluth moved up two spots to #1 after they swept their weekend at Notre Dame, knocking Notre Dame down four slots to #5.  St. Cloud State held at #2 after losing at Northeastern Saturday night, lifting Northeastern five pegs to #13 (St. Cloud State had won at Boston College Thursday night, and Northeastern had won at UMass-Lowell Friday night as well).  Ohio State dropped three notches to #7 after they hosted and were burned to the ground by Bowling Green Friday night, and then tied at Bowling Green Saturday night, which lifted Bowling Green six spots to #9; and Minnesota dropped five pegs to #10 after they lost to North Dakota in a game in Las Vegas, which lifted North Dakota three notches to #14.

Elsewhere, Providence moved up four slots to #3 after they won at Boston University; Mankato State jumped up three spots to #4 after they hosted and swept Alaska-Anchorage; and Pennsylvania State jumped up four pegs to #6 after hosting and beating Princeton.  UMass-Amherst jumped up five notches to #11 after sweeping Merrimack in a home-and-home series; Michigan held at #12 after hosting and sweeping St. Lawrence; and Quinnipiac jumped up five slots to #15 after sweeping a home-and-home series with American International.  An idle Denver held at #9.

Last Friday night Minnesota-Duluth had huge help from their sophomore forward Nick Swaney, of Lakeville, MN., who scored a goal and added an assist in his team’s 3-2 win at Notre Dame Friday night, en route to their weekend sweep.  The 5’11” 180lb. sophomore is tied for tenth on his team in goals scored, with one, and is tied for third in assists, with four; his freshman year he tied for tenth in goals, with six, and he tied for fourth in assists, with sixteen.  Prior to UMD he played two seasons with the Waterloo Black Hawks of the USHL, scoring 26 goals and adding 25 assists in 2016-17, and scoring 30 goals and adding 20 assists in 2015-16.  Lakeville, MN., is home to 62,000 residents including the Poehling twins, Jack and Nick, and their younger brother, Ryan, all three of whom are forwards currently playing at St. Cloud State.

Lakeville is twenty miles south of downtown Minneapolis, and sits interestingly in three different school districts: The Lakeville District; The Farmington District; and the The Rosemount-Apple Valley-Egan District.  It is because of the connection with the Egan District that Lakeville has such an amazing pipeline to its top-flight cake bakeries, including Perkins, and the custom cake bakeries inside the Lunds & Byerlys, Hy-Vee, and Cub Stores.  In fact this connection is so strong that the city has passed legislation to re-name itself “Cakeville,” instead of “Lakeville,” and the name change is awaiting the Minnesota-required state legislation that would approve it.  This landmark change was supported in the Minnesota legislature through a letter from none other than U.S. Representative Keith Ellison, who wrote, “Those who eateth the cake should be referred to thusly.”  All of Minnesota is on pins and needles awaiting the vote on this critical pending legislation.

Friday night a standing-room-only crowd was treated to a rematch of last April’s NCAA Championship Game as Minnesots-Duluth visited Notre Dame, and they weren’t disappointed by the effort of the two teams.  After a non-scoring, no-penalty, evenly played (UMD had ten shots on goal to Notre Dame’s eight) first period, UMD shifted gears and asserted itself, as Parker McKay scored four minutes into second frame to make it UMD 1, Notre Dame 0.  But Notre Dame responded quickly, scoring on a power play goal two minutes later to tie it at one apiece, and was opportunistic seven minutes later, scoring to take the lead 2-1, which is how the second ended, despite UMD out-shooting Notre Dame 15-7 in the period.  In the third UMD continued in its higher gear, but Notre Dame again responded, holding ground for thirteen minutes, until Nick Swaney scored on a short-handed goal to tie it at two apiece.  And four minutes later Dylan Samberg scored the game winning goal for UMD, assisted by Nick Swaney, to make it 3-2, the final score.  UMD went on to beat Notre Dame Saturday night as well, by the score of 3-1.  Minnesota-Duluth is 6-1-1, is ranked #1, and will play next on Friday and Saturday, November 9th and 10th, when they host Colorado College for two games.

This weekend features two top-fifteen matchups, as #4 Mankato State will host the first game of a home-and-home series against #10 Minnesota — the Friday night game will be broadcast on FSN+; and #5 Notre Dame will host #7 Ohio State for two games — the Saturday night game will be broadcast on NBC Sports Channel at 4:35pm Pacific Time (that’s channel 81 on Comcast in the SF Bay Area).  Other televised games this weekend are:  Tonight, #13 Northeastern hosts hapless Boston University for a “Christians to the Lions” event on NESN (DirecTV 628, Dish 434) at 4:00pm Pacific Time, about three hours from the time of this posting; Friday and Saturday nights #9 Denver hosts Western Michigan on Altitude 2 (DirecTV 682, Dish 451) at 6pm Pacific Time both nights; and #14 North Dakota hosting #16 Wisconsin both games on Midco Sports Network for those in North Dakota with Friday’s game at 5:30pm Pacific Time and Saturday’s game at 5:00pm Pacific Time.

OK, it’s mea culpa time.  In a highly surprising development last week, the editorial staff of College Hockey Update did receive a written protest about a line in last week’s post contending that contributing field reporter John McLean would get his panties in a bunch if CHU failed to report on which St. Cloud haberdashery sold the St. Cloud State coach his suspenders.  The protest went on to detail that anyone who knows Mr. McLean would certainly know that he is not one to ever be known to have his panties in a bunch, and was further critical of this writing since it was not substantiated by including any photographic evidence of such panty-bunching.  As a result of this protest, we: 1) First apologize for the way this claim was handled and presented to readers last week, particularly those who believe Mr. McLean is not one to ever be known to have his panties in a bunch; and 2) We, herewith, provide this, seemingly requested, photographic evidence of Mr. McLean leaving last Saturday night’s St. Cloud State VIP alumni viewing party of the broadcast of the St. Cloud State at Northeastern University game, which St. Cloud State Alumni Relations hosted on campus at St. Cloud State University:

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

[table id=177 /]

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

— Tom