College Hockey Update:  Last weekend UMass-Lowell created a top-ten matchup by hosting and beating Massachusetts Saturday night — Lowell jumped up five spots into the top ten at #10 (they also beat Boston College Friday night), and Massachusetts edged down to #3 on the results (they had beaten Boston University Friday night).  Elsewhere, St. Cloud State held at #1 after hosting, tying, and beating Colorado College, and Ohio State edged up to #2 after sweeping its weekend at Wisconsin.  Mankato State edged up to #5 after securing a tie and a win at Michigan Tech; Quinnipiac moved down two spots after they hosted and beat Yale, but then hosted and lost to Brown; and Cornell moved up two pegs to #8 after their weekend at home yielded wins over Clarkson (knocking Clarkson out of the top ten), and St. Lawrence.  An idle Minnesota-Duluth edged up to #4; idle Denver held at #7; and idle Western Michigan edged down to #9.

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Last weekend, UMass-Lowell had huge help from senior goalie Christoffer Hernberg, of Espoo, Finland, who stopped Massachusetts and their third-most productive offense (3.78 goals scored per game average) in the country, as well as all 31 of their shots on goal.  Hernberg has a 2.36 goals against average and save percentage of .914 so far this season, has started eleven games, and appeared in twelve.  Saturday night at Lowell it was the host River Hawks who came out on fire.  Chris Schultz put Lowell on the board only two minutes into the game for the 1-0 lead, and twelve minutes later it was Anthony Baxter who found the net for the River Hawks, skating four-on-four, for the 2-0 lead into the first break, second break, and winning score.  In the first, Lowell had a narrow shots advantage of 14-2, and they really picked up the pace in the second, with a 15-6 shots advantage.  Hernberg stopped all twelve first period UMass shots for Lowell, and stopped the six UMass shots for Lowee in the second.  After surrendering two in the first and stopping twelve in the first, Hernberg’s counterpart, Matt Murray, stood up to the charge for UMass and stopped all fiteen second period shots.  In the third, UMass heard the bell and came out swinging, posting a 13-5 shots advantage over UMass-Lowell, but Hernberg stood in there and stopped all of them for a total of 31 shots blocked on the night, the opportunistic 2-0 win; Murray stopped 32 out of 34 shots on the night. This was the eighth career shutout for Hernberg.  Get a load of this — Hernberg is Lowell’s second goalie this season.  Friday night in Lowell it was Tyler Wall who stopped all 28 Boston College shots on goal that led to a 3-0 win for the River Hawks.  Wall, of Leamington, Ont., is a junior who has started sixteen games this season and he sports a 1.77 goals against average, and a .933 saves %.

As a junior, the 6’0″ 190lb Hernberg had a 2.08 GAA and .921 saves %; as a sophomore he had a 4.35 GAA and a .875 saves percentage; and as a freshman he played in only four games, compiling a 1.21 GAA and a .941 saves %.  His hometown of Espoo is home to 282,000; it is the second largest city in Finland.  It was originally chartered as a town in 1458, and incorporated as a city in 1972.

A quick look at UMass-Lowell.  You might well be aware of, and familiar with, UMass-Amherst — UMass, which gave the sports world basketball sensation Dr. J. Julius Erving, who brought the horizontal game into basketball’s vertical game, creating a sphere of play above the rim.  Well, this isn’t that UMass.  UMass-Lowell was founded thirty-one years after UMass-Amherst, in 1894.  It has 18,000 students and is located in Lowell, a town at the confluence of the Merrimack and Concord Rivers.  The UMass-Lowell campus is in three “chunks” and it straddles the Merrimack river.  It sits five miles under the New Hampshire border, fourteen miles west of Merrimack College, a Hockey East foe, and about thirty miles north of all the schools it plays in Boston.  Lowell is a town of 109,000 people that was designed in the early 1800’s as a purely industrial town, taking advantage of the power of the rivers, and constructing many canals for many factories.  The canals are still there today.  During the 1850s, Lowell was the largest industrial center in the U.S.  UMass-Lowell, 17-8-2, on a ten-game unbeaten streak, and ranked #10, plays a home-and-home series with #13 Providence this weekend, at Lowell tonight, and at Providence tomorrow night.

This weekend features one top ten matchup with #4 Minnesota-Duluth hosting #7 Denver for two games, tonight and tomorrow night; faceoff is at 5pm Pacific Time for both games.

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

[table id=190 /]

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

— Tom