College Hockey Update: Last weekend featured one top ten vs. top fifteen matchup, and Boston College jumped up five spots to #5 after sweeping an unusual home-and-home series with Notre Dame, which is located an 885 mile drive away — Notre Dame dropped five pegs down to #15 on the results of the weekend.  Elsewhere, Mankato State University held at #1 after hosting and sweeping Lake Superior State University; University of North Dakota edged up to #2 after sweeping their weekend at Western Michigan; and Cornell edged down to #3 after winning at Harvard, then losing at Dartmouth.

Clarkson edged up to #4 after hosting and beating St. Lawrence; Ohio State edged up to #6 after hosting, beating, and tying Minnesota; and Pennsylvania State edged down to #7 after splitting its weekend at Michigan.  Denver dropped down four notches to #8 after taking a loss and settling on a tie at Arizona State; Massachusetts moved up two slots and back into the top ten at #9 after hosting and sweeping Maine; and Bowling Green entered the top ten at #10 after hosting, beating, and tying Alabama-Huntsville.

COLLEGE HOCKEY UPDATE FEATURED PLAYER

Last weekend, Boston College had huge help from senior forward David Cotton, of Parker Texas, who scored a goal in his team’s 4-0 home win Friday night, and scored a goal and added two assists in his team’s 6-1 road win Sunday night, both against Notre Dame.  The 6’4″ 197lb senior is first on his team in goals scored, with eight, and is second on the team in assists, with fourteen.  As a junior he was first on the team in goals, with twenty-three, and he also added thirteen assists; as a sophomore he tallied nine goals and nineteen assists; his freshman year he scored ten goals and added fourteen assists.  He was selected by the Carolina Hurricanes in the sixth round of the 2015 NHL entry draft, with the 169th overall pick. His hometown of Parker, TX., was first settled in the early 1840s, and was incorporated in 1969.  It is home to 3,800 residents among its eight square miles, and it sits twenty-six miles northeast of downtown Dallas.

Saturday night in South Bend, Jack McBain put Boston College up 1-0 over Notre Dame just one minute into the first, and only two minutes later, Logan Hutsko extended the lead to 2-0 (assist by David Cotton).  And for a little extra fun, David Cotton scored with only two minutes left in the period to give BC the 3-0 lead going into the first break.  In the second Jack McBain was back for more fun, scoring a power play goal two minutes into the frame for the 4-0 lead.   Notre Dame scored with two minutes left in the period to make it 4-1 at the second break. Marshall Warren scored for BC midway through the third to make it 5-1, and Aapeli Räsänen scored just a minute later (assist by David Cotton) to make the final score 6-1.  Friday night was just as rough for Notre Dame, as three second period BC goals by Julius Mattila (assist by David Cotton), Logan Hutsko, and Patrick Giles, were followed by a David Cotton goal midway through the third, to give BC the shutout 4-0 win.  BC outscored Notre Dame 10 goals to 1 in the two games, and the weekend really punctuated the drastic change in direction for the two teams.  In their first six games, BC went 2-4-0, and in their last nine they’ve gone 9-0-0.  Notre Dame on the other hand, started 7-0-1 in their first eight games, and in their last eight games they’ve gone 1-6-1.

Boston College, founded in 1863, is a Catholic, Jesuit College, and 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 the 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; 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 — 80 seasons.  John Kelley coached 35 seasons, from 1932-42, and from 1946-72; Len Ceglarski (who passed away two years ago in  December of, 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 under Jerry York).

This weekend features only 23 games, and only one top ten vs. top fifteen matchup, as #7 Pennsylvania State travels to play two games at #15 Notre Dame Friday and Saturday nights. The following week two teams will get together and play the only two games scheduled for the week.  Things will get rolling again starting on Friday, December 27th.

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

[table id=205 /]

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

— Tom