College Hockey Update:  Last weekend featured one top ten vs. top fifteen matchup, and Pennsylvania State edged down to #8 after splitting its weekend at Notre Dame.  Elsewhere, from a rather thinly played weekend, Mankato State edged down to #2 after splitting its weekend at Northern Michigan; and Clarkson held at #4 after settling on a tie, then getting a win from their weekend at Michigan Tech.  Denver moved up two spots to #6 after earning a win at home against Colorado College, but then losing the next night at CC; and Massachusetts held at #9 after its win at Brown.  An idle North Dakota edged up to #1; idle Cornell held at #3; idle Boston College held at #5; idle Ohio State held at #6; and idle Minnesota-Duluth edged up and re-entered the top ten at #10.

COLLEGE HOCKEY UPDATE FEATURED PLAYER

This season Ohio State has had huge help from sophomore forward Gustaf Westlund, of Stockholm, Sweden, who is first on his team in goals scored, with nine, and is tied for second in assists, with six.  As a freshman, he scored five goals and added fourteen assists, was named rookie of the year on his team, and was named to the Big Ten All-Freshman Team. Westlund’s hometown of Stockholm is home to 975,000 residents spread among its seventy-three square miles on fourteen islands.  The population of the metropolitan area is 2.4 million.  Stockholm was inhabited as early as 8,000 B.C., but abandoned as temperatures dropped.  Old Town Stockholm was settled and built in about the year 1000 by Vikings.  At this time of year Stockholm has about six hours of daylight, and in June it is more like eighteen hours.

Of the forty-four goals scored by Ohio State so far this season, twenty-seven (61%) have been scored by five players:  Nine by Westlund; five each by two players:  senior Tanner Laczynski, of Sherwood, IL., senior Carson Meyer, of Powell, OH.;  and four each by two players:  senior Ronnie Hein, of Chelsea, MI.; and sohomore Quinn Preston, of Trenton, MI.  These five also account for thirty-one of the seventy two assists (43%) made by the team.

Founded in 1870, Ohio State is located in Columbus, Ohio, and enrolls 47,000 undergraduates, and has another 15,000 graduate students on its 1,800 acre campus.  Its teams are called the Buckeyes, and they wear red (scarlet) and gray.  Ohio State started hockey in 1963, and they were a founding member of the CCHA in 1971.  Ohio State has made nine NCAA Tournament appearances, all since 1998, and has appeared in all of the last three tournaments. Ohio State has also appeared in the Frozen Four twice, in 1998 and 2018.  They are coached by Steve Rohlik, who played college hockey at Wisconsin from 1986-1990, and coached at Wisconsin as an assistant in the 1990-91 season; at Nebraska-Omaha as an assistant from 1997-2000; at Minnesota-Duluth from 2000-2010; and at Ohio State from 2010-2013, before getting his first job as head coach in 2013 at Ohio State.  Currently in his seventh season, his record to date is 123-88-30, and his teams have made three trips to the NCAA Tournament in each of the last three years, including an appearance in the Frozen Four in 2018.  Ohio State, 10-4-2, and ranked #6, resumes play when it travels to play two games at Colgate on December 27 and 28.

This weekend features exactly two games, as #16 Arizona State travels to play two games at Nebraska-Omaha on Saturday and Sunday.  There will probably be no poll next week, and probably no new posting for College Hockey Update.

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

[table id=206 /]

I hope you all have  a very Merry Christmas, and a Happy and Great New Year.

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

— Tom