College Hockey Update:  Last weekend featured a top-ten vs top twelve matchup and Boston College dropped down three spots to #7 after losing at UMass-Lowell Friday night (and after tying Boston University Monday night, Feb. 3, in the Beanpot opener) — UMass-Lowell jumped up three pegs to #11 after also beating Merrimack Saturday night.  Elsewhere, Cornell held at #2 after sweeping their home-and-home weekend with Colgate; Mankato held at #3 after hosting and sweeping Northern Michigan; and Minnesota-Duluth moved up two notches to #4 after hosting and sweeping Nebraska-Omaha.  Clarkson held at #5 after beating St. Lawrence, one game; Massachusetts held at #8 after sweeping their home-and-home series with Providence, knocking Providence out of the top ten and down four slots to #14; and Pennsylvania State held at #9  after a tie and a win at Ohio State.  Arizona State edged up into the top ten at #10 after wins at Holy Cross and Bentley; an idle North Dakota held at #1, and an idle Denver edged up to #6.

COLLEGE HOCKEY UPDATE FEATURED PLAYER

Last weekend Arizona State had huge help from senior forward Brett Gruber, of Appleton, WI., who  tallied an assist in his team’s win 3-2 at Holy Cross Friday night, and scored a goal and added an assist in his team’s 3-0 win at Bentley Saturday night. The 5’8″ 180lb forward is tied for fourteenth on his team in goals scored, with two, and is tied for ninth on the team in assists, with six.  As a junior he scored six goals and added fourteen assists; as a sophomore he scored five goals and added twenty assists; and as a freshman he scored five goals and added nine assists.  He was on the Notre Dame Academy team that won the Wisconsin state high school hockey championship in 2012.  His father, Chris, played college hockey at Yale from 1987-91.

Saturday night it was all Arizona State, as Filips Buncis scored eight minutes into the first to give ASU the 1-0 lead, and Brett Gruber scored with four minutes left in the second to extend the ASU lead to 2-0.  Bentley started out playing a good defensive game, limiting ASU to the one shot that scored in the first, out-shooting ASU 12-1 in the frame; the second was more even with ASU out-shooting Bentley 10-8.  The third was a bit more defensively-focused, with Bentley out-shooting ASU 8-6, and adding an extra attacker with about a minute left to play, but Brinson Pasichnuk found the empty net to give Arizona State the 3-0 win.  Friday night at Holy Cross wasn’t so easy, as Willie Knierim scored seven minutes into the game (assist by Brett Gruber), giving Arizona State a 1-0 lead in a period in which Holy Cross out-shot ASU 19-6.  In the second the play was more even, with Holy Cross out-shooting ASU 11-10, as Holy Cross tied it at one apiece eight minutes into the period, and then scored on a four-on-four three minutes later to take the lead 2-1, as it stood at the second break.  In the third ASU put the clampers on Holy Cross, out-shooting them 7-3, and it was PJ (Pietro) Marrocco who scored to tie it up at two apiece, just a minute into the period.  In OT Arizona State dominated the action, out-shooting Holy Cross 5-0, and Joshua Maniscalco scored with a minute left, giving ASU the 3-2 win.

Arizona State was founded in 1885 as a teacher’s college; it became Arizona State College in 1945, and Arizona State University in 1958.  Its main campus is spread out among 661 acres, and enrolls 52,000 students in Tempe, immediately adjacent to, and on the east side of, Phoenix — the population of Phoenix is 1.7 million in the city, and the metropolitan population is 4.9 million.  Phoenix is known to be very hot in the summer, with an average high temperature in July of 114 degrees, and record high of 122 degrees.  However, the temperature drops like a rock in the winter, making it a natural for college hockey, when the mercury dips down below 70 for an average high of only 66 in December.  And you will certainly see the down jackets come out on the ASU campus in December and January when the daily average temperature drops way down below sixty, to 55 and 56, respectively.  Brrrrr!  As of this writing, the people of the Phoenix area are having to deal with a temperature of 62 degrees.  Arizona State and its seventeen colleges offer 350 different undergraduate degrees, and 100 graduate degrees, and it has four different campuses.  The four campuses account for a total of 59,000 undergraduates, and 13,000 graduate students, for a total of 72,000 students on campuses.  Arizona State additionally has a huge online enrollment of 32,000, enrolling 24,000 undergraduates, and 8,000 graduate students.  This brings the total enrollment of ASU to 83,000 undergraduates and 21,000 graduate students, for a total of 104,000 enrolled students.  Its athletic teams are called the Sun Devils, and they wear Maroon and Gold.  They compete in the Pacific Twelve Conference, placing twenty teams in competition — nine men’s teams and eleven women’s teams.  Arizona State has won twenty-four NCAA Championships, including five in baseball, and eight in the important and now strongly emerging sport of women’s golf.  The ASU football team is coached by former NFL star Herman Edwards, and the basketball team is coached by former NBA star Bobby Hurley.  Some recognizable alumni include Reggie Jackson, Sal Bando, Dustin Pedroia, Barry Bonds, Byron Scott, James Hardin, Terrell Suggs, Danny White, Jake Plummer, Pat Tillman, Phil Mickelson, and Al Michaels.

Arizona State Hockey started as a club sport in 1973 and began as a Division I Independent in 2015; it is one of only two DI schools located south of the 38th parallel (the other being Alabama-Birmingham).  In 2019, only its fourth season, it made its first appearance in the NCAA Tournament.  Arizona State plays almost all of its home games at the opulent Oceanside Arena on North McClintock Drive, which opened in 1974.  It features a 200 x 90 ice sheet, and seats nearly 750.  That’s not a typo — it’s just three digits.  Oceanside gets its name from it’s location adjacent to the first-ever wave pool, called Big Surf Water Park, built in 1969.  ASU plays some of their home games in the Gila River Arena, in Glendale, AZ., which is the home of the NHL Arizona Coyotes.  The Sun Devils are coached by Greg Powers, who played on the club team at ASU from 1995-99 as their goalie.  He has been on the coaching staff for twelve years, and this marks his fifth season as head coach, having started in that role in the first year ASU became a DI team.  The team has shown great improvement in the last two seasons; his first four years of records have been (starting with 2016-17): 5-22-2; 10-19-3; 8-21-5; and 21-13-1.  Arizona State, 20-9-3, and ranked #10, hosts Alaska-Anchorage for two games this weekend.

In the Beanpot Monday night BC beat up on Harvard to the tune of 7-2, and I imagine we can all agree this requires no details.  In the late/championship game, Boston University scored two goals in the first eight minutes of the first for a 2-0 lead, and then Northeastern seemed to clamp down on them, and it was 2-0 at the first break.  In the second, Northeastern lit it up with four unanswered goals in the first eleven minutes.  BU seemed to get their skates under them, the scoring stopped, and it was 4-2, Northeastern, at the second break.  BU got on the board again two minutes into the third, making it 4-3, but Northeastern was having none of this “game is interesting” stuff, and sat on the action, keeping the remainder of the game scoreless — until there was one second left.  In the last twenty seconds BU had the puck around the Northeastern net and was constantly on the attack, and they scored with one second left to make it 4-4 and send it to OT, for the second week in a row at the Beanpot.  In OT BU outshot Northeastern 5-0, but it ended 4-4 for the NCAA-compliant OT final score.  Then on to the Beanpot OT of twenty minute periods.  Unlike the first five minute OT, this one was a back and forth battle, culminating in Patrick Harper being called for tripping a Northeastern player who slid and fell.  BU was then under attack and stood up to it for a minute until Northeastern netted one for the 5-4 win — and third consecutive Beanpot title.  A quick note for anyone interested in the subject of Boston University Hockey.  This BU team is a mess.  They have played 27 games and won a total of 10.  They can hang tough with BC and Northeastern when it’s a big game and they want to win — but they can’t beat them in regulation, or even in the NCAA OT.  They also lose to really weak teams, such as the recent loss to Merrimack (7-19-3) on Friday night to the tune of 5-1!!!  The BU team seems they might be an immature group of overly talented underachievers who can not consistently decide to play as a united and motivated team.  And it appears they are not being led to do better things, and that there are no consequences in line assignments when they don’t.  The roster consists of twelve NHL draftees, eight of whom were selected in the first three rounds.  With this much talent, the problem doesn’t seem to be in the roster, but in the lack of someone to make it happen.  Nearly through two full seasons of our new coach, it appears the jury is back, and all roads of explanation for this fiasco of a catastrophe of a joke of a train wreck go to one specific seat on the bench.  Last year’s team played 38 games and won only 16.  This year’s team seems destined to win less than that — and if they win 16, so what??  Two years of this coach, and a seemingly forgiving athletic director who played at a DIII school that never won anything, seem to have created an environment very different than the historical environment of winning and excellence.  Instead it appears that the goals and priorities are for participation trophies and endless conversations about what might have been.  It seems that until a couple of big changes are made there, you shouldn’t make any big bets on this team in any game.

This weekend features a great top-ten matchup as #1 North Dakota hosts #6 Denver for two games.  You can watch Friday night’s game live, broadcast on the CBS Sports Channel at 5:30pm Pacific Time.  It does seem perfect for Valentine’s Day, doesn’t it?

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

[table id=213]

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

— Tom