College Hockey Update:  Last weekend provided one matchup among the top fifteen teams as #8 Miami of Ohio and #12 Wisconsin met up and Wisconsin took the first game, shutting out Miami by a 2-0 margin.  Miami fought through a closer second game, and prevailed, 3-2, and the teams held their positions in the rankings.  Elsewhere,  #1 Minnesota held on to the top spot with a sweep of Mankato State, and St. Cloud State swept Alabama-Huntsville, blasting them apart in the first game, and rose up to #2, assisted in that effort by a loss that Michigan took, as they split with Nebraska-Omaha, dropping Michigan three rungs down to #5.  Providence continued with its winning ways, as they swept Vermont, moving Providence up to #3, assisted by Notre Dame’s tie with Merrimack, as they managed only one win on the weekend; Notre Dame dropped a couple of notches to #4.  Quinnipiac tallied a couple more wins against Harvard and Dartmouth, lifting them to the #4 ranking, while #7 Boston College held on to its ranking with a win and tie against UMass-Amherst.

Yale held at #9 on a win over Sacred Heart, and Ferris State leapt up to the top ten at #10 on a tie and win against Bowling Green, assisted by a two-loss weekend by RPI against Union College, dropping RPI down to #14, and a loss by Clarkson to Colgate (coupled with a win over Cornell) which held Clarkson at #11.  UMass-Lowell jumped up three spots to #13 on a sweep of Penn State, and North Dakota dropped down to #15 on a split with Minnesota-Duluth (UMD now has the honor of facing in-state rival #1 Minnesota this weekend).

Right now there are five teams with only one loss, and they are #1 Minnesota, #2 St. Cloud State, #3 Providence, #4 Quinnipiac, and #9 Yale.  The last time Quinnipiac lost?  It has been a while — since their first game of the year against Alaska-Anchorage on October 11th.  This is the team that put together a twenty-one game winning streak last year, held on to the #1 ranking for a large part of the season, and made it to the NCAA championship game.  A little refresher — they are in Hamden, Ct., right next door to New Haven, and are about seven miles from Yale.  Their coach, Rand Pecknold, is in his twentieth year coaching, all at Quinnipiac.  He started there in 1994 — heck, he had only graduated from college (Connecticut College) in 1990!  With a lifetime record of 378-239-67, he has had seventeen winning seasons, one season at .500, and two losing seasons (his first two).  Early indications are that teams should be extra sharply on their skating toes if their weekend is against Quinnipiac.

This weekend provides one top-fifteen matchup as #6 Notre Dame travels to play two at #13 UMass-Lowell.

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

[table id=71 /]

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

— Tom