College Hockey Update:  Last weekend provided a great top fifteen matchup as UMass-Lowell and Notre Dame met for a couple, and was Mass-Lowell ever ready for this one — they swept Notre Dame, allowing only one goal in the two games.  Lowell jumped up five spots to #8, and Notre Dame was knocked down five spots to #11 in this week’s poll.  Elsewhere, Minnesota split with Minnesota-Duluth, with each team taking a decisive win (the split gave Minnesota its second loss of the season), and St. Cloud State took a tie and a win from Colorado College.  As you will read, St. Cloud State is now the only remaining team with only a single loss.  So what happened in the poll, you might ask?  Well, it almost, almost changed.  St. Cloud State received the most first-place votes, twenty-seven, compared to Minnesota’s twenty-two, but Minnesota managed to get one more total vote point than St. Cloud did in the poll, so Minnesota retained the #1 ranking, and St. Cloud held at #2.  One could speculate that Minnesota supporters wanted Minnesota to stay ranked #1 so badly that they not only voted for Minnesota, but then purposely did not vote for St. Cloud State as #2, to stifle St. Cloud from rising to the #1 spot, while the St. Cloud supporters voted more honestly, and cast their second place vote for Minnesota.  Hey, I’m just saying . . . .

Now almost every team took a loss last weekend, so I supposed that Michigan’s rise to #3 is somewhat explainable by their single game win over Niagara.  But then it could also be that the Minnesota voters went for Michigan as the option to St. Cloud State, to keep St. Cloud State at #2.  Hey, I’m just saying . . . .   Providence split with New Hampshire, and dropped to #4, and Quinnipiac split with Princeton, dropping to #5.  And put on your seat belts, they seem to be back — Ferris State swept Alaska-Fairbanks and jumped up four spots to #6; and I am sure you are all wondering now about that old rumor, did Ferris State give the world the Ferris Wheel?  We’ll get into that, below.

Boston College had a split weekend, beating Harvard, but losing to Maine, and BC held at #7.  Yale did the same, beating Colgate, but losing to Cornell.  Yale held at #9, and Cornell jumped up four spots to #14, as they had beaten Brown the night before.  Miami of Ohio did much the same as Notre Dame, and now finds itself looking a long way up the top fifteen after dropping two games to Nebraska-Omaha — Miami dropped five spots to #13.  And in the “it pays not to play” category, three teams did reasonably well in the poll after idle weekends — Clarkson moved up to #10, Wisconsin held at #12, and Union College moved up to #15.

Wow!  Ferris State is now ranked #6.  We all remember the great run they had in 2012, making it to the NCAA Championship game, and playing a great contest.  They now have the longest unbeaten streak in the country, at nine games.  So, let’s take a minute or two and get reacquainted with Ferris State.  I am sure the image of Ferris Bueller and friends buzzing around Chicago in a 1961 Ferrari GT California comes to mind, but no, Ferris State was not named for the movie character.  And what about the rumor that Ferris State gave us the Ferris Wheel, or that it’s founder did so?  The inquiring College Hockey Update reader wants to know.  Well, it’s strike two.  Ferris State was named for its founder, Woodbridge Ferris, a two-term Michigan governor, and a US Senator.  RPI gave us the Ferris Wheel, sort of.  The Ferris Wheel was invented by George Washington Ferris and introduced to the world at the Chicago World Exposition.  GW Ferris was RPI class of ’81.  That would be 1881, and that was the 1893 Chicago World Expo.  Back to Ferris State; what a run they are having early in this season.  They are coached by Bob Daniels, and have been since 1992.  In his first twenty-two seasons he has eight winning seasons, one at .500, and twelve losing seasons.  But in the last four seasons, they’ve had three winning seasons, and one at .500, and remember how well they did in 2012.  Their roster has a number of seasoned upper classmen, as they have five seniors, seven juniors, eight sophomores, and seven freshmen; 100% of the players came from junior league teams — not one straight from high school.  Ferris State was founded in 1884 and has 15,000 students.  These students far outnumber the population of Ferris State’s town of Big Rapids, which has only 10,000 people.  And there really is not much else around Big Rapids.  But about an hour away is a good sized town of 190,000 people, Grand Rapids, MI.

Tonight, in about an hour, there is a great matchup as #4 Providence travels down the road to #5 Quinnipiac.  This weekend there are about the same number of teams playing as last weekend, and among the top fifteen, there is a great matchup as #1 by a hair Minnesota hosts #12 Wisconsin for two games.  Who wouldn’t love to be at any of these three games tonight and this weekend?

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

[table id=72 /]

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

— Tom