College Hockey Update:  Last weekend featured two top twelve matchups: First, Harvard beat Boston College, edging BC down to #4, and lifting Harvard a couple of spots to #9; and second, UMass-Lowell split with Notre Dame, which kept Lowell at #6, and dropped Notre Dame down three slots to #12.

Meanwhile, Minnesota-Duluth edged up to #1 on its sweep of Nebraska-Omaha, Denver edged down to #2 after it settled on two ties with Miami of Ohio, and Quinnipiac edged up to #3 on its wins over Cornell and Colgate.  North Dakota jumped up three pegs to #5 on its two convincing wins over St. Cloud State, Boston University dropped two spots to #7 after splitting with Connecticut, and Penn State moved up two pegs to #8 after sweeping Arizona State.  Bemidji State jumped up three rungs to #10 after sweeping Northern Michigan, and Minnesota dropped four notches to #11 after splitting with Mankato State.  I think congratulations are in order to the strong starts by two teams.  First, Penn State has not been a DI school for very long at all, and going into Thanksgiving they are 11-1-1 and are ranked #8.  Second, we’ve seen Bemidji State make it to the NCAA Tournament as the champion of their conference, and do well in the tournament, but can’t say I remember Bemidji being ranked in the top 10; they are 11-2-1.  Two very hot starts by these teams.

Last week Quinnipiac had huge help from its senior forward Tim Clifton, of Matawan, NJ, who scored a goal in his team’s 3-1 win over Cornell Friday night, and scored two goals in his team’s win over Colgate Saturday night.  The 6′ 1″ 195lb senior leads his team in goals scored with nine, and is tied for seventh in assists, with five.  Quinnipiac is 9-3-1, ranked #3, and plays #19 St. Lawrence Friday night in the opening round of the Friendship Four in Belfast, Northern Ireland, and will face either Vermont or Umass-Amherst on Saturday.

In Friday night’s game at Cornell, Clifton started the scoring eleven minutes into the first period, but Cornell responded two minutes later and the first ended 1-1.  Quinnipiac’s Craig Martin scored on a power play goal three minutes into the second, and they took a 2-1 lead into the third.  In the third, Bo Pieper scored with three minutes left to give Quinnipiac the 3-1 win.

Saturday night’s game at Colgate started with Clifton scoring four minutes into the first, and then again two minutes later.  A Colgate goal with a minute left made it 2-1 Quinnipiac going into the second.  K.J. Tiefenwerth scored on a power play seven minutes into the second to give Quinnipiac a 3-1 lead, and Tommy Schutt added a goal six minutes later, and it looked like Quinnipiac was off to the races.  But Colgate didn’t give up and scored on a power play with five minutes left in the third to make it 4-2 Quinnipiac going into the third.  Three minutes into the third a Cornell goal appeared top make it a game at 4-3, but then Quinnpiac seems to have put it into high gear,  as Tommy Schutt scored two minutes later, then Tim Clifton’s brother Connor Clifton scored just a minute later, and Bo Pieper scored on a power play with four minutes left in the game to give the win to Quinnipiac, 7-3.

This week/end presents two top twelve matchups:  Tonight #7 Boston University hosts #9 Harvard for one game (which starts in three hours from now); and Sunday #4 Boston College will host #11 Minnesota for one game.

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

[table id=136 /]

Hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving, and are able to get together with people who are important to you!

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

— Tom