What a wild weekend last weekend was!  Lots of teams in the 5-15 rankings slots moved all over the place in the polls.  The biggest news?  Hard to say, but let’s just start off with the St. Lawrence Saints who beat  the #2 ranked team for the second time this year.  The first time it was New Hampshire, and last weekend it was confernece rival Yale, stinging the New Haven Bulldogs with a 3-2 loss and dropping them from the #2 ranking down to #3.  Also, what’s hotter than Merrimack this year?  They just completed a sweep of New Hampshire last weekend, dropping UNH from #6 to #8, and Merrimack has jumped from #11 up to #6 in the rankings.  Merrimack has won the three game series this year against Hockey East rivals UNH, BC, and BU.  Another big one was Nebraska-Omaha sweeping Wisconsin, dropping the Badgers down from #7 to #12, and lifting UNO from #16 to #13.

In the Steady-Eddie category, Boston College remains #1 after beating Providence, and then on Monday night BC beat Northeastern in a close 7-6 contest, to win the Beanpot Tournament — BC will face Northeastern again this weekend.  North Dakota pasted Alaska-Anchorage with a convincing sweep, scoring nine goals in two nights, lifting North Dakota from #5 to #2.  Denver split with Minnesota; Denver held at #4.  Minnesota-Duluth took a loss and salvaged a tie with St. Cloud State.  Our crack contributing field reporter, John McLean, in Minnesota, attended the Saturday night game, and provides this report.

                 John McLean’s Summary:

       UMD Officials Combine to Salvage one point for #3 Bulldogs

After receiving  an 8-2 thrashing at the hands of THE St Cloud State University Huskies on Friday, UMD played very loose defense falling behind 3-0 to the Huskies on Saturday before the referees decided the home team could use a little help.  After receiving two marginal calls 30 seconds apart, UMD pulled to within 2 with a 5X3 power play goal by Justine Fontaine at 1:58 of the second period.

The game was played at the beautiful new Amsoil rink in Duluth in temperature 50 degrees warmer than last Saturday’s (30 vs -20) in front a sellout crowd of 6,764.  After UMD pulled to within one at 14:25 of the 2nd, SCSU had a goal disallowed after an officials’ conference determined the puck had not completely crossed the line.

Jake Hendrickson of Burnsville, Minnesota scored his first goal of the season tying the score for the Bulldogs at 8:04 of the 3rd.  Former Minnesota Viking great Ted Brown’s son had a strong night for the Bulldogs, igniting scoring chances in all 3 periods.

Both Mike Lee of St Cloud and Kenny Reiter of UMD were strong down the stretch including St Cloud killing off a penalty in the last two minutes of the game and UMD doing the same in overtime.  Husky coach Bob Motzko was on the ice ‘discussing’ the 7 Husky penalty’s with the referees long after the teams had shaken hands and left the ice.

One thing St Cloud did manage to do which few teams have this year was hold the line of Mike Connolly, Jack Connolly and Justin Fontaine, one of the top scoring lines in the country, to just one goal in each game with both coming while the Huskies were short handed.  Former St Cloud State All American and current announcer Dave Reichel said afterwards “It would have been nice to get the 4 points we earned but 3 points on the road against the #3 rated team in the country is nothing to bark at.”  St Cloud’s 3 points on the weekend moved them to within 3 points of coveted 6th place and home ice for the playoffs.

       Thanks, John, for this analytical report.

Elsewhere, Union College tallied two wins on the weekend to rise from #9 to #7, Notre Dame swept Bowling Green to rise from #10  to #9, and Miami-Ohio took home a win and a tie against Western Michigan, lifting Miami from #12 to #10, and dropping Western Michigan from #15 to #17. 

Michigan swept Ohio State and moved up from #13 to #11, while RPI took it on the chin, losing to both Colgate and Cornell, and dropping RPI from #8 all the way down to #14.  Boston University beat UMass-Amherst and dropped in the rankings from #14 to #15, and that’s not the worst of it — Monday night BU lost to Harvard and took last place in the Beanpot for the first time in 31 years.  BU coach Jack Parker called it the most embarassing display of BU hockey in decades.  The poll that placed BU at #15 was taken prior to this loss to Harvard…… 

Dartmouth notched two wins and rose from #17 to #16, Colorado college split their weekend and rose from #19 to #18, Maine split its weekend and continued its drop, now down from #18 to #19, and Ferris State, swept Alabama Huntsville to join the top twenty at #20

This weekend, which starts in about an hour, there are two top twenty matchups.  #9 Notre Dame travels to #20 Ferris State to play two, and #11 Michigan will host two games against #17 Western Michigan.

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

[table id=18 /]

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