The top story this week would have to be the sweep by #2 Boston College of last week’s #7 New Hampshire; it was a real show of strength by BC to end the regular season, shutting out UNH 4-0 in the first game, and winning the Hockey East regular season crown along the way.  BC held on to the #2 ranking, and New Hampshire tumbled down to #10.  Another great story would be the trouble dealt to #6 Denver by #21 St. Cloud State; St. Cloud prevailed in the first of two close games, splitting the weekend with Denver, and dropping them from #5 to #6.  Another highly spirited weekend saw #11 Minnesota-Duluth and #12 Nebraska-Omaha split a two game series, with each team taking a big swipe at the other with a lopsided win; and yet another highly spirited weekend was Colorado College splitting a  series with Wisconsin; the split moved CC up from #17 to #16, and dropped Wisconsin down from #18 to #19.  Lastly, RPI has had its struggles of late, and anything can happen in a tournament, but who would have guessed that they would have dropped two of three to Colgate in the ECAC tournament, and dropped from #16 in the rankings down to #20?

A lot of  top twenty teams were  idle  last weekend as the top teams in the CCHA and the ECAC had tournament byes.  #1 North Dakota viciously swept Michgan Tech, and remained at #1; and Merrimack  remained at #9 as they settled on a split with Providence.   Boston University held at #13 on split with Northeastern, and Maine held at #14 after a win  and a tie with UMass-Amherst.  Minnesota tied and beat Bemidji State, and is now ranked #17. 

So now we are full tilt into the conference playoffs.  All games this weekend are best two-out-of-three series.  In the CCHA, #5 Michigan plays Bowling Green; #7 Miami-Ohio plays Alaska Faribanks; #8 Notre Dame plays Lake Superior State; and #15 Western Michigan plays Ferris State.  In the ECAC, #3 Yale plays St. Lawrence; #4 Union plays Colgate; and #18 Dartmouth plays Harvard.

In Hockey East, #2 Boston Collge plays UMass-Amherst; #9 Merrimack plays #14 Maine (should be a barn-burner); #10 New  Hampshire plays Vermont; and #13 Boston University gets a rematch of last weekend’s opponent, Northeastern — should be a tough test on the Terriers as Northeastern most recently split weekends with both BC and BU.  In the WCHA, #1 North Dakota faces Michigan Tech; #6 Denver takes on Mankato; #11 Minnesota-Duluth plays a St. Cloud State team that has been giving highly ranked squads everything they can handle; #12 Nebraska-Omaha plays Bemidji State; #16 Colorado College gets a rematch of last weekend’s opponent, #19 Wisconsin; and #17 Minnesota plays Alasksa-Anchorage.

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

[table id=21 /]

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