College Hockey Update:  Last week featured two top ten matchups — Massachusetts edged down to #2 after taking quite a beating at Quinnipiac Friday night, and then hosting and beating Quinnipiac Saturday night, which popped Quinnipiac up three spots to #5 (Massachusetts also beat Yale last night, Tuesday, Dec. 11th, after the poll came out); Notre Dame likewise edged down to #6 after they split their weekend at Pennsylvania State, beating their hosts Friday night, but Pennsylvania State administered quite the beating Saturday night, and they held onto the #9 spot.  Elsewhere, St. Cloud State edged up to #1 after hosting and sweeping Nebraska-Omaha; Mankato State held at #3 after hosting and sweeping Alaska-Anchorage; and Minnesota-Duluth held at #4 after splitting their weekend at Western Michigan, which popped Western into the top twenty at #17.  Denver dropped two pegs to #8 after they split their weekend at North Dakota, which edged North Dakota up to #13; Providence held at #10 after they won one game at Merrimack; and an idle Ohio State held on at #7.

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Last Friday night Quinnpiac had huge help from its senior forward Craig Martin, of Trail, B.C., who scored two goals in his team’s 4-0 shutout win over visiting Massachusetts.  Quinnipiac got on the board in a flash when Wyatt Bongiovanni scored only a minute into the first.  Quinnipiac had a 10-6 shot advantage in the period, and took the 1-0 lead into the break.  In the second it was Zach Metsa who scored thirteen minutes into the frame to give Quinnipiac the 2-0 lead, despite UMass out-shooting Quinnipiac 11-6, and again Quinnipiac took shutout lead into the second break.  Craig Martin made it 3-0, Quinnipiac, thirteen minutes into the third.  With four minutes to go in the game Massachusetts added and extra attacker, but a minute later Craig Martin found the empty net to give Quinnipiac the 4-0 lead, which is how it ended, despite a 15-10 UMass shot advantage in the period.  Quinnpiac goalie Andrew Shortridge stopped all 32 shots on his net.  Saturday night the teams met at Massachusetts, and the host took the 3-1 win to split the weekend.

Craig Martin is currently tied for third on his team in goals scored, with seven, and is tied for eighth in assists, with eight.  As a junior he tied for ninth in goals scored, with nine, and tied for sixth in assists, with ten; as a sophomore he tied for third in goals, with eleven, and was fourth in assists, with sixteen; and as a freshman he tied for twentieth in goals with one, and was nineteenth in assists with two.  Before Quinnipiac he played three and a half seasons in the BCHL, scoring seven goals and tallying nine assists in 37 games during the 2012-13 season with the Vernon Vipers; he split the 2013-14 season between the Vipers and the Albernini Valley Bulldogs, scoring a total of thirteen goals and tallying eleven assists in fifty games; and in the 2014-15 season he scored nineteen goals and added twenty-seven assists in forty-one games for the Trail Smoke Eaters.  Martin’s hometown of Trail is home to 7,700 residents, and sits at an elevation of 1,400 feet, about five miles north of the US border in far eastern Washington.  This little town is the birthplace of fifteen NHL’ers, including Ray Ferraro, who played from 1984 to 2002 for the Whalers, Islanders, Rangers, Kings, Thrashers, and Blues, and piling up 408 goals and 490 assists; in 1992 he was an NHL All-Star.  He also did the 2008 Frozen Four TV broadcast in place of Barry Melrose!.

Quinnipiac, located in Hamden, CT. (just north of New Haven), was founded in 1929 and became Quinnipiac University in 2000.  It enrolls 6,500 undergraduates, and 2,500 graduate students, and has become known for its public opinion surveys.  The hockey team was established in the 1975-76 season as an independent DII team.  In 1998 it went DI and joined the MAAC (the MAAC became Atlantic Hockey in the 2003-04 season).  Quinnipiac has had five NCAA tournament appearances, in 2002, and then four years in a row from 2013 to 2016.  They made it to the Championship game in 2013, losing to Yale, and in 2016, losing to North Dakota.  Quinnipiac joined the ECAC in the 2005-06 season and in the thirteen seasons since joining, they have had eleven winning seasons, one season at .500, and one losing season (last year).  They have been coached by Rand Pecknold, a graduate of Connecticut College, for the past twenty-five seasons (his first year was 1994-95, and he only graduated from college in 1990).  His record is 499-300-89, which puts him 26th on the all-time list, and 7th on the active coaches list, just one win away from the 500 win club.  Quinnipiac, 14-3-0, and ranked #5, plays next on Saturday, December 29th, against Colgate at the Nassau Coliseum on Long Island.

This weekend there are a total of six games to be played Friday night, and seven games to be played Saturday night; it will be the last weekend of games before Christmas, with games resuming Friday, December 28th.  This weekend there are no top-ten matchups, but there is a top-ten vs. top-twenty matchup, as #3 Mankato State will travel to play two at #12 Bowling Green.  You can see that game, as well as all WCHA games, without attending, on FloHockey.TV.  Mankato/Bowling Green will be on at 4:30pm Pacific Time Friday and 4:00pm Pacific Time Saturday on FloHockey; Alabama-Huntsville at Michigan Tech, and Ferris State at Northern Michigan will both be on FloHockey at 4:00pm Pacific Time both Friday and Saturday; and Alaska-Anchorage at Bemidji State will be on FloHockey at 5:00pm Pacific Time both Friday and Saturday.  The only way to see any of the four other matchups — #9 Pennsylvania State at Princeton, Colorado College at #15 Arizona State; Dartmouth at Boston University; and Niagara at RIT — will be to attend in person.

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

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

— Tom