College Hockey Update:  No, you’re not imagining anything, this is only the second post of this season, with the first one having been seven weeks ago, on December 11th, and covering games played through December 6th, prior to the December 7th poll.  Given that, this post will cover the top twenty teams, and will start out by listing, in order of current rankings as of this week’s poll, each team’s record SINCE December 6th, and will provide in the fourth column, each team’s ranking AS OF December 7th.  I’m not going to insert a new chart here, so in an attempt to make this line up I am going to abbreviate all teams to two letters.  If you are not sure what those letters stand for, consult the rankings chart at the bottom of today’s post.  Here we go:

1. BC  5-2-1    2
2. ND  9-3-1    1
3. MK  8-0-1    6
4. MN  7-3-0    4
5. SC  8-6-0   13
6. MD 5-5-2     3
7. MI   5-3-0     5
8. BG 10-3-0  16
9. NO  7-2-1   18
10. MA  7-2-2   10
11. QU 10-5-3  11
12. CK  7-5-3     7
13. WI  4-2-0    12
14. NU  6-3-2   17
15. BU  5-1-0   23
16. ML  3-1-0     8
17. PC  5-3-4   19
18. MT  6-2-0   30
19. AI   8-3-0    25
20. UD  6-6-1     9

And just like that, you’re all caught up, right?  Ok, let’s take a look at last week’s results.  Nearly half the teams were involved in top twenty matchups, starting with North Dakota, edging up to #2 after a win at Denver, helping knock the Pioneers down to #20 — North Dakota then hosted and swept Colorado College; Denver then split at Nebraska-Omaha, and UNO moved up two spots to #9 as they had also swept two at Colorado College.  Whew!  Massachusetts moved down two pegs to #10 after a loss at Boston University and then hosting two ties with Providence College — BU entered the top twenty at #15 after they then hosted and swept Maine; PC edged up to #17 on the two ties.  Whew again!  This one is simpler — Quinnipiac edged down to #11 after they settled on two ties and then suffered a loss all at Clarkson; the results of this “threesome” moved Clarkson up two notches to #12.

Boston College held at #1 after hosting Connecticut for a tie, then winning at Connecticut; Mankato State edged down to #3 despite hosting and sweeping Ferris State; and Minnesota held at #4 after hosting and sweeping Arizona State in convincing fashion.  St. Cloud State edged up to #5 after hosting and sweeping Miami of Ohio; Minnesota-Duluth edged up to #6 after hosting and sweeping Western Michigan; and Michigan edged up to #7 after sweeping their weekend at Notre Dame.  Bowling Green dropped three slots to #8 after getting swept at Bemidji State (contributing field reporter Greg Schreader pointed out that Bowling Green, 14-4-0, and 10-3-0 since December 6th, attributes three of their four losses, all three in January, to Bemidji State); Wisconsin edged up to #13 after splitting at Pennsylvania State; and Michigan Tech entered the top twenty at #18 after its win at Western Michigan.  An idle Northeastern edged down to #14; idle Massachusetts-Lowell edged down to #16; and idle American International edged up to #19.  Ok, readers, now you’re a little more caught up.

Last weekend Boston College had huge help from junior forward and captain Marc McLaughlin, of North Billerica, MA., who scored a goal in his team’s at-home 3-3 tie with Connecticut last Friday night, and then scored another goal in his team’s 4-2 win at Connecticut Saturday night. The 6’0″ 205 lb forward leads his team in goals scored, with five, and is tied for fifth in assists, with three.  Last year he tied for tenth in goals with five,and tied for eleventh in assists, with seven; his freshman year he was ninth in goals with four, and was fifteenth in assists, with four.

Saturday night at UConn in Storrs, CT., Harrison Roy scored only three minutes into the game to put BC up, 1-0, but five minutes later it was Carter Turnbull who found the net for Connecticut to tie it at one apiece, which is how the period ended.  UConn found momentum in the period and had a slight advantage in shots, 15-11.  In the second, BC took over, outshooting UConn 22-10, but UConn defended the goal well — for sixteen minutes.  Casey Carreau netted one at sixteen minutes to give BC the 2-1 edge, and only three minutes later it was Marc McLaughlin who scored to give BC a two goal lead at 3-1, which is how the second ended.  In the third, UConn showed the grit that had yielded the tie at BC the night before, outshooting BC 12-5.  Jake Flynn scored at the sixteen minute point for UConn to make it interesting again, cutting the lead to a 3-2 score.  With two minutes to go UConn added the extra attacker, but less than a minute later Jack St. Ivany found the empty net to put BC up, 4-2, for the final score.  The previous night at BC, Marc McLaughlin scored nine minutes into the first for the 1-0 BC lead.  In the second Harrison Roy scored thirteen minutes into the period to make it 2-0, BC.  In the third UConn scored three minutes into the period to cut the lead to 2-1, but Casey Carreau scored three minutes later to extend the BC lead to 3-1.  UConn was able to match or surpass BC with pressure on the net, and late in the third they were finally able to convert at the seventeen and nineteen minute points to tie it up at 3-3.  OT yielded no scoring, and the game ended tied at three apiece.

McLaughlin’s North Billerica is a neighborhood in the town of Billerica, MA.  Billerica is home to 40,000 residents spread out among its sixty-eight square miles at an elevation of 250 feet. Billerica was first settled in 1652, and was incorporated in 1655.  It was the hometown of Asa Pollard, the first person killed at the Battle of Bunker Hill.  It was also the birthplace of current New Jersey Devils Executive Vice President and General Manager Tom Fitzgerald, who played at Providence College before seventeen years in the NHL, during which he scored 139 goals and tallied 190 assists.  And a guy who went to Billerica High School and was drafted in the fourth round of the 1984 NHL entry draft by the Los Angeles Kings (two rounds ahead of Brett Hull, and five rounds ahead of Luc Robitaille, both Hall of Famers), but thought he’d give baseball, of all things, a try instead, was a kid by the name of Tom Glavine.

Boston College, founded in 1863, is a Catholic, Jesuit College, and is located in Newton, MA., in the very affluent Chestnut Hill neighborhood.  It enrolls 9,400 undergraduates and 4,600 graduate students.  Its athletic teams are the eagles and wear maroon and gold, which often looks like brown and beige, with the colors they pick out for some of the uniforms, especially hockey.  BC started hockey in 1917, and had a handful of coaches who averaged about .500 seasons for the first twelve seasons, until 1929; the teams averaged about ten games per season.  BC resumed hockey in 1932, and since then they’ve had only six coaches, with three of them coaching a total of only six seasons; three coaches have coached the balance of that time — 81 seasons.  John Kelley coached 35 seasons, from 1932-42, and from 1946-72; Len Ceglarski (who passed away three years ago in  December of 2017, at the age of 91) coached from 1972-92; and current coach Jerry York has coached since 1994.  BC won the NCAA Championship in 1949, and has been a very successful program since then, with eight NCAA Tournament appearances from 1948-68 under John Kelley; nine from 1972-91 under Len Ceglarski; and seventeen between 1998 and 2016 under Jerry York, including four NCAA Titles (2001, ’08, ’10, and ’12) an additional four times as the runner-up in the championship game, and an additional four times in the Frozen Four (that makes a total of 12 Frozen Four appearances in 17 trips to the NCAA Tournament under Jerry York).

This weekend presents three top-twenty matchups:  #2 North Dakota, two games at #9 Nebraska-Omaha; #8 Bowling Green hosts #18 Michigan Tech, two games; and #10 Massachusetts, a home-and-home series, hosting #16 Massachusetts-Lowell Friday night, and at Mass-Lowell Saturday night.  #1 Boston College was scheduled to play a home-and-home series with #15 Boston University this weekend, but BU announced on Wednesday that because of the spiking number of coronavirus cases, it was suspending all sports through the end of January, which is a total of five days.  I mean I get the intention/hope of this suspension, but from a hockey/scheduling perspective . . . . this really sucks!  BU is off to some “hot” start, and now this?  OK, odds are that BC would have swept them, and possibly even skinned ’em alive.  Who knows?  Maybe BU would have been able to show some stuff and somehow split?  Either way, at least we’d know!  Instead . . . . BC has shoe-horned in a game this Tuesday night, February 2nd, at Northeastern.  Meanwhile, Colorado College also made essentially the same announcement on Tuesday, and therefore the scheduled games between CC and Denver this weekend will not be played.  The NCHC is adjusting their schedule for the first two weeks of February as a result.  These scheduling adjustments are not yet out.

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

[table id=220 /]

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

— Tom