COLLEGE HOCKEY UPDATE:  Last weekend featured three top-fifteen matchups, and Michigan held onto its #2 ranking after splitting its weekend at Wisconsin, which edged the Badgers up to #12; Quinnipiac dropped two spots to #7 after losing to Cornell, and then beating Colgate (Cornell held at #11 on the weekend as they lost to Princeton the next night); and Boston College move up two pegs to #10 after sweeping a home and home series against Connecticut, knocking the Huskies down three notches to #13.  Elsewhere, Michigan State held at #1 after hosting and sweeping Notre Dame; and North Dakota held at #3 after hosting, tying, and then beating, St. Cloud State.

Western Michigan held at #4 after visiting, tying, and then beating Colorado College; Pennsylvania State University edged up to #5 after hosting and sweeping Ohio State University; and Providence College edged up to #6 after visiting, and sweeping, Vermont.  Minnesota-Duluth held at #9 after visiting and sweeping Miami of Ohio; Dartmouth held at #14 after visiting and beating Renssalaer, and then visiting and tying Union College the next night; and Augustana moved up three notches to #15 after visiting, tying, and then beating, St. Thomas.  Denver held at #8 after its idle weekend.

COLLEGE HOCKEY UPDATE FEATURED PLAYER

Last weekend North Dakota had big help from its junior defenseman Abram Wiebe, who scored a goal and added an assist in his team’s 6-4 home win over St. Cloud State University Saturday night, after tallying two assists in his team’s tie with St. Cloud State the night before.  The 6’3″ 210lb junior is tied for ninth on his team in goals scored, with five, and is third on the team in assists, with twenty.  Wiebe, who was drafted in the seventh round with the 209th overall pick of the 2022 NHL entry draft, was tied for eleventh on the team in goals scored, with five, and was third in assists, with twenty his sophomore season; as a freshman he tied for sixteenth in goals, with one, and tied for tenth in assists, with nine.  His hometown of Mission, British Columbia, is home to 42,000 resident who are spread among its eighty-eight square miles.  It sits in a vast wooded area, was founded in 1868, and incorporated in 2021.

Last Saturday night was a wild up-and-down the ice affair in Grand Forks (actually so was Friday night !), and St. Cloud State got things rolling early on with a goal only two minutes into the game.  But Abram Wiebe managed to charge into a rush and sneak one under the legs of the St. Cloud State goalie only two minutes later to tie it at one apiece.  And less than a minute later Mac Swanson scored to give North Dakota the 2-1 lead.  Four minutes late Ollie Josephson scored on a power play (assist by Abram Wiebe)  to extend the lead to 3-1.  And after a ten minute hiatus, St. Cloud State was back in the net, narrowing the score at 3-2, the score at the first break.  North Dakota amassed a huge 18-9 shots advantage in that period.  In the second St. Cloud did it again, scoring at the two minute point to tie it at three apiece.  Six minutes later Tyler Young scored to give North Dakota the 4-3 lead but five minutes later the Huskies netted one to tie it at 4-4, the score at the second break.  North Dakota had a slight shots advantage of 10-7 in the second.

In the third St. Cloud worked very hard to contain the action and to press as they saw the 4-4 score, the same score as the tie the night before, maybe as a wakeup call.  North Dakota went fourteen minutes into the third without getting a shot off, when things broke, and they had a two on one break and Jack Kernan gave North Dakota a 5-4 lead.  North Dakota would only manage one more matched strength shot in the period, and with about two minutes left, Ellis Rickwood sunk the final dagger into an empty net to make the final 6-4, North Dakota.  What a win for the Fighting Hawks, and also what an effort by St. Cloud State; they managed to hold North Dakota to only three shots in the third, while managing to take ten shots themselves.  But North Dakota goalie Gibson Homer came through and stopped all ten St. Cloud shots, sealing it for the home team.  North Dakota, 24-7-1, and ranked #3, travels to play a pair at #4 Western Michigan Friday and Saturday nights, with tonight’s game starting at 5:00pm Pacific Time.

QUICK SNAPSHOT WAY TO TELL ONE OF THE STORIES OF THIS SEASON

So what’s been the story this college hockey season?  Ask ten people and you’d probably get around seven or eight answers.  But here we are and this is one answer.  Given the early pre-season poll only then looking at the current rankings allows us to highlight a few things without any great long explanations.  Let’s start with the biggest let-downs.  None bigger than Boston University, ranked #2 in the pre-season, was in the final NCAA Championship game last April, and basically the same group of guys in place.  Now they are unranked, have just enough votes (five in total) to be viewed as 26th.  As if the players decided to take this season as as vacation — biggest train wreck of them all.  Minnesota was #8 in the preseason poll and did not get a single vote in the poll this week, not even in the top 29.  Maine was #7 preseason and is now #20, but was not ranked last week.  These are not pretty pictures.  Ouch.

Is there such a thing as a team “in the middle” in a discussion such as this ?  Well, there is this season.  Boston College was #6 preseason and dropped like a rock.  Unlike BU and Minnesota, a few weeks back they woke up and started doing their jobs and they are looking headed to the NCAA Tournament — maybe.  They are currently #10 and have to keep winning to get there.

And four teams have been charging hard since seeing their places in the preseason poll.  Michigan was preseason #12, is now #2, has been as high as #1, and will make the NCAA Tournament.  Same with Quinnipiac, was preseason #13 and is now #7; same with North Dakota, was preseason #11 and is now #3; maybe same with Cornell, was preseason #17 and is now #11, and Wisconsin, was preseason #20 and is now #12.

And as part of this group of “those who rose,” are a couple of teams with an even bigger story, because their story is also about making the sport bigger.  Who in the world could I have meant when I wrote that ??  How about #15 Augustana, in its third year of not only DI, but of any hockey ever, and #18 St. Thomas (#15 a week ago) in its fifth season of DI after a century of hockey prior to that.  Right now it’s late and I’m out of time again, so I’m thinking we will pick this subject up next week.  Suffice it to say both are great stories for college hockey.

And let’s not forget the teams that were ranked highly in the preseason poll that stayed focused and are still the top teams now — Michigan State, Western Michigan, Pennsylvania State University, Denver, Providence, Connecticut, Minnesota-Duluth and Dartmouth.

This provides the top fifteen teams, rankings, and records, in Monday’s poll:

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

— Tom