Paula C. WestonRick Comley, Michigan State’s ever-quotable head coach, gives us a good summation of the CCHA weekend: “I leave this weekend saying, ‘You know what? We can play with really good teams.’” Sure, he was talking about how his team performed against visiting Maine, but the line can stand for just about the whole league this … Read more
Rick Comley, Michigan State’s ever-quotable head coach, gives us a good summation of the CCHA weekend: “I leave this weekend saying, ‘You know what? We can play with really good teams.’” Sure, he was talking about how his team performed against visiting Maine, but the line can stand for just about the whole league this … Read more
Spencer Abbott’s two power-play goals 10 seconds apart for the Black Bears tied this game in the third period, but Dustin Gazley answered on the fly with 5:07 left in the game, lifting the Spartans over Maine, 3-2, for Michigan State’s first win of the season. “You look at their lineup and it’s a junior … Read more
As part of USCHO’s redesign, I’ll be posting my picks for upcoming games on Friday mornings and this season I want to start where I left off, with last year’s CCHA tournament. Why? Because I was right. I so rarely get to say that. In the 2010 CCHA tourney at JLA, I picked Northern over … Read more
As part of USCHO’s redesign, I’ll be posting my picks for upcoming games on Friday mornings and this season I want to start where I left off, with last year’s CCHA tournament. Why? Because I was right. I so rarely get to say that. In the 2010 CCHA tourney at JLA, I picked Northern over … Read more
The rookies Not only is it a shiny new college hockey season, it’s a potentially more interesting season for the CCHA than we’ve had in a long time. Three new head coaches and one single team with more freshman than returning players, plus the specter of the Big Ten and an 11-team conference with creative … Read more
As USCHO enters its 15th season, you’ll notice a few changes around the site. This blog is one of them. I’ll be blogging three times regularly, every week: once on Sundays or Mondays to chat about the doings of the previous weekend; once late Tuesday or early Wednesday to chat about something else; once on … Read more
As USCHO enters its 15th season, you’ll notice a few changes around the site. This blog is one of them. I’ll be blogging three times regularly, every week: once on Sundays or Mondays to chat about the doings of the previous weekend; once late Tuesday or early Wednesday to chat about something else; once on … Read more
Walt Kyle once joked that he had taken Northern Michigan to the CCHA third-place game so many times that the contest would probably be named for him. In late March, however, Kyle and the Wildcats were proverbial bridesmaids no more. NMU finally got the chance to play for the CCHA championship. It was just the … Read more
Alaska capped its 2009-10 season with the program’s first trip to the NCAA tournament, so it’s only fitting that UAF is picked third this season, the highest preseason prognostication in Nanooks history. How does Dallas Ferguson, the third-year coach responsible for turning around the UAF program, follow all of this up? With what got him … Read more
Notre Dame coach Jeff Jackson is a fierce competitor, to be sure, but it’s probably a good thing that his experience has taught him a little perspective. The Fighting Irish finished the 2010-11 season in ninth place, far below expectations. Notre Dame just couldn’t seem to catch a break where injuries were concerned — no … Read more
If there’s one team in the CCHA that can be described as a typical, workaday, no-frills team, that would be Lake Superior State. There’s no shame in that. The team’s blue-collar ethic comes straight from coach Jim Roque, who gets every bit out of every player that he can — and the team gives, willingly. … Read more
By this point, most college hockey fans know what the 2009-10 Miami RedHawks endured, but it bears repeating, in brief. • Lost the 2009 NCAA championship game in overtime, after leading by two goals going into the last minute. • Lost a dear friend, 21-year-old team manager Brendan Burke, to a car crash in February. … Read more
Last year, the Michigan Wolverines found themselves someplace unfamiliar for the second round of the CCHA playoffs: on the road. After finishing in seventh place, Michigan swept Lake Superior State at home in the first round of CCHA playoff hockey before having to play through East Lansing to advance to the league’s championship tournament in … Read more
“It’s one louder, isn’t it?” asks Nigel Tufnel in “This Is Spinal Tap.” “It’s not 10.” Perhaps it’s just a personal perversion, but every time I think of the CCHA as an 11-team entity, I think of Nigel Tufnel’s magic amp, the one that is one louder. Michigan’s Louie Caporusso scored 10 of his 21 … Read more
Western Michigan’s Jeff Blashill is one of three new head coaches in the CCHA, but he’s familiar to everyone in the league. He may have spent the last two seasons coaching the USHL’s Indiana Ice — where he won the Clark Cup as a rookie head coach in 2009 — but he was an assistant … Read more
Bob Daniels is beginning the 2010-11 season with the same question he had a year ago: Who’s going to score for Ferris State? He and the Bulldogs hope that the answer this year is as satisfying as it was last season. When 2009-10 began for the Bulldogs, they had just completed a year in which … Read more
In this millennium, Bowling Green has finished above ninth place twice — a fifth-place finish in 2004-05 and seventh in 2007-08. Given that four of the last five seasons have seen the Falcons at or next to the bottom of the CCHA standings, new coach Chris Bergeron understands the need to change things, wholesale, at … Read more
Of the three CCHA teams led by new coaches this season, Ohio State has arguably been the biggest disappointment for far too long a time. After all, this is a school with huge resources, a high profile and matching expectations. New coach Mark Osiecki, an assistant at Wisconsin for six seasons — and therefore wise … Read more
“We’re coming off a second-place finish and a team that obviously did not perform well in the playoffs,” Michigan State coach Rick Comley said. “That was a disappointment.” That was an understatement. After a hugely disappointing, next-to-last-place finish in 2008-09, Michigan State rebounded last year, earning a bye for the first round of the CCHA … Read more