Archive of USCHO’s blog content
Last week: 9-4-3 On the season: 22-15-8 (.577) League play gets under way in earnest this weekend with five conference series. This Week’s Picks: Friday, Nov. 2 and Saturday, Nov. 3 Holy Cross at Air Force – The home team has taken three points in this series over the past two seasons, but … Read more
Here we go! Today, Nov. 1, starts the 2012-13 season for the MASCAC and its members. This is going to be a good week for me to gauge how well I pick teams in the dark. With none of the MASCAC programs yet to drop the puck, this may be a good feather in the … Read more
Green Knights return with strong start After hanging up its third NCAA Division III championship banner, the St. Norbert men’s hockey team returned to business. After opening the season on Oct. 23 with a win over Concordia, the Green Knights swept NCHA rival Wisconsin-Stevens Point last weekend. On Friday, St. Norbert skated to a resounding … Read more
Final six are underway Harvard may be the last remaining Division I team to allow a goal (5-0 victors over Bentley on Saturday), but Cornell made the biggest statement this weekend with a twin-killing of Colorado College in Ithaca. The Big Red held the Tigers to two goals on 42 shots in 2-0 and 3-2 … Read more
Conference previews USCHO writers will be previewing their conferences this week. We’ve expanded our stable of writers this season, with one writer per conference, so the various teams in some conferences that had a shared writer should receive more coverage this season. Each Friday, the writers will offer picks on the various games, while on … Read more
Is it back to normal or just the new normal? Either the results this past week weren’t as wild as in previous weeks, or I’m starting to adjust to the current landscape, because the winners and losers weren’t as surprising. That’s not to say that there weren’t some scores that raised a few eyebrows, due … Read more
After the first full weekend of CCHA play — minus Western Michigan — there are indications that it may be a long season. That’s a good thing, given that it’s the last. 1. Six teams in third place after one weekend? Okay. That seems completely normal, given how many teams crowd a single spot in … Read more
No team wants a goaltending controversy. And even though Northeastern seems to have found a diamond in the rough in Bryan Mountain, that may not be the best thing for this club. That leads my three things I learned this weekend: 1. Rawlings struggles, Mountain shines Chris Rawlings is supposed to be the backbone to … Read more
Here are three observations from this past weekend in the WCHA: Denver forwards are producing plenty of goals After preseason questions about their ability to score regularly, the Denver forwards have recorded 12 of the team’s 20 goals in the Pioneers’ 4-0 start, including victories against No. 11 Massachusetts-Lowell and an improved Michigan Tech team, … Read more
Three things from Atlantic Hockey play this weekend: – Army is going to have a better season than last year. The Black Knights have two conference wins this season after getting just three in all of 2011-2012. They lost to Penn State 5-0 at home on Friday but came back with a 7-2 win … Read more
I’m grateful that league play has begun. Too many games to pick these past two weeks — and too little sleep. Last week: 11-6-4 Season to date: 23-13-8 (.614) This is the first full weekend CCHA-on-CCHA action. Every series is Friday-Saturday, every series is single-site and games start at 7:05 p.m. local time, unless otherwise … Read more
Hockey East had a tough weekend and many of those losses extended to Jim and me. We both believed a little too much in the league. We’ll be hoping for better results this week for all concerned. Dave last week: 5-5-1 Jim last week: 4-6-1 Dave’s record-to-date: 13-8-2 Jim’s record-to-date: 9-12-2 Here are this week’s picks: Friday, October 26 … Read more
Alaska-Anchorage (2-1-1) at No. 4 North Dakota (1-1) Joe: There is only one number you need to know: 27. That is the number of games dating back to Dec. 9, 2011, since UND had a healthy scratch. They have a full complement of 18 skaters available this weekend which should be more than enough to … Read more
Last week: 3-4-2 Overall: 8-13-3 Seems hard to believe it’s already week four of the season, doesn’t it? With all the Ivy teams starting play, this weekend marks the largest slate of games thus far, with only RPI and St. Lawrence out of action. Here’s a quick trivia question in honor of the Ivy teams … Read more
Last week: 4-4-3 On the season: 13-11-5 (.534) This Week’s Picks: Thursday, Oct. 25 Robert Morris at Rochester Institute of Technology – The Colonials were off last week while the Tigers suffered a stinging loss to Penn State. The teams have played at RIT three times in the past and each one ended in regulation … Read more
A couple of years ago, my good friend and former colleague Theresa Geist (née Spisak), when writing her weekly WCHA column, was so flummoxed by the continuing upsets in the conference that she got the clever idea of proving that a coin flip couuld beat her thought out predictions. Every week, she would give her … Read more
Not even hindsight is 20/20 in wake of inexplicable results Each week when I sit down to do my game predictions, I think this would be easier if the outcomes were more predictable. Sometimes there are games or series that make one say, “Yes, I should have seen that,” after the results are in the … Read more
The final weekend of nonconference play before launching into a league schedule was very informative. 1. The CCHA showed very well against the other conferences. The league went 12-5-4 on the weekend, with high-scoring wins from Michigan and Ferris State and outright impressive wins from Ohio State and Alaska. Perhaps everyone’s insistence that the league … Read more
Three things from this weekend’s action in Atlantic Hockey 1. Holy Cross prevents a shutout – The league did a decent job the previous week in a plethora of non-conference games, but this past weekend was a different story. AHA teams went 1-8-2 out of league, with only the Crusaders posting a win. Goaltender Matt … Read more
I probably learned more than three things about Hockey East this weekend. At least I think so. But that’s our Monday morning format, which also leaves me something for the mid-week column. So here are the three most significant things I think I learned. Three: Boston College dodged a celebration bullet. Imagine the scene on … Read more