When Ohio State took a timeout at 13:29 of the third period of their 4-0 loss to Michigan State last Saturday, coach Mark Osiecki said he was “trying to give some guys rests.” Soon after, two Buckeyes got quite a bit of rest: Sergio Somma at 13:44 and Cory Schneider at 14:16. Each earned two … Read more
For the third time in as many weeks, there is a new No. 1-ranked team at the top of the USCHO.com Division I Men’s Poll as Minnesota-Duluth has taken over the top ranking. Last week’s top team, Boston University, drops to No. 2, the place Minnesota-Duluth was a week ago. Maine jumps two spots to … Read more
Last season, Bowling Green and Western Michigan each notched four CCHA wins. The Falcons finished ahead of the last-place Broncos by two points. With a single win against Notre Dame last weekend, BGSU now has one-fourth of the league wins it earned in all of 2009-10. With a sweep of visiting Michigan State, WMU took … Read more
Boston University has claimed the top spot in this week’s USCHO.com Division I Men’s Poll. Last week’s top-ranked team, Miami, falls all the way to No. 4, while Minnesota-Duluth stays in the second spot and Yale jumps from No. 5 to No. 3. Maine, up to No. 5 from No. 7, rounds out the top … Read more
To quote the Talking Heads, same as it ever was. One glance at the CCHA standings and last week’s results show the league’s top tier populated by a familiar cast: Miami, Note Dame, Michigan. Alaska and Northern Michigan are in the mix, for now. Michigan State isn’t. Yet. The difference between this year and last … Read more
Of the 22 United States Hockey League players named Monday to the U.S. Junior Select Team that will compete at the World Junior A Challenge next month, a total of 21 already have a college commitment in place. This year’s event will run Nov. 8-14 in Penticton, British Columbia and will include teams from Russia, Sweden, … Read more
How much is too much when it comes to a good thing? When a team with a dozen freshmen coming off a season with a dozen wins knocks off the defending national champion, that’s a good thing. When that young team is the first team to hold the defending champ to a single goal in … Read more
Miami is the new No. 1-ranked team in the USCHO.com Division I Men’s Poll after their two-game sweep of Northern Michigan last weekend. Last week’s top team, Boston College, lost for the first time this season and drop down to the second spot. North Dakota fell from No. 2 all the way to No. 8 … Read more
Wednesday evening, I had a rare opportunity to catch Northern Michigan coach Walt Kyle as the Wildcats were preparing to leave for Oxford, Ohio, to face Miami this weekend. Given that NMU is 0-2-1 to start the season, I wasn’t sure what Kyle would say about his team. “I like our team,” he said. “I … Read more
The top two teams in the weekly USCHO.com Division I Men’s Poll remain the same with Boston College holding steady at No. 1 and North Dakota at No. 2, but after that, 16 of 18 teams from last week’s poll are still ranked, but in different positions. Yale, despite not having played a game yet, … 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
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