Men’s D-I: Hockey East

Beanpot Heavy Hitters The Beanpot sure is coming along at the right time. As Jim Connelly noted recently, if Michigan sweeps Notre Dame this weekend, Boston University and Northeastern could rank number one and number two in the country. Should both win their semifinal contests this Monday, what a championship game that would set up! … Read more

Back Where They Belong Back in November, if you looked at the results each weekend or scanned the standings, you’d have wondered what was going on in Durham, New Hampshire. UNH managed only a single win for the month and that came over a Providence squad that went oh-fer the first semester within the league. … Read more

New Blood is Net Gain for Friars Often you’ll hear college hockey coaches, when their team is struggling, say, “This isn’t the pros. The players in the dressing room are our team.” That’s a fact. There’s no minor league in college hockey. A few teams may have a rare junior varsity, but for the most … Read more

Around The Rinks With the holiday tournaments under our belts (not to mention a few more pounds), let’s take a whirlwind tour of all the league’s teams. But do check out the PairWise Rankings, where five Hockey East teams are on track to make the NCAA tournament and another sits on the bubble. Of course, … Read more

Letters To Santa For the final column before the holidays, we’ve once again intercepted mail from Hockey East arenas to the North Pole and are sharing them with you. On Northeastern stationery: Greg Cronin here, Santa. Don’t set me up again, Big Guy. Yeah, we’re 10-3-2. Yeah, we’re in first place. But seems to me … Read more

Whistles Galore If anyone has attended a college hockey game this season, you may notice a few things are different. That’s particularly true when it comes to officiating. A quick look on the ice identifies the biggest difference. Instead of the regular single referee with two assistant referees, Hockey East, as well as all of … Read more

On The Rebound Could Massachusetts-Lowell stay afloat? That was the question two weekends ago after the River Hawks lost top goalie Carter Hutton two periods into their game against Boston University. BU outscored them, 4-1, in the third period, inflicting a very tough loss. One night later the Hawks lost to Vermont. With Hutton projected … Read more

Best Ever? Hockey East has long prided itself on its top-to-bottom strength. Unlike top-heavy conferences that might boast comparable teams come NCAA tournament time, Hockey East could claim that most years even its teams that fell short of making the league playoffs provided significant challenges. This season, however, we may be seeing that strength at … Read more

Marching Minutemen We’ve already established that many of the perennially “lower-tier” teams from Hockey East seem poised this early season to make a run towards the top. Northeastern and Vermont both have received the positive ink they deserve from this column. Mass.-Lowell opened some eyes out at Michigan State. But last weekend another team threw … Read more

The View From Below This column usually emphasizes teams’ highlights — if you want nonstop negativity to raise your blood pressure, turn on talk radio — but sometimes the lowlights can’t be overlooked. As a result, this week we lead off with two teams that have gotten out of the Hockey East chute slowly. Maine … Read more