Men’s D-I in general
One Last Satisfying Look For a while there, I was fielding the same question following one national championship game after another. “Why can’t your guys win it all? You guys always finish second.” The words invariably came from the mouth of a smug WCHA fan (pardon the redundancy), a drink in one hand and a … Read more
Beginnings, Auspicious and Otherwise Not with a bang, but with a whimper. Or, maybe, a tiny yelp. Not very loud. A smallish hooray. It was the proverbial mixed bag in the opening weekend for the CCHA, with clear-cut winners, out-and-out losers, and teams that were somewhere in the middle. Congratulations to the Nebraska-Omaha Mavericks, this … Read more
It’s not unusual for the USCHO.com/CBS College Sports Division I Men’s Poll to get quite a shake from the preseason to the first week of the regular season, and that’s exactly what happened this season. Only six of the 20 teams ranked in the preseason poll kept their spots. Leading the change was Miami, which … Read more
Strictly speaking in conference, Minnesota had a down year. The Gophers had most of their struggles after the New Year, managing to finish one game above .500 and squeaked into the final home ice spot in the playoffs, where they proceeded to sweep St. Cloud before falling to Minnesota-Duluth in the Final Five play-in game. … Read more
Last year was quite the wild ride for Minnesota-Duluth. The Bulldogs struggled early, picked it up around the holidays before going on a skid to end the season 0-3-2. That late skid dropped them to seventh in the league, but as soon as they hit the playoffs, they found the fire. First they swept Colorado … Read more
If you love Spartan hockey, here are three words for you to embrace for the upcoming season: bigger, stronger, older. Last year’s tender young Michigan State team, picked third by the media and fifth by the coaches in the 2008-09 preseason CCHA polls, finished tied for 10th place with Lake Superior State at the end … Read more
Can the Bowling Green Falcons finally take a breath? And will the revolving door of assistants finally stop spinning? After rumors about the potential demise of the BGSU program were leaked to the press earlier this year — former head coach Scott Paluch heard about them as he was walking into Nationwide Arena in Columbus … Read more
For years, college hockey fans have been hoping that Dean Blais would return to the game we love, to the game we know he loves, and we CCHA fans are the lucky ones to welcome him back. “My best time of the day is spending that half-hour on the ice in practice,” Blais said at … Read more
In coach Mark Dennehy’s four years at Merrimack, the one thing that has been certain and consistent for his team has been its improvement. After a six-win season in 2005-06 and a three-win campaign a year later, the Warriors posted 12 wins two seasons ago and another nine last year. The nine may not have … Read more
The good news for Lake Superior State is that the Lakers return seven of eight defensemen and three of five double-digit goal scorers from a season ago. The bad news for Lake Superior State is that the Lakers return seven of eight — oh, do I really have to say it? “We have not been … Read more
The 2009-2010 CCHA: The Direction of Change “The moment of change,” said poet Adrienne Rich, “is the only poem.” If there’s even the smallest grain of truth in Rich’s statement, then CCHA fans are in for plenty of poetry in the coming months. Bowling Green has a new head coach. Nebraska-Omaha has a new head … Read more
In one season as head coach, Dallas Ferguson managed to take the Alaska Nanooks from ninth place to fourth, from 20 league points to 34, and from first-round playoff loser to Joe Louis Arena. It’s no wonder that he was awarded a five-year contract extension last week. And he doesn’t let a little success go … Read more
“For once, I’m returning a bit of a veteran team,” said Ohio State coach John Markell. If you’re not a Buckeye hockey fan, there is no way for you to appreciate the optimism of this statement. Markell tends toward the glass-half-empty side of life. In his defense, he has had to contend with some of … Read more
The 2008-09 season was a wild one for Wisconsin. Everyone thought if the Badgers could get past their tough opening schedule, they’d be OK. Everyone was right, for the most part. Wisconsin started off the season 0-6-1, but picked it up enough to end up tied for third in the league, gain home ice and … Read more
An aberration. That’s what Maine hockey fans hope that the past two seasons have been. After nine straight 20-plus win campaigns, nine straight trips to the NCAA tournament, six visits to the Frozen Four and, of course, a national championship, the Black Bears have posted two straight 13-win seasons. To say that the natives are … Read more
Hockey East has officially returned to its glory days. Back-to-back national championships by Boston College in 2008 and Boston University in 2009 coupled with all three of last season’s Hobey Baker “Hat Trick” finalists hailing from Hockey East certainly give the conference a reason to pound its collective chest. Not since the mid-to-late 1990s and … Read more
What do we say about last year’s WCHA season to try to recap it? Do we talk about the ridiculous parity, and how it came down to the final night of play to determine the standings, only narrowly avoiding using a plethora of tiebreaking procedures that would be enough to make anyone cry? Do we … Read more
Last year’s New Hampshire Wildcats dipped a bit after back-to-back regular season titles, having graduated too much talent to pull off a three-peat. They finished tied for third — not too shabby — and then came close to erasing any shred of disappointment with a near trip to the Frozen Four. Following an electrifying win … Read more
Fighting Irish coach Jeff Jackson can give his counterpart in Ann Arbor some competition in the understated department. “We’re returning a pretty good group of players,” he said in preseason, with a completely straight face. While Notre Dame graduated a senior class that was pivotal in the history of the program, the players who remain … Read more
In the past decade, the Western Michigan Broncos have finished higher than sixth place exactly once, in 2000-01, when they tied with Northern Michigan for fifth — and NMU won the tiebreaker that year for the higher playoff slot. So, it’s a bit strange to think of last year’s seventh-place finish as an accomplishment, but … Read more