This Week in … columns; weekly columns on a league, region or gender-division
“I’m fine. My wife tells me that I’m hard-headed,” reads a text from Sacred Heart coach C.J. Marottolo. The Pioneers’ coach caught a puck to the forehead last Friday in a 4-2 win at Robert Morris. I was watching the game and later texted him to see how he was doing. Marottolo was in good … Read more
To anyone who might look at Providence’s schedule and see three straight losses as a cause for concern, coach Nate Leaman would like to point out an important fact. “We only trailed six minutes of those three games,” Leaman said after the Friars earned a split of a weekend series at Arizona State with a … Read more
Omaha hockey radio color analyst Terry Leahy never thought he would reach 1,000 broadcasts covering the same team. On Friday night, when the Mavericks host Augustana, he’ll be there. Quite literally, in fact, in much the same capacity he has held since UNO’s hockey program first hit the ice in 1997. There have only ever … Read more
On his team’s weekend off, Augustana coach Garrett Raboin was able to do something he’s not usually able to do during the hockey season: Take in a football game. On Saturday, the Augustana football team hosted Minnesota State in a first-round NCAA Division II football playoff game at Augie’s Kirkeby-Over Stadium in Sioux Falls, S.D. … Read more
Last year presented me with an opportunity to reintroduce a slightly different format to our weekly column. It was a take on former colleague Dave Hendrickson’s list of 20 things that made him thankful for covering Hockey East, and it gave me a real chance to sit back and talk about the things that made … Read more
What a difference a week makes. Last week, Wisconsin was the No. 1 team in the country, garnering 32 first-place votes in the USCHO.com Division I Men’s Poll. The Badgers, then 9-1-0 overall with a 4-0-0 record in conference play, had just come off a bye week and by virtue of the ever-changing landscape among … Read more
It’s been a rough start to the season for Army West Point. Going into last weekend’s series with Canisius, the Black Knights were 0-8 with losses to North Dakota, Union, and Bemidji State as well as to some of Atlantic Hockey’s top teams in Sacred Heart, Rochester Institute of Technology, and archival Air Force. Several … Read more
Players and coaches can talk all they want about not paying attention to polls, whether it’s the weekly national rankings or a preseason poll conducted by either media or coaches. In reality, most try to find a balance — polls are just opinions, after all, and most teams usually find it best to ignore outside … Read more
Ten games into this season, Colorado College’s average of four goals scored per game means the 7-3 Tigers have had the joint fourth-best scoring offense in the country. Bagging goals at such a high clip, including CC’s 5-1 road win Friday at Miami and a 4-1 victory Saturday over the RedHawks, has been a happy … Read more
Ron Fogarty didn’t mind waiting another few days to start his season. It was the first weekend in November, but the appearance of Fogarty’s Princeton Tigers on Harvard’s Bright-Landry Hockey Center ice sheet marked the team’s first appearance of the 2023-24 season. The previous weekend, before Halloween, had been the first games for five of … Read more
Northern Michigan proved early this season they could score. Netting 10 goals in a nonconference series will easily bolster that reputation. But as goals giveth, goals can taketh away. In that same series with UMD, the Wildcats let the Bulldogs outscore them 13-10, failing to win either game (they tied 5-5 Friday before losing 8-5 … Read more
Sweeps have traditionally been hard to come by in Atlantic Hockey. Before this past week, there was just one so far this season. But we had four last weekend, including Bentley’s pair of regulation wins against Niagara. Friday’s 6-2 victory featured a hat-trick from A.J. Hodges and a pair of goals from Josh Latta. Saturday … Read more
The biggest story in college hockey this week is right here in the Big Ten: Wisconsin is the No. 1 team in the country for the first time since the USCHO.com 2005-06 preseason poll. While it’s been 18 years since the Badgers sat in that spot, it took Wisconsin less than a month to go … Read more
Even with winter rapidly approaching, Hockey East fans might not want to hold on to their hats. Sure, it’s cold outside and hockey rinks aren’t exactly known for balmy temperatures, but with the way things have been going, there’s a good chance a lot of fans will be tossing hats onto the ice to celebrate … Read more
Two seasons and five games into his third campaign with Omaha, junior defenseman Victor Mancini was well aware that he had still yet to score his first collegiate goal. He finally ticked that box Saturday in the Mavericks’ 3-2 overtime win at home to Western Michigan and did so with a move that looked as … Read more
It’s impossible to win a college hockey championship in November. A hot start doesn’t translate to the March postseason, and plenty of gelling rosters don’t reveal their true potential or greatness until league schedules buckle down for the post-New Year’s Eve second semester schedule. Ask any coach or player throughout college hockey about when they … Read more
It might sound cliche or simple, but it’s hard to overstate just how easily winning can cure even the worst case of the blues. Take Lake Superior State. The Lakers opened their 2023 season with a trip to Michigan State, where they lost both games of the series in front of a packed house at … Read more
When Mercyhurst defeated Bowling Green 4-3 in overtime last Friday, the school posted on X (formerly Twitter) that the victory was the 600th of coach Rick Gotkin’s career. It turns out that after further review, it was “only” his 599th. “There was a typo on my record,” said Gotkin. “But it doesn’t matter to me. … Read more
With a month of the 2023-24 season behind them, the Buckeyes may not be where they’d like to be, but they’re definitely not where they think they’ll be five months from now. “We’re doing fine,” said Ohio State coach Steve Rohlik. “We continue to try to strive to get better. That’s our goal. Lots of … Read more
A little more than a month into the regular season, Hockey East has more than held its own against some of the top programs in the country. The evidence is plentiful — Boston College played a down-to-the wire contest in a 4-3 loss to Denver (NCHC) on Oct. 21, then vaulted to the No. 1 … Read more