This Week in … columns; weekly columns on a league, region or gender-division
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
Wisconsin is off the schneid, Colorado College remains undefeated (and so do the Gophers) and Alaska Anchorage is in third. Gotta love the WCHA, folks. Red Baron Pizza WCHA Players of the Week Red Baron WCHA Offensive Player of the Week: Tommy Grant, UAA. Why: Scored three goals to help his Seawolves earn a weekend … Read more
Talk About Scary What a perfect time for Halloween — less than a week before a hotly-contested U.S. presidential election and after three full weeks of college hockey. Given how the season has begun for the CCHA, which would you say is scarier? In the early going this season, CCHA fans have witnessed more than … Read more
Nutmeg, Anyone? Last week, it was squads named “Falcons” making a splash. This time around, Connecticut teams roared, posting a 3-0-1 record in league play. Connecticut looked impressive with a sweep of Army, and Sacred Heart took three points from RIT. For the Huskies, it was the first time in school history that they had … Read more
Ready or not, here they come! No, I’m not talking about the ECAC regular season games. I’m talking about all the dreadfully punny and ubiquitous headlines you’ll be seeing over the next seven days. Halloween and Election Day? These are the events that make editors’ lives worth living. If any of them could write, they’d … Read more
With Halloween upon us, scary times have hit College Hockey America. But it’s not all bad. Seriously. On the opposite end of the league’s well-documented uncertainty for the future, look to the present and many positives came out of last weekend’s nonconference games, including one upset, one near-upset and a 13-0 drubbing of an exhibition … 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
It’s Halloween week and I’m coming up with nothing scary for you, except my self-deprecating style. Hey, it’s the way I write — scariest of all, perhaps? Red Baron Pizza WCHA Players of the Week Red Baron WCHA Offensive Player of the Week: Ryan Stoa, UM. Why: Scored three goals over two games to help … Read more
Well. That was a crazy little start to league play now, wasn’t it? Red Baron Pizza WCHA Players of the Week Red Baron WCHA Offensive Player of the Week: Kevin Clark, UAA. Why: Scored two goals and added two assists to help UAA win the Brice Alaska Goal Rush tournament and was named tournament MVP. … Read more
An Ugly Coincidence This is unreal. After beginning the season on a sobering note last week with news of the assault that Michigan junior defenseman Steve Kampfer suffered and the suspension by the Wolverine football team of player Mike Milano while the incident is being investigated, I thought we could return to the lighter side … Read more
A Wonderful Time Of The Year When last season every team but Merrimack lost its Friday night opener, the first column here boiled down to this: “Mayday! Mayday!” Not so this year. Last weekend, Hockey East went 7-2-1 to run its overall nonconference record to 15-4-2. Every team but Massachusetts-Lowell stands at least at .500 … Read more
Deja Vu Rand Pecknold is hoping he’s not an unwitting protagonist in a Groundhog Day sequel. The veteran coach will remember only too vividly how his vaunted offense went into the tank early last season, and the team defensive scheme didn’t gel to the necessary extent to win those games. To wit, he was quoted … Read more
Falcons Soar Last weekend was a good one for teams nicknamed “Falcons.” While the rest of Atlantic Hockey went 0-9 in non-conference matchups, Air Force swept Bemidji in resounding fashion, and Bentley earned a split with a pair of ECAC teams, including a 4-3 overtime win at Rensselaer. Senior Jeff Gumaer’s goal, his second of … Read more
Niagara enjoyed its last moment of last season’s championship glory last Friday night, but leave it to St. Lawrence to spoil it. The Purple Eagles unveiled two new banners at Dwyer Arena commemorating their CHA tournament win and NCAA tournament appearance only to then go out and get smoked, 5-1, in front of 1,805 fans, … Read more
Travel Hockey The Atlantic Hockey season opened with most teams traveling long distances to play their first games. Canisius was at Ferris State, RIT traveled to Bowling Green and Western Michigan, Mercyhurst was at St. Cloud, and Air Force flew to Sacred Heart for a pair to kick off the conference schedule. Connecticut earned the … Read more
As much as we’d like to try and predict how the WCHA is going to turn out, we’re never accurate given how competitive the league is and about a million other factors. I’d like to think I have as good a shot as any with my names-out-of-a-hat method, but the season throws us all curveballs … Read more
The Beast of the East? Late afternoon this past Saturday, yours truly penned a short sidebar that appeared alongside the Massachusetts-North Dakota game story on USCHO.com. I asked the question, mostly tongue-in-cheek, whether we could judge a semi-domination for Hockey East over the WCHA. At that point, Boston College had beaten Wisconsin, and both Boston … Read more
There’s an old quip that can now be applied to each CHA school. Beer will not be served at any of the schools’ games this year because they all lost their openers. Groan. Heck, even a double groan with debris tossed in the direction of this writer. It would be well-deserved. Alabama-Huntsville and Bemidji State … Read more
Welcome back everybody to another season of utterly inept and pointless predictions, complemented by brutally misleading statistics and a smattering of predictable coach-speak and clichés. Oh, I guess there’s some skating-stick-ball thing going down, too. And just like the teams, I’m going to ease my way into the new year with a few pithy observations … Read more
An Unsettling Start Longtime readers and CCHA fans know that I like to start the season with a column that’s more on the lighthearted side. After all, we’re all happy that it’s hockey season again, and this early in the season there isn’t much of substance to explore. But there’s nothing light about the mood … Read more