This Week

This Week in … columns; weekly columns on a league, region or gender-division

D-III Women’s East Week 7 Recap: Plattsburgh wins the East/West Classic, Hamilton gets a ranked sweep, and Colby wins the Castleton Invitational

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This past week in Women’s hockey out east, we saw another huge tournament featuring four top-10 teams, Hamilton pulled off two big wins versus the former #15 team, and Colby remains undefeated after winning the Castleton Invitational.  Plattsburgh wins the Norwich East-West Hockey Classic Over the weekend, Norwich hosted their annual East-West Hockey Classic tournament … Read more

This Week in NCHC Hockey: DeRidder standing tall in goal for North Dakota as Fighting Hawks leaning on defense to gain victories

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It’s hard to argue with the case made in this week’s Tuesday Morning Quarterback column that this college hockey season is reminding us to expect the unexpected. That has been particularly true with several NCHC teams, including North Dakota. As three-time defending regular-season league champions, the Fighting Hawks (7-8-4 overall, 3-5-2 NCHC) sit outside the … Read more

This Week in Hockey East: Reputation as competitive league well-earned this year for high-end conference

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Without prying too much into Providence coach Nate Leaman’s personal life, by all appearances he’s a man of good habits. That might change, however, given how competitive Hockey East has been this year. “I don’t smoke cigarettes, but I might start,” Leaman said recently, with a chuckle. Just how competitive is Hockey East this year? … Read more

This Week in Big Ten Hockey: Wisconsin swept by Minnesota as Badgers ‘go through something like that’ in loss Saturday

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Sometimes when you’re down, every setback seems to add another rung to the ladder you’re climbing. In situations like these, even the littlest things get amplified. Sometimes when you’re down, though, something that looks small to outsiders really is bigger than it appears. It’s only diminished to others because you appear diminished to others. The … Read more

D-III Women’s West Week 7 Recap: #1 vs #2 split the series, St. Olaf has a new record holder, UW-Eau Claire sneaking up

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This past week we had a battle between #1 Gustavus vs #2 UW-River Falls and then #3 Adrian headed out east to compete in the Norwich East-West Hockey Classic. Meanwhile, St. Olaf had a player break the single-game program record for points and assists. Exciting stuff from this past week.  Gustavus & UW-River Falls split … Read more

This Week in NCHC Hockey: Colorado College not investing in transfer portal, stocking roster with ‘guys we think we can pull out a lot of return on’

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It’s less and less surprising these days when college coaches peek through the NCAA transfer portal. There isn’t necessarily anything wrong with just looking, either, as second-year Colorado College coach Kris Mayotte can attest. But he refrained in the last offseason from signing anyone through those means, and that’s helping a Tigers team (6-9-1 overall, … Read more

This Week in Atlantic Hockey: Sluggish first half of ’22-23 season has Holy Cross hungry to turn around fortunes for second-half run

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There have been some growing pains for Holy Cross in the first half of this season. A challenging schedule has meant more losses than wins so far, but the consistency that coach Bill Riga has been looking for is starting to emerge. “We’ve been up and down, especially early in the season,” Riga said. “We’ve … Read more

D-III Women’s East Week 6 Recap: Amherst shocks No. 3 Middlebury, Cortland shocks No. 4 Plattsburgh, Utica’s making some noise

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We had a wild week of Women’s hockey out east as we had three shocking upsets, two involving the same teams and one involving a team that hadn’t been shutout since 11/24/2018! Weeks like this show us once again how the competition levels have never been better and the amount of dominant teams are decreasing … Read more

This Week in CCHA Hockey: Building new South Dakota-based Augustana program from scratch like ‘two sides of the coin,’ says first coach Raboin

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There are some things a head coach at every college program knows he’s going to be doing, no matter if he or she are new to the job or have been there for 20 years: Running practice. Recruiting. Meeting donors and season ticket holders. These are all givens. But for Garrett Raboin, the list of … Read more

This Week in Big Ten Hockey: Struggling on offense, Notre Dame keeping heads high as Irish ‘just not scoring the way I thought we would’

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As the first half of the season begins to wind down, the Fighting Irish aren’t where they’d like to be. With a record of 7-7-2, Notre Dame is 15 points out of first place in the Big Ten standings and is lowish – for Notre Dame, anyway – in the very early PairWise Rankings. None … Read more

D-III Women’s West Week 6 Recap: Gustavus stays perfect, St. Norbert & Aurora continue to make the NCHA a battle with Adrian, and a look ahead

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Another week passed in D-III Women’s hockey on the western side of things. No surprises or huge game results unlike last week, however, this week will be huge for some west teams and these games will certainly influence the polls/pairwise standings. Meanwhile, the NCHA conference is showing its strength, boasting three-ranked teams who have a … Read more

This Week in CCHA Hockey: Coming off first Division I sweep, St. Thomas working to ‘be the best we can each and every day’

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There comes a point in the life cycle of every college hockey program where something that was once considered a “milestone” stops being significant and simply becomes “routine.” This past weekend St. Thomas did two of those things – both of which head coach Rico Blasi would much prefer are soon just routine things his … Read more

This Week in NCHC Hockey: Miller providing scoring punch for Omaha as junior is ‘going to do nothing but continue to improve’

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One reason unranked Omaha pulled off last weekend’s biggest upset victory, on Friday at top-ranked Denver, is a junior Mavericks forward who’s now on a four-game goal streak. Matt Miller posted a point in eight of his first 11 games this season, and the United States National Team Development Program product scored twice in UNO’s … Read more

D-III Women’s East Week 5 Recap: Bowdoin’s top-5 upset, Oswego’s streaking, and the Cardinal/Panther Classic east perspective

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This past weekend on the eastern front of hockey, we saw Bowdoin pull off a big upset during the annual Codfish Bowl tournament hosted this year by UMass-Boston. We saw Oswego continue their recent momentum, while also revisiting the Cardinal/Panther Classic from the east perspective.  Bowdoin takes down #5  This year’s Codfish Bowl hosted by … Read more

This Week in Atlantic Hockey: Riding four-game winning streak, Mercyhurst aiming to keep momentum going through end of 2022

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Mercyhurst wasn’t getting a lot of puck luck earlier in the season. Coach Rick Gotkin, in his 35th season behind the Lakers’ bench, felt that his squad was better than its 1-9-2 record indicated. “I think that our early record said as much about our opponents as it did about us,” he said. “We played … Read more

This Week in ECAC Hockey: Fresh off Mayor’s Cup win over Providence, Brown taking strides ‘to be an elite team’

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The ride from Brown University’s Meehan Auditorium to Providence College’s Schneider Arena isn’t a very long trip across Providence. It only takes two or three miles to head down College Hill, and the drive largely avoids the busy downtown area around Federal Hill and the Providence Place Mall. It stays on the periphery, and with … Read more