This Week in … columns; weekly columns on a league, region or gender-division
With back-to-back stellar recruiting classes and four of the top five picks in last year’s NHL Draft, there has been a lot of hype surrounding Michigan for a while now. That hype, however, hasn’t led to anything worthy of hanging on a banner, yet. Michigan finished fourth in the Big Ten last year and bowed … Read more
When it is awarded to either Minnesota State or Bemidji State on Saturday night in Mankato, the Mason Cup will be at the end of its long journey back to its rightful place in the hands of the champions of the CCHA tournament. The CCHA’s championship trophy was one of the first things CCHA commissioner … Read more
Three years ago, Clarkson’s Chris Klack scored in overtime to win the ECAC Hockey championship at the 1980 Herb Brooks Arena in Lake Placid. It’s been a long wait since then. For the first time since 2019, ECAC Hockey is heading back to Lake Placid for the league’s championship weekend. The 2020 tournament was cancelled … Read more
When Massachusetts senior forward Anthony Del Gaizo said he hopes his team will eventually play on a “bigger stage” than the one it will play on this weekend, he wasn’t speaking literally. This weekend’s Hockey East men’s semifinals and final will be held at TD Garden, home of the NHL’s Boston Bruins and the biggest … Read more
The opening round of the Atlantic Hockey tournament consisted of a pair of sweeps, one by the favorites and one by an underdog. At Mercyhurst, the story was Lakers goaltender Kyle McClellan who stopped 74 of 76 Holy Cross shots he faced in a pair of 2-1 wins. At Niagara, Bentley got a pair of … Read more
For as much as coaches and players talk about how brutal NCHC campaigns are, it comes as a surprise that only now, in Year 9 of its existence, the conference has crowned split regular-season champions. That quirk was news to Denver coach David Carle, whose Pioneers earned on Saturday a share of the Penrose Cup … Read more
Michigan has lost nine times this season and this weekend it’ll get another crack at the team responsible for 44 percent of those losses. The Wolverines will host Notre Dame on Saturday in the first Big Ten Tournament semifinal. The Irish won consecutive overtime games at Yost Ice Arena in November and wrapped up the … Read more
Three times this season, Northern Michigan has knocked off the No. 1 team in the country. They’ll get a chance to do it for a fourth time on Saturday night when they take on No. 1 seeded Minnesota State, the nation’s top-ranked team. The fifth-seeded Wildcats defeated fourth-seeded Lake Superior State in a tough three-game … Read more
All four home teams won their playoff series in the opening round of the ECAC Hockey postseason. Now, they’ll head on the road to try and repeat that success. Colgate and Union swept their respective opponents, while St. Lawrence and Rensselaer won in three games. The Saints beat Brown 4-3 in overtime on Sunday, while … Read more
With the single-elimination Hockey East tournament set to begin Wednesday, there’s only one absolute certainty — one team will win it, hoist the Lamoriello Trophy at TD Garden on March 19, and earn the league’s automatic bid to the NCAA tournament. And while it’s unthinkable that Hockey East will wind up with the tournament winner … Read more
The NCAA Selection Show is at 9 pm eastern on ESPNews. Before then, we have to find out who receives the conference auto-bids and how the Pairwise will shake out. The CHA already completed their tournament last weekend. Syracuse took the title and is waiting to find out where they’ll play. The NEWHA tournament finishes … Read more
It was an unseasonably warm Wednesday afternoon in Omaha — 75 degrees, on March 2 — when Mavericks coach Mike Gabinet spoke about a UNO team that seems to be heating up. Six points back in the NCHC standings from fourth-place Minnesota Duluth, UNO (20-14) is all but assured of a road trip for the … Read more
The Big Ten playoffs start this weekend, and here are reasons for and against each team winning the championship and getting the automatic bid to the NCAA tournament. Michigan Why the Wolverines will win the tournament: Michigan failed to take its name off the list of teams to never win a Big Ten regular season … Read more
When the dust settled on the 2021-22 Atlantic Hockey regular season, we were left with the following seedings for the upcoming AHA tournament: 1. American International 2. Canisius 3. Army West Point 4. Rochester Institute of Technology 5. Sacred Heart 6. Air Force 7. Mercyhurst 8. Niagara 9. Bentley 10. Holy Cross Army West Point … Read more
The Mason Cup is back. After a nine-year absence, the CCHA will award the championship trophy once again to the winner of its conference tournament, which begins with quarterfinal action this week. The trophy, named after famed Bowling Green, Lake Superior State and Michigan State coaching legend Ron Mason, was created in 2001. “We were … Read more
In the end, there was relatively little change in the standings during the final regular-season weekend in ECAC Hockey. Three of the top four teams – Quinnipiac, Clarkson, and Harvard – entered the weekend having already clinched a first-round bye. The fourth team, Cornell, blanked Princeton 4-0 Saturday to hold on to the final top-four … Read more
While Marty Scarano treated all sports under his watch equally in his more than two decades as athletic director at New Hampshire, there’s no question that hockey holds a special place in his heart. In fact, it was hockey that brought Scarano to New Hampshire at the turn of the millennium. Then the AD at … Read more
The dust had barely settled on Michigan’s 3-0 victory over Ohio State last weekend when Mel Pearson started looking forward Michigan’s regular-season finale at Notre Dame. The Wolverines roll into this weekend on an eight-game winning streak and are in the catbird seat when you look at the Big Ten standings. Michigan has 51 conference … Read more
With its inaugural season winding down, firsts for Colorado College’s Ed Robson Arena are starting to come less regularly. Two more came last weekend, though, when the Tigers earned their first two overtime wins, and CC’s first weekend sweep, at the new on-campus facility. The Tigers (9-18-3) had lost five straight heading into last weekend’s … Read more
With one weekend left in the regular season in Atlantic Hockey, it’s down to the wire with eight of the 10 playoffs spots still to be determined. The top six teams in the standings will get a first-round bye. The top four will host quarterfinal series beginning March 11. Seeds seven through 10 will pair … Read more