This Week in … columns; weekly columns on a league, region or gender-division
Beanpot Final: The Killer Bs This Monday, it’ll be The Killer Bs — BC and BU — meeting in a dream Beanpot championship game. The Commonwealth Avenue archrivals advanced with an unprecedented pair of first-round shutouts, Boston College blanking Northeastern, 6-0, and Boston University over Harvard, 4-0. The Valentine’s Day tilt will be the 14th … Read more
The great split Finally, with just four weekends remaining in the Western Collegiate Hockey Association regular season, we are seeing some separation in the conference standings. The contenders have not exactly broken away from the pretenders yet, but we’re getting there. As it stands this week, there is a definite bottom three, a middle pack … Read more
Playoff Picture Becomes Clearer, Muddier Just when you thought the MAAC standings were beginning to get clearer, guess again. Similar to last season, the top of the standings is clearing up, as Quinnipiac is very close to sewing up its second straight regular-season championship. After that, though, it’s pretty much anybody’s guess. As mentioned right … Read more
A Tiger’s Tale What adjectives describe Princeton’s Benoit Morin? Around the league many have been thrown about, good and bad. The senior has made quite an impression on his teammates, coaches and opponents over his three-plus years in a Tiger uniform, but this weekend he may make his imprint on the Princeton record books. His … Read more
The View From Below So, you’ve slept through your alarm and you’re running late for work. You’re the last one to the shower, and there is no hot water left. The coffee’s all gone, and you’re having difficulty locating a clean pair of anything. Last night’s snowfall adds another ten minutes to your morning routine, … Read more
A Round Of Applause We are halfway through the ECAC season, as all teams have nine ECAC games left on the schedule except for Harvard, which has eight. And with the season half over, we’d like to take discuss what fans are discussing right now — who, at the moment, should win the awards the … Read more
The First Two Mondays In February The 48th Beanpot Tournament is shaping up as potentially one of the best in a long time. "This particular year, all four teams playing have a realistic chance to join the 12 teams in the national tournament in March," says BC coach Jerry York. "That makes this tournament a … Read more
The final countdown This shouldn’t be such a shock every year, but sometimes it seems like it. With five weeks remaining in the Western Collegiate Hockey Association’s regular season, every spot — from No. 1 to No. 10 — is up for grabs. Sure, some teams are locked into finishing in a certain area (Michigan … Read more
Racing to the Finish Anyone take a look at the MAAC standings yet? They’re not a jam-packed as some leagues like Hockey East, where a serious NCAA tournament contender may not get home ice. But at the same time, there’s plenty of congestion. Like a nice spring day at Churchill Downs, the MAAC has three … Read more
Double Dipping Looking at the action across the country this week, four games involve Top 10 teams playing each other. All four are in Hockey East. #1 UNH faces #6 Boston University in a home-and-home series, while #5 Maine hosts #9 Boston College for two at Alfond Arena. VCRs should be whirring since the three … Read more
It’s Lonely at the Top…and the Bottom Perhaps it’s the same every year, in every league. A couple or several teams stand out, look to make a run for the regular-season title, and leave everyone else in the dust. Then there are programs that can’t get their feet out of the mud, perennially anchoring their … Read more
Standing Tall Things are starting to even out. It’s that time of year in the ECAC when all 12 (of course, this year it’s 11) teams start to get back those games in hand. Except for the Vermont situation, the next two to three weeks will essentially even everyone out. Harvard traditionally has the most … Read more
The big comeback? Is this in fact the great resurgence of the University of Minnesota? Maybe that’s a little too dramatic. But then again, it’s been a while since the Gophers have been golden at Engelstad Arena. Time and time again they would go into Grand Forks, come close to beating North Dakota but still … Read more
It Keeps Growing, and Growing… For the second time in as many seasons, the MAAC hockey conference is growing, as the league announced the addition of Army as its 11th member Monday. Commissioner Rich Ensor, joined by representatives from the MAAC as well as Army, announced the expansion at a telephone press conference. What does … Read more
Act I With a two-game sweep over Miami, Michigan moved into sole possession of first place last weekend, leaving Michigan State and Northern Michigan deadlocked for second, and once again the CCHA looks like a three-tier league, with three teams on top, a bunch of teams in the middle, and several teams struggling to grab … Read more
This hasn’t happened in a while This is a weird situation. Not many times in the last few years have we been forced to give credit to North Dakota for a great effort … in a losing cause. Most of the time, when the Sioux give that kind of performance, they win. But as hard … Read more
The Playoff Race It’s only January, but the playoff outlook is already more and more fascinating. Hockey East put four teams in this week’s U.S. College Hockey Online Top 10: #1 UNH, #5 Maine, #6 BU and #9 BC. When you add in Northeastern, which also garnered support, and look at its third-place position in … Read more
North Country, Part II It’s rivalry week once again in the North Country. Clarkson travels to St. Lawrence on Friday for the second game of the season between the two. It also serves as the kickoff for the ECAC television package. The two teams battled to a 1-1 tie the first weekend of December and … Read more
Tournament Time…NCAA Tournament, That Is U.S. College Hockey Online debuted the 1999-2000 Pairwise Rankings Thursday. For those unfamiliar with the PWR, it is a mathematical ranking system which mimics the selection process used by the NCAA tournament committee in picking the at-large bids to the year-ending championship tourney. The PWR compares every tournament-eligible team in … Read more
Four Points, Baby! Tied for fifth place in the ECAC standings and only two points away from third is not a bad place to be if you’re Dartmouth. Shaking off losses to Yale and Harvard, in which the Big Green was outscored 9-2, Bob Gaudet’s squad turned in its most impressive weekend of the season … Read more