This Week in … columns; weekly columns on a league, region or gender-division
Working on the power play, Harvard has been one of the best in the nation so far this season, converting 23.8 percent of the time.One of the keys to the Crimson’s success has been two freshmen defensemen in Adam Fox and John Marino.Fox, who’s out of the U.S. National Team Development Program, has contributed five … Read more
If it’s a weekend and there’s hockey to be played, then the Golden Gophers must be on the road. For Thanksgiving, Minnesota heads east to play Northeastern Friday and Boston College Saturday. Last weekend, the 5-3-2 Gophers split a home-and-home series against Minnesota State, and the Gophers have played just four home games this season … Read more
After going winless in six games, things were not looking good for North Dakota headed into a road series against St. Cloud State last weekend.The Fighting Hawks hadn’t swept St. Cloud on the road in 18 years. The power play was struggling, the offense as a whole was struggling, having scored more than two goals … Read more
It’s been a struggle for Bowling Green to find its identity this season. Before the season started the Falcons were a trendy preseason pick to win the WCHA and advance to the NCAA tournament for first time in decades. But the Falcons started off flat. They had some subtractions due to injury, but the effort … Read more
In recent years, any discussions about women’s Division III hockey start and end with Plattsburgh. The Cardinals are three-time defending national champions and own a total of five of the past 10 national titles. To say expectations are high in Plattsburgh would be an understatement, but no one expects more than coach Kevin Houle and … Read more
It’s been quite the first few weeks of the hockey season for new Ohio State coach Nadine Muzerall. Hired just 20 days before the Buckeyes were set to open the season, she wasn’t actually cleared for a work visa — she’s Canadian — until the team was already in Troy, New York, to face Rensselaer … Read more
The good news for the Plymouth State Panthers and coach Craig Russell is that they picked up two key conference wins over Massachusetts-Dartmouth and Salem State last week. The bad news is the overtime results have their coach exploring Hair Club for Men options. “It doesn’t go grey from games like that”, noted Russell. “It … Read more
Riley Colvard is on track to have the best season of his college hockey career at Wisconsin-Stout. The senior already has as many goals as he scored last season (four) and he has tallied three assists as well. If you ask the senior forward what has changed, however, he says it’s pretty much about being … Read more
The more often Omaha has played on the road this season, the more head coach Dean Blais has liked what he’s seen. That’s a good thing for the Mavericks, especially with a road-heavy schedule leading up to their holiday break. Before that, what Blais hopes to see come around are UNO’s results while playing at … Read more
When Massachusetts entered Hockey East in 1994, short-term expectations were low. There had been no UMass varsity hockey at all from 1979 to 1993, and the newly revived program had played only a smattering of Division I opponents the previous year, facing primarily D-III teams. To no one’s surprise, the Minutemen finished last in the … Read more
With a storied history and passionate fan base, Cornell’s Lynah Rink is generally regarded as one of college hockey’s top venues. The only problem for the Big Red is that is hasn’t gotten a chance to play there yet this season. Cornell began its schedule with five straight games on the road. That, coupled with … Read more
It was supposed to take a while for Robert Morris to recover from last season. The Colonials, thanks in part to a large senior group that set team records and boasted multiple all-league award winners, led Atlantic Hockey wire to wire last season, winning 24 games before bowing to RIT in the championship game. Nine … Read more
Tony Granato said before the season that he took over a skilled team that lacked confidence. Eight games into his college coaching career, Granato has already seen some improvements in team morale and the results are following. Wisconsin owns a 5-3-0 record, which is three victories shy of its total from last season. “I think … Read more
If one were looking ahead on the schedule a month ago, before the start of the season, this week’s Minnesota State-Bemidji State matchup would likely have been important only to Minnesotans. It’s a nice rivalry, a healthy one that dates back to the programs’ Division II days, but in recent years, the Mavericks have been … Read more
Eight games in 19 days. That’s simply not something that resembles a college hockey schedule. But that’s exactly what Boston College, after finishing Tuesday night’s game against New Hampshire, had played. And the Eagles came through that stretch with a 7-0-1 record. Add in a Sunday win five days prior to the stretch beginning and … Read more
When I spoke with Eric Lang prior to this season, he talked about how the American International program found itself injected with a new attitude. He talked about the players’ buy-in with a new coach, how they wanted to improve and be pushed. At the surface, the Yellow Jackets looked the same, but the infrastructure … Read more
Last year was a breakout season for the Colgate Raiders. They won 22 games and made it to the ECAC tournament semifinals. It was an incredible turnaround from the 2014-15 season, where the team finished 7-25-2. The Raiders weren’t done. This season, they are thus far undefeated and are currently ranked fifth in the D-I … Read more
Jack Lewis recorded his second career hat trick earlier this month against Concordia and already has five goals on the season for Lake Forest. Skill has something to do with his success, but as Lewis, a senior forward for the Foresters, puts it, having opportunities to make plays does as well. “It’s just about being … Read more
This week, the column is all about some of the minutia of the league, the little things that seem to be adding up to some interesting first impressions for B1G Hockey in the early going. That scoring margin Three of the top ten scoring offenses nationally belong to Big Ten teams: Ohio State (4.44 goals … Read more
There were some high hopes this season for St. Lawrence. Part of those positive vibes were on the back on junior goalie Kyle Hayton, but things haven’t gone his way in the first eight games as SLU stumbled to a 3-4-1 mark. In that same stretch, Hayton was pulled twice in back-to-back games against Massachusetts-Lowell … Read more