Time off in college hockey can be a good thing. Bruises can heal and players can get some mental rest, something coaches say is critical especially for freshman who arrive on campus and hit the ground running. Plenty of positives. But the biggest challenge often coming out of break is to pick up where you … Read more
Rivalries. When these teams get together, they say you can throw out the records. Plenty often, a rivalry game does turn into an upset and in this week’s column, we’ll look at two of the oldest and greatest rivalries in college hockey – Boston College-Boston University and Michigan-Michigan State. Those two battles will have a … Read more
As this season has gone on and we’ve been able to watch the trends upon which sports books have set their lines, we’re certainly seeing a more cautious approach to line setting. Well, most of the time. This week, in two of the five games we’re looking at the lines have become almost lopsided towards … Read more
How would a $2,460 win sound to you? Not bad, especially if you perfectly picked all five games in last week’s USCHO Edge column and parlayed them on a $100 bet. Certainly, we make it sound easy. It’s not. None of our eight writers got all five correct. In fact, no one got all five … Read more
While there are some handsome games to handicap below, and you will get plenty of details on them, I wanted to take the opportunity to talk about some long-term lines that are available through DraftKings on the eventual national champion. Michigan was the preseason favorite on the line and continues to be. Right now the … Read more
We are now more than a month into the college hockey season (excluding the Ivies) and part of me feels like the bookmakers are beginning to get a pulse on the college hockey beat. Trust me, it isn’t easy. And this week, I’ll try to explain why some lines even feel a tiny bit lopsided. … Read more
We are four weeks into the USCHO Edge column and I’m beginning to see a trend: for the most part, the oddsmakers are doing a better job at setting lines. Last weekend, four of the five games we handicapped were won by the favorites and the fifth was taken by an even-money (+100) underdog, Notre … Read more
Last Friday’s games, which featured five matchups of nationally-ranked opponents, proved pretty difficult to handicap. Of the eight USCHO staff, only four were above .500 and just one didn’t take a loss (nice job Jack Hittinger). For the first time in the two seasons of writing this column, we also had non-conference games that featured … Read more
Gambling, indeed, is a fickle beast. Proof positive was last Friday’s upset by Miami (+120) on the road of UMass Lowell. The River Hawks dominated the game in many aspects – shot attempts, shots on goal, face-offs – but Miami jumped to a 3-0 lead and walked away with what was really the only major … Read more
Welcome back to another season of USCHO Edge, a column that looks at college hockey through the light of the oddsmakers. Not surprisingly, as sports wagering becomes legalized in more and more portions of the country, there are more and more college hockey games that can be wagered upon in areas that allow sports betting. … Read more
I said it last week in this space, that if you can pick the right upset, there is a lot of money to be made this time of year. A week ago, Cornell, a team that pretty much most who follow the ECAC know is one of the top teams, knocked off Quinnipiac at a … Read more
Let’s face it. Monsters are difficult to grab. Last week, we had two underdogs win but it was Providence at +115 and Denver at +110. This week, we have some monster underdogs, most notably Cornell at +220 traveling to Quinnipiac and Michigan Tech at +225 hosting Minnesota State. I don’t want to offer advice, but … Read more
As we head towards the end of the season, it feels like the sports books are finally beginning to figure out college hockey. Let’s all understand: nationwide sports betting is still very new, particularly to companies like DraftKinds and FanDuel. Even experienced sportsbooks like Caesars, if they run college hockey odds, likely don’t have an … Read more
One man’s trash is another man’s treasure. That’s a pretty good cliche that is used in everyday life, but it also can apply to sports wagering. It’s just as easy for someone to hate a team and avoid wagering on them as it is for another to see the ultimate value. This being Super Bowl … Read more
It shouldn’t be surprising as a bettor that as a season rolls along, there are less and less opportunities to find the edges in game lines that will net you a big payday. The same is the case in most every sport. This week, at least when I visited the app, DraftKings dropped all money … Read more
So here we are in the middle of January. Somehow it feels like the COVID surge that has postponed and canceled many games is in back of us, fingers crossed. And as we creep towards the end of the season, we have an interesting weekend where five different games or two-game series feature nationally-ranked clubs … Read more
By this point in the season, most bettors should be approaching their selections confident they have a feel for the teams they bet most often, particularly if those are some of the nationally-ranked teams we reference in this column most often. But there are often variables that bettors need to take into account each weekend. … Read more
If you read the last edition of Bettor’s Edge well before the holidays, there was a hope to return a week ago. But the schedule became pretty fractured between limited schedules and postponements related to COVID. Those postponements continue yet again this weekend, and it seems the popular opinion is that they will continue likely … Read more
I’ve said if before but can only say it again: gambling really can humble you. Last week, the collective record for all 10 writers on the USCHO staff was 20-30, with no one posting better than a 3-2 week. Had we as a group all head to the sportsbooks last Friday, we’d have made a … Read more
Where have all the underdogs gone? Last weekend, nonconference plays created a bunch of heavy underdogs (Maine was +290 and was in a one-goal game into the closing minutes) but not a single one hit. The only dog to win from last weekend’s column was Arizona State (+130) and that was nearly a pick ’em. … Read more