Wrapping it up nicely

Regular season championships carry no weight in selection for the NCAA tournament, so it’s easy to look past them as inconsequential. I don’t buy into that. Yes, there are two championships that are more important — a league postseason title, which carries an automatic bid to the national tournament, and the NCAA crown — but … Read more

This is a new one

Just when you thought you’ve seen everything … Wisconsin’s John Mitchell was ejected from Saturday night’s game against Denver in the third period for excessive roughness on a hit up high on the Pioneers’ Tyler Ruegsegger. If only that was the end of the story. Outside the Kohl Center media room after the game, we … Read more

A bit of randomness

A few random thoughts as we close another weekend of college hockey: ** There aren’t many (weeks, that is) left before we get into postseason play. Two in Atlantic Hockey, the CCHA and ECAC Hockey; three in the CHA, Hockey East and the WCHA. Yale has a chance to put away its first ECAC title … Read more

Shootouts won’t count double

With news Thursday that the WCHA women’s league won’t use the result of shootouts to determine tiebreakers in the league standings, everyone is in agreement. The CCHA and the Hockey East women’s league already made that same determination, and it only seems to make sense. Those leagues are awarding shootout winners an extra point on … Read more

A lot left to figure out in WCHA

After Friday’s games, the top eight teams in the WCHA standings were separated by eight points. After Saturday, it was seven points between first place and eighth place. At that rate, this is going to get ridiculous. But the WCHA, as close as it is, isn’t without company in the tight-standings department. In ECAC Hockey, … Read more

UAH seeks spot in CCHA

Alabama-Huntsville is applying for a spot in the CCHA, the Huntsville Times reported today. At the same time, UAH is expressing some interest in the WCHA, with athletic director Jim Harris telling the newspaper that it will send a “letter of intent” to the WCHA in regard to making an application. The WCHA briefly opened … Read more

Ranking the tournaments

Every year, maybe just for my own amusement, I compile the rankings of college hockey’s holiday tournaments in order of combined winning percentage. It started as a quest a few years back to track how many tournaments there were on a yearly basis — it seemed like the number was getting out of hand — … Read more

A good story to share

For all the Sean Avery stories there are in hockey, you know there are 10 more stories like this that don’t get the attention they deserve. Or maybe they don’t get attention because those responsible for them just know it’s what they should be doing. The Chicago Blackhawks are being celebrated around the Internet, and … Read more

Showcasing the Showcase

Is the College Hockey Showcase positioned on a bad weekend? Michigan State coach Rick Comley thinks so. Comley would like to see the games between Big Ten teams Michigan, Michigan State, Minnesota and Wisconsin moved away from the Thanksgiving weekend, when attendance is off. “I think they’re prime games and they should be played at … Read more