{"id":95707,"date":"2009-10-05T21:22:25","date_gmt":"2009-10-06T02:22:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.uscho.com\/blogs\/?p=692"},"modified":"2009-10-05T21:22:25","modified_gmt":"2009-10-06T02:22:25","slug":"the-first-national-ballot-of-the-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/2009\/10\/05\/the-first-national-ballot-of-the-season\/","title":{"rendered":"The first national ballot of the season"},"content":{"rendered":"

The USCHO.com\/CBS College Sports Division I preseason men’s poll<\/a> is out today, and I’ll be the first one to tell you that it doesn’t mean a whole heck of a lot.<\/p>\n

Really, what do we have to go on? Last season and a lot of conjecture, neither of which tends to amount to anything definitive a few weeks into the season.<\/p>\n

Let’s look back at last year’s preseason poll<\/a>. We had Boston College ranked first and Colorado College third. Neither made the NCAA tournament.<\/p>\n

If that happens again, only one of Denver, Boston University and Michigan will make the field of 16. Sounds pretty far-fetched, right? Maybe it is, but just remember that being near the top of the poll at this point isn’t as much of an indicator of success as it is a forecast of potential. And you’ve always got to be careful when throwing the word “potential” out there.<\/p>\n

That being said, I tried to put together as educated a guess as I could when I filled out my first ballot of the season. Here’s how it looked:<\/p>\n

1. Denver<\/p>\n

2. Boston University<\/p>\n

3. Michigan<\/p>\n

4. Notre Dame<\/p>\n

5. Miami<\/p>\n

6. North Dakota<\/p>\n

7. Yale<\/p>\n

8. UMass-Lowell<\/p>\n

9. New Hampshire<\/p>\n

10. Minnesota<\/p>\n

11. Vermont<\/p>\n

12. Wisconsin<\/p>\n

13. Cornell<\/p>\n

14. Princeton<\/p>\n

15. Boston College<\/p>\n

16. Ohio State<\/p>\n

17. St. Cloud State<\/p>\n

18. Harvard<\/p>\n

19. Northeastern<\/p>\n

20. Air Force<\/p>\n

If you’re counting, that’s six teams from Hockey East, five from the WCHA, four each from the CCHA and the ECAC and one from Atlantic Hockey. That’s the same breakdown as the top 20 in the RPI at selection time last season. That’s not a coincidence.<\/p>\n

The actual poll shows six teams from Hockey East, six from the WCHA (I didn’t think Minnesota-Duluth would get as much attention after losing so much from last season), four from the CCHA, three from the ECAC and one from Atlantic Hockey.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The USCHO.com\/CBS College Sports Division I preseason men’s poll is out today, and I’ll be the first one to tell you that it doesn’t mean a whole heck of a lot. Really, what do we have to go on? Last season and a lot of conjecture, neither of which tends to amount to anything definitive […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":140328,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1425],"tags":[1444],"coauthors":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe first national ballot of the season - College Hockey | USCHO.com<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The USCHO.com\/CBS College Sports Division I preseason men's poll is out today, and I'll be the first one to tell you that it doesn't mean a whole heck of\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95707\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The first national ballot of the season - College Hockey | USCHO.com\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The USCHO.com\/CBS College Sports Division I preseason men's poll is out today, and I'll be the first one to tell you that it doesn't mean a whole heck of\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95707\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"College Hockey | USCHO.com\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/OfficialUSCHO\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-10-06T02:22:25+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/uscho_featured-1.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1024\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1024\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Todd D. 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