We’re done eating turkey and ham, unwrapping gifts, and watching meaningless bowl games. It’s back to hockey and the CHN Staff has nailed down a pretty solid preview of this year’s holiday tournaments.

If I had to choose which one to go with, I’d actually have to get into a little Paper / Rock / Scissors action with the Florida College Classic (UNH, Cornell, Maine, and Western Michigan), the Ledyard Bank Tournament (North Dakota, Dartmouth, Boston University and St. Lawrence) and the Great Lakes Invitiational (Michigan State, Harvard, Michigan, and Michigan Tech). All have their own appeal, and a victory in these tournaments will likely send the winner off and running for the rest of the season, something that is sorely needed especially in the case of the Ledyard Tourney participants who are really looking for that spark and consistently to lock down a strong NCAA bid.

There’s also the mandatory nod to the Seawolves and Nanooks going at it again this weekend in Anchorage. Chippy will likely be the word to use other than balmy as it’s a comfy 20 in Anchorage as opposed to the -40′s they were seeing to the north just a week ago.

You’ll be also able to catch quite a few of these games on that amazing “television” that many people received for the holidays this year. This is the time of year where coverage really starts ramping up across the country now that football season is essentially over. Be sure to enjoy it!

It took most of the season, but the PUCK Rankings finally had enough of North Dakota’s play and booted them from the charts. In a pretty slow week of hockey Denver makes the biggest leap from #11 to #8, putting them right next to Colorado College. For two teams that looked pretty slow out of the gate, fans in Colorado must be pretty happy, not only to see successful squads, but some more meaningful rivary games in the future. Lots of streaking or very hot teams in the rankings right now. It will be interesting to see how teams come out of the gate after two and even three week layoffs… refreshed? or rusty?

CHN Blog “PUCK” Rankings
December 18th, 2006

Bumped:North Dakota

Those wacky folks out west, dgoddard of Denver and CHN Penalty Box lore, and Donald of UAA and USCHO permanent vacation lore, have switched blogs this week.  So far the commentary has remained civil, but it’s only Wednesday.  Check back on Friday afternoon to see how things are fairing, and to see if it’s possible to be banned from blogger.

Looking around the blogosphere we find this little bit from Kevin Allenspach which speaks volumes to how fed up ECAC fans and coaches are with the leagues officiating this year.  One can already here the complaints coming from April when NCAA tourney games will be reffed by ECAC officials.  Cornell coach Mike Schaffer has made his opinion known on the issue as well.

The Northern Michigan Blog reviews their first half of the season, while Runnin With The Dogs examines goodwill gone wrong at the DECC.  It’s too bad the good will of people throwing things on the ice ends in disaster for the home team.  If you’re going to ruin a good time, at least throw food, like Bagels.

Ahh the sweet smell of stability. This week it looks like things went pretty smoothly with just a flip of positions happening in most spots with the exception of North Dakota which plummeted six spots to #16 in this week’s PUCK Rankings. UMass gets the boot and Michigan State joins the party this week. In comparison to the unveling of this week’s KRACH, we’re actually feeling a bit more confident in our rankings at this point in timethan CHN’s officially endorsed system (if you don’t know what KRACH is educate yourself NOW!)

I didn’t say that to enrage Wodon.. I just said it because I believe the KRACH to be best at predicting the teams who should go to the NCAA Tournament at the end of the season, while the PUCK Rankings highlight the best teams right NOW. Until more games are played I leerily look at things like KRACH and Pairwise, despite the fact that at this point in the season they’re still more legitimate than the final BCS results this year. I suspect by the end of the year both will look very similar.
CHN Blog “PUCK” Rankings
December 11th, 2006

Bumped: University of Massachusetts-Amherst

It’s cold and dreary here in Beantown, and the dog days of winter are suddenly here. Yes, it’s early December, but it’s the time of year where the sticks get put into their hockey bags, and the books come out of their backpacks. Things are starting to slow down, and in about a week or so, most of us will be hockeyless until Holiday tournament roll around.

That being said there’s still plenty of intriguing matchups on the docket this week.

First, a really interesting non-conference match between Joe Marsh’s St. Lawrence squad and his alma mater, New Hampshire. SLU is coming off of a devastating loss to arch-rival Clarkson, but has been one of the better squads in the ECACHL. The Saints are very young, and we’ll get a chance to see if they can rebound or will remain crushed by a UNH squad that is playing some of the best hockey in the country. They’re unbeaten in their last eleven and their two losses on the season, both by one goal, both by teams that have been ranked this season.

While not a marquee matchup, we’ll get to see Boston University for the first time since their brutal “own goal” loss to Boston College, and the controversy that ensued later that evening which involved several Terrier players. No team rules appeared to be broken, but their concentration may have been. Will they be able to focus?

Notre Dame takes on Michigan after a big sweep of TAFKAF. Michigan and Notre Dame are both on Miami’s heels, and both need these points. A sweep for either squad would be huge in terms of the CCHA standings. A sweep for Notre Dame would be even bigger in terms of bolstering their reputation on a national level. Why 12-3-1 isn’t doing it for some fans blows my mind.

A matchup that normally would make any hockey fan go into a frenzy out west, suddenly is a side show, with 5-9-2 Wisconsin facing 7-6-1 North Dakota. Both teams NEED a sweep in this series to regain a little swagger heading into the holidays, Wisconsin even more so as they stand 8th in the WCHA.

Michigan Tech takes another shot at trying to prove they can not just hang with the big boys, but win some too when they face Minnesota who is now unbeaten in sixteen games.

No movement in the top four of this week’s PUCK Rankings although Minnesota came dangerously close to seeing their 14 game unbeaten streak end on Friday. Denver takes a beating after being swept by archrival Colorado College dropping seven spots to #15. St. Cloud continues to impress rising up to the #6 position after sweeping a strong Michigan Tech squad, making it six in a row. Aside from that, not a lot of movement except at the bottom, where Clarkson, Cornell and UMass all return to the rankings after picking up points, along with Yale, Michigan State and Michigan Tech not being able to make it through the weekend unscathed.

CHN Blog “PUCK” Rankings
December 4th, 2006

Bumped: Michigan State, Michigan Tech, Yale

In a call that I have never seen, and may never seen again, RPI defenseman Reid Kipp was hit with a triple minor in tonight’s contest between RPI and Colgate. Kipp and Colgate forward Dustin Gillanders were assessed matching minor penalties when Kipp was given additional time for the extra curricular activity.  To add insult to penalty, RPI surrendered it’s second multiple goal lead of the weekend and lost to the Raiders 3-2.  The box score can be seen here. Just another night in the new ECACHL.

Yep. You heard right. They called the Boston College / Boston University game due to fog after about nine minutes of play at Conte Forum this evening. The combination of the temperature being near 70 degrees in Boston ahead of the big storm, the air saturated with moisture, and the A/C failing being non-existent at Conte, it didn’t take long for rink to fill with fog once the players hit the ice. No word yet on rescheduling this one and if it’ll start from scratch or midway through the game. No the picture is not from the game, but you could understand why you might not want to play in the fog.

As helpfully pointed out on the front page of College Hockey News, this is a big week for rivalries in college hockey.

Denver faces Colorado College (Which means LetsGoDU is teeing off on a regular basis on their arch-rivals.)
Denver and CC are both on pretty hot runs as of late. CC winning five of their last six, and the Pioneers unbeaten in their last seven.

BC/BU is as interesting as always, with both teams falling all over themselves to find any semblance of consistency. Along with the pressure of beating the team a few stops down the Green Line, this should be some entertaining hockey. I suspect we’ll be seeing some wild scores.

I point out the St. Lawrence / Clarkson matchup, not just because I’m a Clarkson Alum and I think it’s one of the most greatest and most overlooked rivalries in all of sports, but because this matchup is huge in terms of the ECACHL standings as well. St. Lawrence is the only team undefeated in ECACHL play with a 4-0-0 record. Both North Country teams will face Yale and Brown in difficult, but winnable games. If St. Lawrence takes all three, suddenly they’re running away. You’ve got a 7-0-0 team in December with everyone else muddled in the middle, and they’ll STILL have games in hand.

Minnesota is riding a 14 game unbeaten streak right now. When your only loss is the season-opener to Maine. You’ve gotta be feeling pretty good right now. Also, I’d like to personally thank Minnesota for giving Phil Kessel an extra year of development. He scored the game-winner in a marathon shoot-out last night for the Bruins.

One of the more intriguing matchups this weekend is the series between Notre Dame and TAFKAF in South Bend. Both teams are still trying to strip away the “overrated” reputation, and while a sweep by either team won’t necessarily do that in the minds of the fans, it’s a huge CCHA series at this point in the season, and should be an excellent set of games. It’s also the first weekend without college football in quite sometime. Will the Fighting Irish fans take note that they’ve got a ranked hockey team with a 10-3-1 record?

A big congrats goes out to Wayne State who got arguably their biggest win over the past few seasons when they defeated Cornell last weekend. It’s tough to say if this is the traditional Cornell power that we’ve seen year after year, but it was an eyebrow raiser when it came through on the ticker none the less.