Apparently, last year, the CCHA athletic directors made a command decision to have schools remove Dates of Birth from their rosters. This decision slipped under the radar, mainly because the information could still be gleaned from other sources.

But this year, other leagues have unofficially followed suit. And consequently, the official sites that track statistics, have also followed suit — specifically collegehockeystats.net, which is our official source for rosters and statistics. In fact, even team sites have purged this information from their pages, in many cases including the individual player profile pages.

As a result, many of our rosters do not have complete information this year. And it has effected our listing of “oldest teams” and “youngest teams,” and the average age comparison on our matchup page. We’re looking into solutions, but if nothing good comes along, we may have to succumb to the trend, and just live with ages only, not exact birth dates.

By the way, the explanation I’ve heard is that there’s privacy concerns. OK.

As Denver Post writer Mike Chambers pointed out in his blog post after last night’s 4-3 win by Ohio State over the Pioneers, Denver coach George Gwozdecky got very upset when J.P. Testwuide was forced to stay on the ice despite an injury. That’s because the new rule in college hockey this year states that a team can’t replace the players on the ice after an icing call. The rule, as the NHL implemented a couple of years ago, is supposed to further penalize a team for icing the puck.

But the NHL rule, as you can see here, makes an exception for injuries:

81.4 Line Change on Icing – A team that is in violation of this rule shall not be permitted to make any player substitutions prior to the ensuing face-off.  … However, a team shall be permitted to make a player substitution to replace a goalkeeper who had been substituted for an extra attacker, to replace an injured player or goalkeeper, or when a penalty has been assessed which affects the on-ice strength of either team. The determination of players on ice will be made when the puck leaves the offending player’s stick.

The college hockey rule doesn’t appear to include that language. This seems like something that needs clarification. But as far as I can find, the college hockey rule book did not add language on injuries. If so, that’s a bad oversight.

Other observations from the weekend: Did you see where Alabama-Huntsville defeated Tennessee 13-0 in an exhibition game. The shots were 64-8. Yeah, Tennessee — a club team, obviously, since the Volunteers are not playing varsity hockey. Why did UAH bother playing this game? They may as well have played the Delaware Valley Midget team from down the road. It would sure be great if Tennessee had varsity hockey … but I don’t see this as being a stepping stone to that.

Of course, as one astute observer pointed out — and, it’s funny, but he wasn’t kidding — this game will draw more in Huntsville than a game against Colorado College. … Also, it seems UAH lost to Tennessee when it kicked off its program in 1979. So this was revenge. Ha.

You may remember former Maine goaltender Ben Bishop, who led the Black Bears to back-to-back Frozen Fours in 2006 and 2007.

Well, thanks to — of all people — vice-presidental candidate Sarah Palin, Bishop made his NHL debut on Friday night, playing for his hometown St. Louis Blues against the Los Angeles Kings. What did the Alaska governor have to do with all this?

Well, regular Blues starting netminder Manny Legace suffered a hip injury after slipping on a red carpet on the ice, which was in place for Palin to drop the ceremonial first puck. No word as to whether this will affect Bishop’s (or Legace’s) vote in a couple of weeks.

Two other observations around college hockey from Friday night:

— The CCHA has only had 10 league games so far, but 6 out of its 12 teams have already experienced a game-deciding shootout — a feature that the league introduced to settle ties this season. On Friday, Western Michigan earned an extra point against Ferris State, while Michigan State earned an extra point against Northern Michigan.

— After somewhat impressively playing two close games at Colorado College two weeks ago, Alabama-Huntsville was back on the ice… for a 13-0 drubbing of Tennessee in an exhibition game. Some fun facts: the Chargers outshot the Volunteers 66-8, including 24-0 in the third period. 15 of the 18 skaters for UAH recorded at least one point, with 9 different players scoring at least one goal. Obviously there was a significant talent gap.

But a little research finds the possible real reason for the Chargers running up the score: way back in 1979, UAH lost its very first home game… to Tennessee.

It was one year ago this week that Ryan Stoa’s sophomore season at Minnesota ended before it had really begun, as the forward suffered a season-ending, surgery-requiring knee injury. So it was great to see Stoa — now the captain for the Gophers — score tonight in his first game since Oct. 13, 2007. It’s a nice story, especially in light of unfortunate injury news elsewhere in college hockey this week.

Before the game, Stoa talked about his long-awaited return with Fox Sports North, saying in part, “I’m excited. Being on the sidelines isn’t any fun. Nobody wants to do it, but it rejuvenates you in a way. I’m just happy to be at the rink, being with the guys. I’m so excited to play.”

In addition to a shorthanded goal, Stoa also assisted on the eventual game-winner in an entertaining 3-2 win at St. Cloud. And Minnesota goaltender Alex Kangas, a 2006 fifth round draft pick (Atlanta Thrashers), stopped Huskie forward Aaron Marvin, a 2006 third round pick (Calgary Flames), with a memorable save in the final seconds.

The 2008-09 Preseason All-CHN Team was announced today. I’m sure many people will take offense that their favorites aren’t there, but I think the list is fairly non-controversial.

Michigan Tech and Merrimack both lost their exhibition openers to Canadian university teams today. Ooof.

BU goalie Scott Cashman is dead at 39, the same age our friend Jon Barkan died at last year, also from a heart-related issue. I’ll be 39 next year at this time. Ummm, yes I’m worried. Everyone go get a checkup.

Colorado College’s brand new athletics web site has this cool as heck video clip up from the 1950 NCAA championship game, won by CC over Boston University. I actually own a film-to-video transfer of the whole 1967 game, where Cornell won. Got it from the NCAA. But this one has me topped. I must get a copy.

Denver has suspended four players already. Once again, George Gwozdecky shows off his zero tolerance policy.