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

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.

This week’s PUCK Rankings are likely tainted with a little bit of E. Coli and arrive a couple of days late, but updated with Tuesday’s action included. Minnesota solidifies its hold on the top spot, while the other top five teams shuffle about. The Vermont Catamounts roar back into the rankings on the heels of a six game winning streak and Michigan Tech sneaks back on in the #16 spot this week. Cornell plummets after a loss to Wayne State at home, and UMass-Amherst also drops off the rankings. Who picked Yale to be the only ECAC team in the rankings at this stage of the season? Nice work lone fan from New Haven!
CHN Blog “PUCK” Rankings
November 29th, 2006

Bumped: Cornell, University of Massachusetts – Amherst

We’ve been a little slow over the holidays, but rest assured we’ll be picking up the pace in the weeks before finals hit. Our Puck Rankings will be available tomorrow as our resident statisician, calculation, ranking guru recovers from a bad case of food poisoning. What a way to spend Thanksgiving vacation.. or extend it depending how you look at it.

One thing really popped into my head today, and that was how I’m continually disappointed that I haven’t been able to see Minnesota play at all this year, not in person, not on television. Next game on the dish, it’s time to make sure I go out and see thse guys play, because rumor has it. They’re good.

Hockey East has another intriguing weekday matchup, this week pitting BU who scraped by Yale who appears to be for real, against a UMass team that has done a solid job so far this season. Definitely worth a trip to Agganis if you have the chance.

From the “Where did they come from?!” Department: Look out now, but Vermont has rattled off five consecutive wins (six if you include an exhibition), all against Hockey East teams. Those 10 points were written off by most after that horrible four-game losing streak after winning the Icebreaker.

George Roll made the Golden Knights over at Clarkson practice with wooden sticks, took away their lounge and their music, and they responded with a sweep over Bowling Green and Miami. They also received some help from the first ever Instant Replay using Cheel Arena’s new system that is being tried out by the ECAC. When some message boards mentioned this and INCH noted it as well, I e-mailed Coach Roll and asked him if both were true and simply got a “Yes and Yes.” All business in Potsdam!

The RPI holiday tournament had Niagara come away as the winner this weekend, but the highlight for the fans in Troy had to be the ten round shootout to determine the 3rd place winner between RPI and Ohio State. RPI won it 5-4.

The Alaska Formerly Known As Fairbanks (TAFKAF) has only lost twice this season, both times by a single goal. They also have four ties. Very impressive for the Nanooks, but they have a long road ahead starting with their return match-up at the end of December against UAA, then 8 of 10 games against ranked opponents starting in mid-January.

Last but not least, college Hockey Showcase looks like it had some fantastic hockey. Gregg Paul has an interesting article on its future. While I don’t care so much about the Big Five / Big Ten, whatever talk. I just need to know it’s going to be around next year, so I have an excuse for a road trip.

So Avash beat me to the punch on the cliche “What to be Thankful For” topic this year. How he remains so positive is beyond me. I’m just thankful that everyone isn’t running away with it all so all of our teams have a shot for the rest of the season.

Dilks talks about not taunting the hockey gods and the curse unleashed upon potential WWE upstart Don Lucia in 2005.

For those of you unfamiliar with Chris Heisenberg he’s the man who somehow knows who’s playing for your team in 2012. He’s been on top of the National Letter of Intent period for college hockey, and has been doing his best to break it down in his blog. For a full unofficial list of recruits, he maintains that here.

For those of you curious in this week’s CHN Team of the Week. Take a second and visit the UAA Fan Blog. Sure he’s got a lot of posts this week about the team’s success over UND last weekend and the weekly awards that come with it, but they’ve ALWAYS got a lot of good information over there. Definitely a worthy read, especially if your team is facing the Seawolves in the near future.

On a personal note, for me Friday is one of the greatest hockey days of the year. Living in Boston, I’m fortunate enough to have the traditional 12:00 B’s game to help me avoid the insanity of the Black Friday festivities, but on top of that, there’s several excellent holiday tournaments and matchups, in particular the College Hockey Showcase featuring Michigan, Michigan State, Minnesota and Wisconsin. Fox Sports North will have both Friday games televised. If Thanksgiving is for Football, then Fat Friday is certainly for hockey.. and leftovers.

If there’s one thing this season has proved week in and week out, it’s that parity is the name of the game. Minnesota ascends to the top spot this weekend after a sweep of Wisconsin, while Maine slides down to the #2 spot after a tough OT loss to Boston College. Nearly everyone in last week’s PUCK Rankings took home a W last week with the exception of North Dakota which is free-falling from #3 to #13 after being swept by UAA. Michigan Tech gets some tough love after losing to Denver 1-0, and tying the following evening. Dartmouth is also knocked off, still trying to find its stride along with the rest of the teams that were considered top contenders in the ECACHL at the beginning of the season. Welcome to the PUCK Rankings SCSU and Colorado College. SCSU had a convincing weekend series against Clarkson, sweeping the Golden Knights by a combined scored of 11-2, while CC swept Minnesota State by a wide margin.

CHN Blog “PUCK” Rankings
November 13th, 2006

Bumped: Michigan Tech, Dartmouth

Only one series this weekend showed up on our original “Games to Watch” at the beginning of the season, and that was Clarkson at St. Cloud this weekend. Brett and I both agree that there is a lot of “weird buzz” going around regarding this series which pits two ranked teams from the WCHA and ECAC against each other. The phrase “barn burner” comes to mind as we arrive at this series, with a wide-open pair of games expected on the “big ice” (or insert your favorite phrase) at the National Hockey Center this weekend.

After going through the motions in the first month of the season, a couple of other games have risen up to become marquee matchups this weekend. Most notably two “Are they the Real Deal?” series.

The 8-1-1 Fighting Irish take on Michigan State in a home and home series. On paper it looks like Notre Dame should do well, but the pundits will continue to question Notre Dame until they get somewhere around 15-1-1, and even then when they lose the mumbling will begin.

In Denver, the CHN TOTW will host a Michigan Tech team who suddenly everyone wrote off after a tough series against Colorado College. Has Denver turned the corner? Were they ever on the other side of the corner to begin with? Was everyone a hurry to dismiss Michigan Tech?

If you’re in the Troy / Albany area, there’s no reason not to check out the Sacred Heart / RPI game on Friday. RPI has only one loss on the season and is sneaking up the rankings, while Sacred Heart continues to be a force in the Atlantic.

It looks pretty slow in Hockey East this weekend until you get to a big time Sunday matchup featuring Boston College and Maine in what should be a statement game for both teams. BC looking to prove that they haven’t fallen from the top-tier, and Maine looking to rebound from a horrific 8-2 loss at UNH. Sure, they’ve still got some games to play before, but this is looking like a great matinee. BC Follows it up on Wednesday against UNH as well.

Last but not least Minnesota and Wisconsin on Sunday as well. Everyone is down on the Badgers right now who are 4-6-2 after being swept by Denver last weekend. A win over the Gophers would reinvigorate the team and the fan base. A loss will probably force the pollsters to give up on the Badgers until they can put on a big run and show they can win night in and night out.