CHN Blog “PUCK” Rankings
January 8th, 2006

Bumped: University of Massachusettes – Amherst

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Earlier today Adam unleashed his fury upon the shootout after Team USA’s loss to Canada in the World Junior Championships, which ended earlier today by North Dakota’s Jonathan Toews. (Singlehandedly might I add thanks to the IIHF’s ridiculous “you can shoot all you want” rule, but that’s a different rant.)

I’m in the camp that shootouts should never EVER be used to determine the champion of any tournament, that even means you World Cup. There is nothing more exciting than sudden death overtime and that’s the way it is. Unfortunately you’re not going get that green lighted by any sport that plays a grueling sport such as hockey in the regular season.

While I tend to agree with Adam usually, I’m on the opposite side of the red line on this one. I think shootouts are great for regular season hockey. Nothing burns me more through the 82 games of the NHL season and the 35+ games of college hockey than sitting through 65 minutes in a tie. It is simply unsatisfying. The question is there a middle ground? Do we start with 4 on 4? Then go 3 on 3? Do we go NHL style and give a point for the tie, but an extra point for the shootout win? After each shot does the goalie have to remove an article of padding? I don’t care how you do it, there’s gotta be a winner.

And one more thing, if you think ties are great, tell me after you see little Timmy after a 1-1 tie. He’s not exactly jumping up and down telling Grandpa about how the Gophers pulled out a 1-1 tie, don’t let anyone fool you. Timmy would rather see Phil Kessel roof one on the seventh shot and go home a winner. Purists will pick on me but hey I got two points not one. Bottom line. Ties suck. People like winners.

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It’s the beginning of the year, we’re half way through the season and we all started staring intently at the PWR (and KRACH) last weekend. Last weekend marked the last real “full-fledged” non-conference weekend with a lot of significant interconference matchups in holiday tournaments.

Two teams that everyone will need to keep an eye on for the rest of the season are Bemidji State and Niagara. The Beavers currently rank 14th in the PWR, and currently have series against North Dakota and Michigan Tech upcoming. Games that could not only break the hearts of Sioux and Huskies’ fans, but also teams below the Beavers in the PWR.

How so? Bemidji sits in second in the CHA behind Niagara. If the Purple Eagles can take the conference tournament, and Bemidji plays well the rest of the season someone else from the Big Four may be sitting out. Niagara doesn’t have to face Bemidji again this season after winning one and tying the Beavers in the other three. The Purple Eagles do have a couple of big series coming up themselves facing Denver and Quinnipiac, it’s too tough to tell now if they could move up in the comparisons for an at-large if they won the vast majority of their games, but lets not rule it out.

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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!

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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

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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.

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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

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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.

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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

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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.

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