College Hockey

I bet you can already tell where I'm going to start with this one. What the hell happened Friday night Northeastern? Matthews was rocking, it was homecoming, Maine isn't as good as they used to be, we beat Boston University last weekend, we had a chance to get a sweep and make up a lot of ground in the standings, then you go and get spanked.

I mean, great job making up for it on saturday, but friday was not good, at all. I can't think of anything good to say about Friday except that a few of the doghouse faithful got right behind Mountain after Cronin used him to replace Chris Rawlings in net.

Around the rest of Hockey East, BU got surprised too, splitting with Merrimack. That tells one of three things, Merrimack is for real, BU is a bust, or a little bit of both. I'm leaning more towards the BU being a bust side, with a hint of they are hungover from winning everything last year and off to a slow start missing the players that left more than they anticipated.

there are currently four teams tied in second with seven points, one point behind leaders UMass Amherst. Boston College, Vermont, New Hampshire and UMass Lowell (who are now ranked fifth and have recieved a first place vote in the national poll).

My Hockey East Power Rankings:
1. University of Mass. at Lowell Riverhawks
2. University of Mass. at Amherst Minutemen
3. University of New Hampshire Wildcats
4. University of Vermont Catamounts
5. Boston College Eagles
6. Merrimack College Warriors
7. University of Maine Blackbears
8. Northeastern University Huskies
9. Providence College Friars
10. Boston University Terriers

Nationally, #1 Miami was swept by unranked ferris state, technically both games ended in ties, but in the CCHA they do shootouts to determine point allocation in the conference, but for the purpose of voting, as as evidenced by their still dominant #1 stature, they are considered ties.

Also, Michigan was swept by michigan state. Notre Dame split their series with northern michigan, except northern michigan's win was real, notre dame's came in a shootout.

I think the result that surprised me the most this weekend was the way boston college pounded vermont into the ice, 7-1, on saturday night before losing 3-2 on sunday night on the same sheet to the same team. i didn't look at all the other scores, but i bet that is the biggest swing of the weekend, if not the season so far, if not for the whole season when it is over.

Of coures, by this i would have to mean back to back games, vermont beat bc earlier this season, the head to head match up before the 7-1 slaughter, 4-1, making that the biggest swing, 9 goals vs 7 goals.

so one thing can be certain, you can't really predict what will happen when vermont and bc play. unfortunately, their season series against each other is complete, the next time they could play would be the hockey east playoffs, and if they continue on the trends they are on right now, that would likely be a semifinal matchup, potentially a championship.

on to the rankings:
Teams in Freefall:
Michigan down from 6 to 16
Notre Dame down from 8 to 14
BU down from 17 to unranked
Vermont down from 15 to 17
Boston College down from 16 to 17
BC and UVM didn't fall very far, but they lost a lot of votes, not quite as much as Michigan, BU or Notre Dame though

Teams flying high:
Michigan State up from 13 to 6
Colorado College up from 10 to 7
Quinnipiac up from 20 to 13
Wisconsin up from unranked to 15
Ferris State still unranked but after their psuedo sweep of miami, they garnered a lot of attention, one more good weekend and another slip up by a team like vermont, bc or michigan could easily see them get in next week.

Joining the Ranks:
Wisconsin

Stripped of their rank:
Boston University

Teams that got votes this week after not having any last week:
RIT got 3
Union got 9
Colgate got 43

Teams that lost all their votes and now have no points:
Minnesota lost 13
Western Michigan lost 8
ST. Lawrence lost 3

For schedules, the poll, and standings, check out uscho.com or hockeyeastonline.com