The top 6 in the power rankings remains the same. St. Cloud State drops out of the top 10 after a loss and a tie to Wisconsin. Minnesota-Duluth had the best weekend. They swept Colorado College in Colorado Springs. Michigan and Boston College have solid leads in their respective conferences. UM-Duluth and North Dakota are fighting it out for the lead in the WCHA. They play each other this next weekend, it should go a long way in telling who will win the regular season title.
There are two weekends remaining before the conference tournaments.
North Dakota continues to struggle a little bit. They split last weekend against Colorado College. After not losing for 14 straight games, the Fighting Sioux have lost 4 out of the last 7. However, they remain in first place in both rankings. A strong strength of schedule is holding them up. The WCHA is a very strong conference, but Boston College is closing ground on North Dakota. UM-Duluth swept Minnesota and they swapped spots in the top 10. Michigan swept Miami to take the lead in the CCHA standings.
There are only three more weekends of regular season hockey games left, and then the conference tournaments start. The winner of all six conferences will earn a spot in the 16 team national tournament.
North Dakota got swept for the first time last weekend. The Wisconsin Badgers were the culprit. They made the big jump into the top ten this weekend. ND holds on to the top spot, however, and the other top seven teams remained the same, with slight rearraingements. New additions in the top ten include Brown and Miami. The displaced teams were Colgate, St. Cloud State, and Ohio State.
The Beanpot Tournament started last week and concludes Monday night. It is the most famous Midseason tournament, and it includes the four Boston area teams, BC, BU, Harvard, and Northeastern. BC and BU are won their first round games and will meet in the finals. A lot of bragging rights on the line here.
I saw the movie "Miracle" last night. Kurt Russell does an outstanding job of portraying Herb Brooks, and the actor that plays Mike Eruzione is a spitting image of him. Great movie, I highly recommend seeing it.
The top three remain steady in the power rankings. #1 North Dakota split last weekend with WCHA rival Minnesota, Boston College remains at #2, #3 Maine split last weekend against Boston University. The next four teams are gaining ground on the top three. New Hampshire is the newest addition to the top 10. They made the jump last week.
The WCHA is the most dominant conference in the top 10. Five of the top 10 are WCHA, 3 are from Hockey East, and two are from the CCHA. Those are generally the most dominant conferences. The ECAC is like the Ivy League of College Hockey. Occasionally they will also have a couple of teams ranked highly. Cornell is usually one of those teams. The last two conferences are Atlantic Hockey and the CHA. The highest ranked team in Atlantic Hockey is Holy Cross. The CHA is like the Sun Belt conference. It only has 6 teams and they are generally among the worst in college hockey. Its highest ranked team is Bemidji State.
A lot has happened over Christmas break. Most teams had holiday tournaments and a lot of shuffling has occurred in the rankings. North Dakota remains a solid #1. Boston College jumped Maine for the #2 spot. Minnesota, Minnesota-Duluth, and Michigan all jumped into the top 10 this last week. Each team had sweeps over other top ten teams. Minnesota over Colorado College, Minn.-Duluth over Denver, and Michigan over Ohio State.
UNO is moving up in the rankings. They made a big jump in the PC rankings, mainly due to the strength of their opponents improving over all. Their rise in the power rankings is a little bit more steady. They have been playing better lately and have a chance to move up a few places in the CCHA. The team is mostly freshman and sophomores and they are starting to come together a little bit.
In other hockey news, the U.S. National Junior team won the World Under 20 Championships (World Juniors) a week ago by beating Canada in the gold medal game. This is basically the same team that won the Under 18 Championship two years ago. The future of American hockey looks good. You can learn more about USA hockey at www.usahockey.com, and about international hockey at www.iihf.com.
