ryan@fremen.DEC (01/14/85)
First, I'll help Tim Newman get his facts straight. > The Spartans have the best record in college hockey (20-3) As of today, to the best of my knowledge Michigan State is 21-3 and RPI is 14-2 (equal winning percentages). > Clarkson beat RPI Wrong - RPI beat Clarkson (their two losses were to North Dakota in overtime and St. Lawrence the night following the Clarkson game). Out of curiosity, who were the teams that beat Michigan State? Well, I haven't seen Michigan State and it's safe to assume that you haven't seen RPI, so neither of us is really in a position to judge who is #1. Fortunately, in hockey these things are decided on the ice, and the flaming will end at the end of March. On the other hand, maybe we'll get lucky and have a juicy controversial referee's call in the championship game! So, on to the update. This past weekend RPI beat Cornell 6-2 and Colgate 6-0, setting a new school record 13 straight wins in the process (last year's team tied the old record of 11). Harvard beat both Clarkson and St. Lawrence, and apparently should be taken very seriously. Now the top of the ECAC consists of RPI (9-1), Harvard (9-1-1), and Clarkson (9-2). BTW, Tim Smith of Harvard set an ECAC record by scoring goals in 13 straight games through Friday (but St. L silenced him). Meanwhile, #3 Minnesota-Duluth and #4 BC split their series while #2 Minnesota split with Wisconsin, giving #5 RPI a shot at #2 in this week's poll. There were some other interesting stories here in the East this weekend. Saturday BU led Michigan Tech 5-1 in the second period when a fight broke out between Tech goalie Darryl (Tiger) Pierce and BU's Scott Shaunessy. They both got major penalites, but the Tech coach took his team to the locker room and forfeited the game, citing fear of serious injury. The Boston Globe reporter opined that the game up to that point had actually been more mild than most Hockey East-WCHA games, but the Michigan coach clearly disagreed. The impression I got was that either A. Tech was trying to save face after losing the previous night and being badly outplayed to that point or B. perhaps some specific threat had been made that made the coach fear for his goalie's safety (i.e. Shaunessy or some BU player threatening to "get him" later). For the record, both players got 4-minute roughing penalties and Pierce got 5 minutes for high-sticking, and it appears that Pierce started the battle by hitting Shaunessy with the stick. The Tech coach also had doubts about the refereeing. Whatever happened, this isn't the kind of hockey I enjoy. Leave the hooliganism to the NHL. An interesting season-long story is that of New Hampshire. It was bad enough that they started the season at 4-13, but they had to forfeit three of those wins (all 3 of their conference wins) because of an ineligible player. At the time it didn't seem to matter, but since then they've won 8 out of 10 and in the last two weeks have won three out of four games against top 10 teams (Minnesota and N. Michigan), gaining their coach (whose name escapes me at the moment) his 400th career win in the process. I bet they're missing those 3 wins now! Now a couple of questions I hope someone can answer. First, I know that RPI is 3-1 and Harvard is 1-1-1 against other top 10 teams (last week's poll). How about the other top 10 teams, especially Michigan State? Also, with the new alignment in the East how are the playoffs set up? Will the ECAC and Hockey East leagues have separate playoffs and then go to the NCAA playoffs, or will there be an Eastern playoff along the way? Where will the ECAC and Hockey East (or combined?) playoffs be held - Boston Garden? And will the NCAA playoffs be in Lake Placid again, or are they going west this year? Mike Ryan GO BIG RED!!!!