Running College Hockey Thread

Quinnipiac's finishing its third season in the ECAC. Basically, they joined when Vermont departed for Hockey East, and it's taken both teams about three years to become fairly competitive in their new leagues. Not a bad learning curve... Several teams applied to the ECAC when Vermont left, including Niagara, who's now in a disastrous situation with CHA.

Still, there's a fair amount of discord among the schools in the ECAC about the inclusion of Quinnipiac. You've got six Ivy schools, Colgate, and four traditional D3 schools with solid academic reputations - and Quinnipiac, which, when it comes to hockey at least, might have a lower admission standard than most community colleges. If I'm not mistaken, I believe their AD has roots to Denver and wants to turn that program into the Denver of the East - though I'm not sure the ECAC's the league for that. They've certainly ruffled a lot of feathers in the league.

 

It's the same argument with basketball - in theory, everybody at least has a chance, except for the Ivy League. The difference between the two sports is that a hot goalie can carry a team a long, long way - there's no equivalent in any other sport (except maybe a dominating pitcher in softball). In baseball, a pitcher can't go every game of a sub-regional, he just can't. That's why you have such pairity in college hockey. Besides, what's wrong with making the bottom four of Hockey East play off for the right to advance? I'm sure the top teams wouldn't mind a little rest...

 

Ragu, a couple of thoughts...
- the non-Ivy members of ECAC aren't limited to a 29 game regular season, they can play the same as anyone else. I don't think the contest limit holds the Ivy schools back, given that like any other split league, half of them finished in the top half of the league (Dartmouth, Cornell, Princeton) and the other three in the bottom half.
- I would say the ECAC's not been too bad this season - Clarkson won the Badger Showdown over Christmas (albeit with several key players for UW off at the world juniors), Cornell and Yale both beat UNH, with Yale's win coming in Durham. I think the main problem for the league has been the same that's typical of most mid-major leagues in basketball - there's so much parity, the teams bludgeon the hell out of each other. Clarkson's the only team that's got a shot at an at-large bid, and they didn't even win the conference. Plus, it's a perception issue - the league feels it's as good as Hockey East, and won't go to one of those schools without a game in return, and that's just not going to happen. So, they end up playing most of their non-league games against Atlantic Hockey and CHA, which doesn't help the strength of schedule any.

 

Quinnipiac is a nice school and all, but definitely they have dropped standards since moving the athletic program to Division I.

 

Hockey East started quarterfinals last night... UNH and BC took care of business, BU lost at home to Vermont.

 

Wait, BU lost at home to Vermont? That's a surprise. BU beat BC in the Hockey East Tournament finals last year, right?

 

BU has been known to take dives in the HE tourney in past years, losing to the likes of Providence and UMass (back when UMass sucked hard). Still, a tad shocking for Parker\'s Posse.

 

The Terriers still have time to turn it around. Thankfully, the quarters are best 2 of 3.

Regardless, BU won't be too far away from home for the NCAA. My guess is if they lose tonight or tomorrow, they'll be Rochester bound.

 

Good to see the Terriers find their way around Vermont in Game 2. I'm an anti-BC fanboy, and wanted to go to BU before money got in the way, just to explain my support despite my sig flag.

Speaking of which, my Minutemen showed themselves to absolutely be the better team against Maine tonight. Good to see the basketball team's flu hex didn't wander back to Amherst.

 

Dartmouth hammered Princeton 6-2 in an ECAC quarterfinal opener.

 

It's Princeton. And it's the ECAC. Relax. Those teams aren't going anywhere.

More surprising is St. Cloud State, picked by many as a 1 seed, falling to Minnesota-Duluth at home, 3-1.

And how about this interesting news, courtesty of Bill Gramatica: Quinnipiac's Matt Sorteberg suffered a possible broken ankle celebrating the team's 1-0 overtime win at Cornell.

 

Seriously, are they paying players to go to Quinnipiac? No way they should be beating the Cornells of the world.