The Student Section: Regular Season Episode #9

Good Morning Student Section! College Hockey is now in holiday mode. So, in the spirit of the holidays, I would like to hand out a few midseason kudos and lumps of coal.

The Gophers are off till January 2-3, 2015 when they host the 24^th Annual Mariucci Classic. The Gophers will entertain a solid field in RIT, UMass-Lowell and Merrimack.

Kudos: Checking the current Pairwise Rankings, the NCAA is going to have a fun time seeding all of the western schools in the NCAA tournament. While it's still early, nine of top 16 spots in the Pairwise Rankings are from the Big Ten, NCHC or WCHA. The west is definitely sitting pretty going into the second half of the season.

If the NCAA Playoffs started today, the Gophers would be the only B1G team to make the field of 16. The State of Hockey would have three teams in the NCAA tourney, Minnesota, Minnesota-Duluth and Minnesota State.

Lump of coal: The hits keep coming for the Badgers. Freshman defensman Keegan Ford has left the Badgers. While no one from the State of Hockey is going to feel sorry for them. The Badgers have had a miserable season going (1-10-1, 0-2-0 Big Ten).

Last night, the Minnesota State Mavericks had to cancel their game against the Princeton Tigers because their team has been ravaged by the flu bug.

Lump of coal: Miami University defenseman Matt Joyaux has left the RedHawks and will join the Omaha Lancers of the USHL. Joyaux played in four games for the RedHawks scoring (0g-1a—1pts).

Lump of coal: The SCSU Huskies traveled to Omaha and were swept by the Nebraska-Omaha Mavericks (2-3 L, 3-5 L). With the loss, the Huskies (6-9-1, 2-5-1 NCHC) are now in seventh place in the NCHC standings. I don't think anyone expected the Huskies to struggle like this, especially with who they have on their roster.

Kudos: The Minnesota-Duluth Bulldogs split their weekend series with the Michigan Tech Huskies in Houghton, Michigan. With the series split, the Bulldogs have a (12-6-0, 7-3-0 NCHC) record.

The Bulldogs are off till January 2-3, 2015 when they travel north to Thunder Bay, Ontario, to take on the Lake Head University Thunderwovles in a two-game exhibition series. Currently, the Thunderwolves are in sixth place of the West Division CIS standings with a 6-9-2 record.

Kudos: When the polls come out on Monday, will there be a new number one team? The University of North Dakota split their weekend series (1-4 L, 3-1W) with the University of Denver. UND takes a (13-4-2, 6-3-1 NCHC) record into the holiday break. Traditionally, UND has been known for his second half surges, the 13-4-2 start is the best under head coach Dave Hakstol.

Kudos: On Saturday night, the Bemidji State Beavers (5-10-3, 3-6-3 WCHA) extended their unbeaten streak to five games with a tie against Northern Michigan.

Keeping with the holiday theme, I am going to hand out a lump of coal to the NCHC officials. On Friday night, SCSU forward Jonny Brodzinski was given a five-minute major and a game misconduct for contact to the head. As you can see from the video, there wasn’t any contact with the head. In my opinion, the hit was a legal, clean, shoulder-to-shoulder hit.

The Huskies would go on to lose the game as the Mavericks would score the game-winning goal on the power play. In my opinion, this was a bad call. I also believe that the fans deserve better officiating from the on-ice officials.

Lastly, I want to wish everyone a Happy Holidays and a Happy New Year. I know I am very happy to put 2014 behind me, and move forward with 2015. I also want to thank everyone for reading Hockey Wilderness and The Student Section. You can follow me at The Hockey Writers, Goon’s World and Inside Hockey. See you at the rink.