Denver Cup Victory Propels Men to #2

Boston University’s Men’s Ice Hockey team moved up to the #2 spot in the nation after capturing the Wells Fargo Denver Cup. The Women’s team stayed at #9 after defeating and tying against Ohio State.  Let’s see how the remainder of the Mens poll shaped up for the beginning of 2009:

Rank	Team	First Place Votes	Record	Points	Last Poll
1	Notre Dame	(47)	16-3-2	994	1
2	Boston University	( 2)	13-4-1	940	3
3	Minnesota		10-3-5	886	4
4	Northeastern		12-4-2	782	6
5	Denver		13-6-2	720	5
6	Miami		12-5-3	697	2
7	Princeton		13-3-0	690	8
8	Cornell	( 1)	9-1-3	673	10
9	Boston College		9-5-2	660	7
10	Colorado College		11-6-5	534	9
10	Michigan		13-7-0	534	12
12	Vermont		11-4-2	513	13
13	New Hampshire		9-6-3	298	15
14	Air Force		15-4-1	288	11
15	Dartmouth		9-5-0	198	20
16	Ohio State		13-6-1	197	NR
17	Wisconsin		10-9-3	153	14
18	Nebraska-Omaha		12-6-3	130	16
19	Alaska		10-6-4	123	18
20	Minnesota-Duluth		9-5-6	118	NR
Others Receiving Votes: Quinnipiac 111, North Dakota 88, Minnesota State 86, Yale 33, Maine 30, Massachusetts 8, St. Cloud State 7, Michigan State 6, Niagara 3

Obviously, the pollsters couldn’t knock Notre Dame out of the #1 spot as they didn’t lose.  However, in my personal biased opinion, I think you’d be hard pressed to say that they could defeat the Terriers.  BU seems to have everything clicking for them right now, and Notre Dame’s schedule hasn’t been the strongest thing out there recently.  You can’t complain about the number 2 ranking, and I’d rather not have that target on the Terriers’ back right now.  I would like to take on the Irish though.  I’d put money on BU any day on that the way they’re playing now.

A couple of new entries into the poll this week, with Ohio State making a huge jump in and UMD entering the poll as well.  Ohio State has been impressive, winning their last 8.  They take on Bowling Green for two this week.  UMD had an 8 game unbeaten streak going before losing to Notre Dame at the Shillelagh Tournament.  This includes a great 7-4 victory over Colorado College.

What’s most shocking to me is that North Dakota isn’t in there.  I honestly thought that they would be doing much much better than they are now.  The second half for the Sioux is strong, like it usually is with BC (grumble), so we’ll see what happens.  The win against them has a lot of meaning if that happens, so I hope it does!

BU takes on Maine this week, and we’ll preview that game in a little bit.  Look out for that post!

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