One of the most important weekends to date has just transpired, and the
results are interesting.  First, what were the match-ups?
 
UND/SCSU:
The top two teams split the weekend at St. Cloud with UND winning 6 to 1
tonight after losing 3 to 5 on Friday.  UND needed the split, and they
got it.  The two teams are still tied, but SCSU has played two more games.
 
UM/DU:
UM was looking for a sweep, but had to settle for a split as DU comes
back from a 2-3 overtime loss to win 4 to 2 tonight.  The Pioneers
continue to imporve and controlled most of Saturday's game (and half of
Friday's).  DU comes away with an impressive victory and two needed points.
 
NMU/UW
A split?  Unless the ticker is wrong, UW lost tonight by a score of 4 to
1.  That is a big surprise and UW's schedule only gets tougher (a lot).
 
UAA/UMD
The bulldogs win two that they absolutely had to win.  However, look at
the scores: 2 to 3 on Friday and 3 to 4 on Saturday.  Not that impressive
to say the least.
 
CC/MTU
CC gets three out of the four points while playing at Tech.  This was not
a shock, but four points for CC would strengthen their cause to be number
one.
 
So, what happens now....
CC has two at home against UMD and then two against UND.  If CC wants to
win it all, they need at least six of the eight points to stay in the hunt.
 
The next eight for DU are key to getting a top five spot.  They are
against MTU, NMU and UAA.  The MTU and NMU series are at Denver, so the
pioneers should get four wins there.  After seeing tonight's game, they
have a very good shot at sweep in Anchorage.  They could realistically
have a total of 30 points in three weeks.
 
UND has three of the next four weekends at home.  They should take both
games from MTU and UW.  The UM series is a toss-up, but I am now leaning
toward a UND sweep (but only slightly).  UND also has a series at CC
where a split looks probable.  If UND gets 13 out of the next 16 points,
they will have a great shot at the WCHA title.
 
UM has 5 of the next 6 on the road (one at SCSU, one at home).  With the
loss tonight, UM needs a sweep on NMU, and at least splits against SCSU
and UND to win the league.  Will that happen?  An SCSU split would seem
to be a likely scenerio and a split at UND is also a good bet.
 
Finally, has anyone else checked out who UW ends up playing?  2 against
CC, SCSU, DU and UM.  Yikes!  Talk about a bad way to end the year.
 
                                                        charles
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http://www.aero.und.edu/~cbell
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