More strangeness seen in the TSN Top 20 (and thanks also to Jon). Does TSN just look at last year's finish and throw in a couple of surprises? > 1) Michigan Kiss of death?!? Reminds me of 86-87 when BU was the preseason #1 with John Cullen and they finished below .500. I don't think UM will do that, but it's a lot of pressure. They'll get a challenge from several teams within their own conference, even. However, I have a lot of trouble coming up with a preseason #1; it should be pretty wide open this season as a lot of teams, at least 2-3 from each conference, appear to have a legitimate claim to one of the very top spots in the country. That can only make for an exciting season. > 2) Maine Perhaps a little high; loss of experienced scoring like Roy/Pellerin/Downey Robitaille means the Black Bears may have to rely a bit more on defense and netminding, but they have one of the top tandems in the nation in Snow/Dunham and their D proved more than capable last year. Not to mention landing high-scoring recruits Peter & Chris Ferraro, an instant line. > 3) Minnesota John has a good point about the Gophers losing a lot of players, but their strong talent pool means they'll always be among the best. 3rd in the country may be pushing it, though. Experience counts for a lot, and Woog will be asking a few inexperienced players to step into the big skates of some very, very good departed players. > 4) BU I'm not even sure Maine is the best in HE with BU around. Last year was the get-your-feet-wet year for this club, many of whom were freshmen or inexperienced sophomores - but very talented. This year they could return to the form of the late 80s Terriers, and in 92-93 we could see a repeat of the 90-91 team. > 5) Clarkson > 6) LSSU > 7) Colorado College Is this realistic, CC/WCHA fans? Somehow I think this is TSN's "sleeper". The Tigers have been improving steadily and it would be great to see them reborn as a power in college hockey, but 7th? > 8) Michigan State > 9) Minnesota Duluth > 10) BC The book's still out on BC, especially with LaGrand gone; their freshman class last season was not as good as BU's - at least not as far as making an immediate impact. In the long run, there could be several unexpected pleasant surprises there. But the Eagles will suffer from a weak scoring attack and the loss of several key leaders from last year (Franzosa, LaGrand, Cleary, Rathbone). #10 is a little high IMO; maybe #14-15. > 11) Harvard Interesting situation at Harvard - goalie tandem Hughes & Roy are gone, but a LOT of talented sophomores return. I still think they need to prove themselves, but the potential is there. > 12) Wisconsin Good call; the Badgers have enough returning players to weather the losses of MacDonald, Derksen, etc. Will Michelizzi, an inexperienced senior, get the call in net or will it be blue-chip freshman Jim Carey? It isn't that often that a Boston kid travels West to play between the pipes. > 13) Illinois-Chicago What does UIC have besides Hillebrandt? (A serious question.) > 14) Providence Hmmm...PC loses Gaudreau, Boback, Heinke, Robison, & Kane - but a pretty solid nucleus remains, backed by Mullahy in net. Darby and Quenneville should be among the top players in the league as sophomores and may turn out to be Gaudreau and Boback II. Therien anchors the defense and is the best in HE. A team to keep an eye on as the season progresses - they may not impress early on and may finish something like 14-10 in the league, but they'll compete for an NC$$ spot and if they squeak in, they'll do some damage. > 15) Northern Michigan > 16) Lowell TSN Sleeper #2. Nope, I can't see it. HE 1st Team netminder Mark Richards is gone along with the three players that carried them much of last year - Gatti, Parsons, and Carter. The Chiefs are still rebuilding under Crowder and this is much too early to be predicting a top 20 finish, although I wouldn't put it past Crowder leading UML to renewed glory in several years or so. A huge chunk of the scoring leaves with the above three players as well as the experience on penalty-killing and the power play. Mike Murray has a big job ahead of him to repeat his superb sophomore year. Home ice is a lofty goal for the Chiefs this season, but it may be attainable if Richards' tandem-mate, Dwayne Roloson, continues to impress as he has for the past two years. > 17) North Dakota > 18) New Hampshire According to this, TSN is picking UNH for about 6th in HE. That may be right, with the crushingly devastating losses the Wildcats suffered after their wonderful 91-92 campaign. The top 5 forwards along with G Jeff Levy are gone, and their D was already their weak point. So while I may agree with 6th in HE, 18th in the country is pushing it, I do believe. If you want a sleeper out of HE, try Northeastern. I'm also tempted to throw Merrimack in there - if the goaltending situation settles out, the Warriors will challenge for home ice and gain some top 15 votes during the season - but you know about jinxes and all that. :-) Maybe you can tell...but I see HE having a couple of very good teams (BU, Maine), a couple of average teams (PC, BC) and a whole bunch of just-below- average teams (UML, MC, UNH, NU) which have the potential to move into the PC-BC group or even to finish dead last. > 19) RPI This surprised me. RPI is at least the 2nd best team in the ECAC, maybe the best. Top 10 at least. > 20) Michigan Tech Team without a coach is right, but with the way Brown had them improving over the last couple of years, I would have definitely pegged them for a top 15 finish. It will be interesting to see if they stay within the program or not - staying within may maintain some continuity and minimize the problems that could occur with a program losing a coach who has been working to take it up from the bottom. >I also read in the Albany paper that Union has added another one of the >Darby brothers. They must be quite the hockey playing family >(considering they are from Schenectady). Craig was HE Rookie of the Year >for PC. Another Darby (name?) was a freshman at Union this year. The >newest Dutchman (Keith?) is a former leading scorer for Army who sat out last >season and will be eligible to play effective with Union's opener with, >of all teams, Army. Given that Union graduated 7 of its' top 9 scorers >he will be a welcome addition. I'll have to look into this, but there's something that confuses me about all this - I didn't know there were *3* Darbys. I seem to recall some confusion last year about one of the Darbys being headed to Army and then winding up at Union at the last minute. The 91-92 Army/PC/Union media guides (I have all three since we played all three) should shed some light on this. - mike, sick of hearing about Syracuse football after 3 days out there