As I promised a while back (and with the growing Harvard-Vermont controversy
here on Hockey-L), we now present the Guppie, which is (besides being a play
on Bill Fenwick's Tadpoll [I hope he hasn't copyrighted it]) a compilation of
the various preseason media predictions (Drop The Puck, TBRW? [ECAC only],
The Hockey News, Blue Ice, and McPaper) presented alongside the Hockey-l
contest consensus. (I'
ll give the ratings [if I can stop hitting the damn return bar] with and with-
out the Hockey-L opinion.)
Anyway, here we go:
HOCKEY EAST
(4 polls plus Hockey-L)
H-L DTP THN BI McP
Boston University 1 1 1 1 1
Northeastern 2 4 2 2 4
New Hampshire 3 2 5 3 5
Maine 4 3 3 4 2
Massachusetts-Lowell 5 5 6 7 6
Boston College 6 8 7 6 7
Merrimack 7 7 8 5 8
Providence 8 6 4 8 3
Mass-Amherst 9 9 9 9 9
(with H-L) (without H-L)
BU 5 BU 4
2. NU 14 2. NU 12
3. Maine 16 Maine 12
4. UNH 18 4. UNH 15
5. UML 29 5. PC 21
PC 29 6. UML 24
7. BC 34 7. BC 28
8. Merr. 35 Merr. 28
9. UMA 45 9. UMA 36
ECAC
(5 polls plus Hockey-L)
H-L DTP TBRW? THN BI McP
Harvard 1 2 4 3 4 2
Clarkson 2 5 3 1 3 1
RPI 3 7 5 4 5 3
Vermont 4 1 1 2 1 4
Brown 5 3 9 7 9 6
Cornell 6 4 6 9 6 9
Union 7 6 2 5 2 7
Colgate 8 8 8 6 8 5
St. Lawrence 9 10 12 10 12 8
Princeton 10 9 7 8 7 10
Yale 11 12 10 11 10 11
Dartmouth 12 11 11 12 11 12
(with H-L) (without H-L)
1. UVM 13 1. UVM 9
2. Clark. 15 2. Clark.13
3. Harv. 16 3. Harv. 15
4. RPI 27 4. Union 22
5. Union 29 5. RPI 24
6. Brown 39 6. Brown 34
7. Cor. 40 Cor. 34
8. Col. 43 8. Col. 35
9. Prin. 51 9. Prin. 41
10. StLaw 61 10. StLaw 52
11. Yale 65 11. Yale 54
12. Dart. 69 12. Dart. 57
CCHA
(4 media polls plus Hockey-L)
H-L DTP THN BI McP
Lake Superior State 1 3 2 3 3
Michigan State 2 1 1 1 1
Michigan 3 2 3 2 2
Bowling Green 4 4 5 4 4
Western Michigan 5 5 4 5 5
Miami 6 6 6 6 7
Ferris State 7 10 8 8 9
Illinois-Chicago 8 9 7 10 6
Notre Dame 9 7 9 7 8
Ohio State 10 8 10 9 10
(with H-L) (without H-L)
1. MSU 6 1. MSU 4
2. LSSU 12 2. UM 9
UM 12 3. LSSU 11
4. BGSU 21 4. BGSU 17
5. WMU 24 5. WMU 19
6. Miami 31 6. Miami 25
7. UIC 40 7. ND 31
ND 40 8. UIC 32
9. FSU 42 9. FSU 35
10. OSU 47 10. OSU 37
WCHA
(4 media polls plus Hockey-L)
H-L DTP THN BI McP
Minnesota 1 2 1 3 2
Colorado College 2 1 2 1 1
St. Cloud State 3 4 4 4 3
Wisconsin 4 8 6 8 5
Northern Michigan 5 3 3 2 4
Minnesota-Duluth 6 6 5 7 7
Denver 7 7 7 5 8
Alaska-Anchorage 8 5 8 6 6
Michigan Tech 9 9 9 9 9
North Dakota 10 10 10 10 10
(with H-L) (without H-L)
1. CC 7 1. CC 5
2. Minn 9 2. Minn 8
3. NMU 17 3. NMU 12
4. SCSU 18 4. SCSU 15
5. UAA 25 5. UMD 31
UMD 25 (wait, scratch that part, let's try again)
5. UMD 31 5. UAA 25
Wisc 31 UMD 25
7. UAA 33 7. Den. 27
8. Den 34 Wisc 27
9. MTU 45 9. MTU 36
10. ND 50 10. ND 40
(so, the order should be, with H-L: CC, Minn, NMU, SCSU, (UMD, Wisc), UAA, Den,
MTU, ND. Without H-L, it should be: CC, Minn, NMU, SCSU, (UAA, UMD), (Den,
Wisc), MTU, ND. I got the damn lists backwards.)
_______________________________________________________________________________
OK, in comparison, in HE, Hockey-L contestants were pretty much in line with
the media polls, except we were a lot tougher on PC than the media in general.
In the ECAC, H-Lers were tougher on Vermont, but rater both Harvard and RPI
higher than the media. H-Lers also didn't have too favorable of an opinion of
Union as compared to the media.
In the CCHA, things pretty much went true to form down to about 7th place.
The media doesn't seem to have too much of a soft spot for Ferris (unlike us)
but liked the Irish more than we did.
Finally, out West, the media likes NMU a lot more than we do, but doesn't have
a favorable opinion of the Badgers. We also seem to be a little tougher on
UAA.
G. M. Finniss
Michigan State University 3-0-1, 4-0-1
WVU '87, UTenn '92, MSU who the hell knows when?