The answer to the above question is very subjective. I think one is prone to pick the era in which he/she has watched the most games. In any case, I would like to stick my $.02 worth in. While I agree with Mike Machnik that the 1987 year was quite good, I would submit that the period 1977-1979 was probably the best. Since I have been watching college hockey for (I hate to admit it) almost 30 years, I think I have a decent perspective in assessing different eras. The period I am talking about came to my mind since today is the first reunion of the 1980 Olympic team, taking place at Matthews Arena, Boston. In looking over the roster of that team, it was exclusively made up of former college players, most of whom had finished their careers in 1978 or 1979 (Eruzione finished in 1977). In addition, this was a "college all star team" for US residents only. Canadian born US college players were not included. A little research reveals that some Canadians who played in that era included Mike Eaves (Wisconsin), Rick Meagher (BU), Bob Gould (UNH), Phil Sykes (UND), Lance Nethery (Cornell) and Dave Taylor (Clarkson), In addition, there were several Americans who were pretty good but either chose not play or were cut from the team such as Ralph Cox (UNH), Craig Homola (Vermont), Joe Mullen (BC) and Jack Hughes (Harvard). (NOTE: At the time many of us thought that the Olympic team selections exposed a WCHA/Minnesota bias). If the criteria for assessing their talent is their level of success in the NHL, I would say that this group certainly measures up to any group from any era. And remember, this is in a period when the NHL saw the American college game as inferior and discouraged their draft choices from playing in it. One thing that caught my eye in viewing tapes of the US-USSR game in 1980 was the size of the players. There was clearly not an emphasis on weight training back then as there is now. I'd be curious to get a response from other College Hockey Dark Agers. How 'bout it Arthur, could Herb Wakabayashi, Ken Dryden and Tim Sheehy measure up?