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 - http://www.aero.und.edu/~cbell - HOCKEY-L is for discussion of college ice hockey; send information to [log in to unmask], The College Hockey Information List.