In the Hockey-L poll results, Marcus Day writes... >And WELCOME to Ohio State who makes their first appearance >in the Poll with a good showing this last week.... >11)Ohio Sate 38 7-n/a 10.45 13 -- -- -- I've never been one to say good things about the Buckeyes, but the numbers don't lie. OSU is currently sitting in fourth place in the CCHA. They have a two-point lead over fifth place Northern Michigan, but OSU wins that tie-breaker on the strength of a 3-0-0 season sweep of NMU. Michigan's Bill Muckalt continues to lead the CCHA in overall scoring, but OSU sophomore Hugo Boisvert (16-21--37) is the current leader in CCHA play. Fellow soph Eric Meloche (15-14--29) and junior Chris Richards (10-19--29) are tied for fifth in CCHA scoring and JF Dufour (7-9--16) is one of the conference's promising freshmen. The young goaltending tandem of frosh Jeff Maund (13-5-0, 2.60, 91.3) and soph Ray Aho (4-5-2, 2.43, 90.3) have obviously played well. At 17-10-2, OSU is headed for their first 20-win season since 1985-86. Until this season, they hadn't recorded more than 12 victories since 1986-87. They weren't very overwhelming in a two-game sweep at the hands of Michigan at Yost, but I've been watching (mostly reading) from afar and OSU is putting together a very impressive season with a young team. They're currently 12th (tied for 11th, actually) in the pairwise comparisons, so an NCAA tournament appearance is not out of the question. I can't honestly say that I like them, but giving credit where credit is due, it's now mid-February and OSU is stringing together and outstanding season. Time will tell if they can hold it together for another six weeks. John Haeussler ([log in to unmask]) HOCKEY-L is for discussion of college ice hockey; send information to [log in to unmask], The College Hockey Information List.