MARC CHEVERIE
Denver
Jr. | G | Cole Harbour, Nova Scotia

His Statistics: 2 GP, 2 shutouts, 60 saves.

His Impact: It was a weekend of historic proportions for the Pioneers and for Cheverie, who whitewashed Minnesota on back-to-back nights—the first time that has happened to the Gophers since 1930—with identical 30-save efforts. In doing so, Cheverie extended his personal shutout streak to 203:19, second in the DU hockey annals behind Peter Mannino’s run of 208:42 without allowing a goal.

Cheverie has three shutouts this season—he also blanked Ohio State on Oct. 15—and seven for his career. Minnesota has been the victim of Cheverie’s perfection on three separate occasions. In addition to the shutouts this past weekend, he was also the goalie of record in a 4-0 win over the Gophers at Magness Arena on Nov. 22, 2008.

Heading into the Pioneers’ weekend series with Minnesota State, Cheverie leads the nation in shutouts, is tied for first in wins with four, ranks second with a .966 save percentage, and is fourth with a 1.00 goals against average.

His Runners-Up: Blake Kessel (New Hampshire); John Kruse (Air Force); Jerry Kuhn (Western Michigan); Chris McKelvie (Bemidji State); Brandon Pirri (Rensselaer); Bill Sweatt (Colorado College)

The INCH Player of the Week is presented by The INCH Shop

This past weekend was fairly enjoyable for hockey fans in Colorado. In addition to Denver’s series sweep at Minnesota, Colorado College took two games from visiting Michigan Tech. The Tigers were paced by senior forward Bill Sweatt, who in the two games piled up 1-6—7. Up the road a spell, Air Force got off the schneid with a pair of wins over RIT at Cadet Ice Arena. Rookie forward John Kruse led the Falcons with 1-5—6 and a plus-minus rating of +4. (As an aside, INCH hopes Kruse has designs on being a fighter pilot, and gets tagged with the nickname “Maverick.” We feel the need for speed.)

Although it hasn’t yet been formally announced, all indications are that next summer’s NHL Entry Draft will be held at Staples Center in Los Angeles, home of the Kings. We know that the North American geographic footprint for the NHL is significantly larger than that of college hockey, but it was nice for college hockey fans and media to consider nearby locales such as Montreal, Ottawa, and Columbus in recent years.

“They outworked us at times but I think we deserved at least one this weekend.”—Minnesota captain Tony Lucia, to Roman Augustovitz of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune following Denver’s second shutout of the weekend at Mariucci Arena Saturday.

When Lucia the younger says “one”, is he referring to a win or a goal?

INCH has stood by without comment for two weeks, but in this, the third week of absurdity, we are compelled to shed our cloak of silence. What, we ask, is up with one renegade pollster consistently going off the board with his/her first-place vote in the national polls?

It started two weeks ago when Boston College garnered a lone no. 1 mention in both the USA Hockey Magazine/USA Today and USCHO.com/CBS College Sports rankings. Last week, another Hockey East school, Vermont, earned a sole no. 1 vote in both polls. This week, Yale got the outlier in the polls.

Don’t get us wrong; we’re certainly open to radical thinking when it comes to voting in the national polls. Perhaps the voter in question can only give his/her top spot to institutions located in one of the 13 original colonies. We’ll know that’s the case should Old Dominion gets a first-place vote. But this pattern is odd, to say the least.

Obviously, we don’t know the identity of this person (or people). We don’t even know if it’s the same person responsible for the lone vote each week. We’d love to hear this particular voter’s rationale, however. One thing we can tell you is that it’s not us. INCH casts a vote in the USA Hockey Magazine/USA Today poll every week. The ballot we submit aligns with the top 15 teams in that week’s INCH Power Rankings.

@ThatKevinSmith: Via @nerdbastards “If Gozer the Gozerian asked you to choose the form of your destructor, what would it be?” Gretzky, circa ‘84 Oilers.

The successful writer/director (”Clerks”, “Chasing Amy”, etc.) is a big hockey fan, a bigger New Jersey Devils fan, and an even bigger Gretzky fan. A prolific Tweeter, Smith will soon start production on “Hit Somebody”, a hockey-themed flick based on the Warren Zevon song of the same name.