St. Cloud State coach Bob Motzko didn’t see the hit live. Neither, apparently, did any of the four men in stripes on the ice. At least not very clearly.

With North Dakota star defenseman Chay Genoway laying on the ice, obviously injured after getting hit from behind against the end boards, the officials had seen enough to know that the infraction warranted a five-minute major penalty and a game misconduct. They just were a little fuzzy on who did it.

So with 2:33 to play in the second period of what would end up as a 4-2 Fighting Sioux win last Friday, referees Tim Walsh and Don Adam informed Huskies junior defenseman Chris Hepp that he was out of the game. According to Motzko, that’s when he first learned there was something wrong with the call.

“Chris went to (assistant coach) Eric Rud and said, ‘Why am I being tossed? I didn’t hit anybody!’” Motzko said. Hepp, who wears sweater number 18, had been confused with Aaron Marvin, who wears 17, and who had delivered what his coach called a “careless hit” on Genoway.

During the ensuing break between periods WCHA supervisor of officials Greg Shepherd, who was in attendance in Grand Forks that night, went over view of the play with the on-ice officials.

“We wanted to get it right, because we weren’t sure of the number,” Shepherd said.

A few minutes later there was a knock on the door of the Huskies locker room, and officials informed the team that Marvin, not Hepp, was out of the game. Hepp, who was out of uniform and headed for the shower, quickly geared up and played the third period. Marvin got a one-game suspension from the league and did not play in Saturday’s 3-2 St. Cloud State win.

According to Shepherd, the goal is to get the call right on the ice, but they can and do use video to ensure that the right players are penalized.

“You can’t go back and change penalties, but you can change the numbers,” Shepherd said.

Motzko said that in the confusion, mistakes happen, and he’s happy they took the time to eventually make the correct call, using the tools they have.

“One of the great things about video is that they can get it right,” Motzko said.

As for the hypothetical question about what would have happened had Marvin scored a goal during that 153-second span where he skated a shift for the Huskies when he should have been out of the game, Shepherd refused to speculate.

“I don’t even want to go there,” he said. “It worked out fine, and it’s over with.”

BRIAN O’NEILL
Yale
So. | F | Yardley, Pa.

His Statistics: 2GP, 2-3—5, +3 plus-minus rating

His Impact: Yale’s high-scoring sophomore was involved in a very good weekend for the defending ECAC Hockey champions. After a so-so start to the season, the Bulldogs earned a 4-2 win over unbeaten Cornell and rallied for a 3-3 tie against first-place Colgate. O’Neill factored in prominently with two goals and three assists on the weekend.

He assisted Yale’s first goal as well as the eventual game-winner in the victory over Cornell and sealed the victory with an empty-net goal. In Saturday’s game against Colgate, Yale trailed 2-0 in the second period before O’Neill’s goal got them on the board. He then assisted Sean Backman’s goal later in the period to pull the Bulldogs to within 3-2.

His Runners-Up: Stephane De Costa (Merrimack); Andrew Favot (RIT); Justin Fontaine (Minnesota Duluth); Chris Kushneriuk (Robert Morris); Drew Palmisano (Michigan State)

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

The RIT Tigers have bounced back from a slow start to move into first place in Atlantic Hockey. After starting the season with five straight losses, RIT has run off six consecutive wins—the nation’s longest winning streak—and is the only team in Atlantic Hockey with a winning overall record. 

Barely six weeks into the season, a number of high-profile players have been sidelined with various dings and dents—Minnesota’s Jay Barriball and Nick Leddy, Yale’s Thomas Dignard, Rensselaer’s Tyler Helfrich, Northeastern’s Steve Quailer, and Notre Dame’s Ted Ruth among them. Injuries affect every team, but we don’t have to like it. This weekend’s North Dakota-Denver series, for example, should be a doozy … but how much better could it be if we were assured Marc Cheverie, Patrich Wiercioch, and Chay Genoway would be healthy?

“We’re not that good. We’ve got one returning 20-goal scorer, and he’s got one goal, and outside of that … we don’t have a lot of prolific offensive players.” — Michigan coach Red Berenson to the Michigan Daily following his team’s back-to-back losses to Michigan State this past weekend.

If Michigan’s season keeps going in this direction, we may have to officially name this segment of the First Shift in honor of Berenson. The Wolverines have scored a total of four goals in their last four games—all of them losses—and anyone who has watched their last two series against Miami and Michigan State can see that Berenson’s club is severely lacking playmakers and their ability to create scoring chances is virtually non-existent.

This week we won’t point to any unusual voting patterns in the national polls, but to some of the circumstances that we considered when stacking the INCH Power Rankings. Michigan State and Colorado College made huge jumps in both the INCH Power Rankings as well as the national polls after conference sweeps on the weekend. That’s mainly due to the work of MSU and CC, but partially due to a middling bunch of efforts by teams ranked in the 6-15 range. It’s early, sure, but it seems like there’s a definite drop in stature from the top 5-7 teams and the rest of the pack in college hockey.

runwiththedogs: about 4 hats on the ice … pathetic

The people behind the Minnesota Duluth Runnin’ with the Dogs blog tweeted this message shortly after the Bulldogs’ Justin Fontaine scored his third goal in Saturday’s 8-1 rout of Michigan Tech (he would add a fouth goal before all was said and done). The message touches on an INCH pet peeve: If you are wearing a hat to a hockey game and a player scores three goals, it is your duty to toss said hat onto the ice.

Don’t want to chuck your favorite lid? Bring one you don’t care about. And even if it is your best hat, throw it anyway—the good karma you’ll get from the hockey gods will far surpass the out-of-pocket cost of replacing it.

Pretend, for just a second, that you haven’t watched any college hockey in the past few years, then you hear that Minnesota is hosting Bemidji State this weekend.

You’re told that one team won its conference and went to the Frozen Four last season, and is undefeated and nationally ranked this season. The other team, you’re told, missed the NCAA tournament last year, is under .500, is still searching for an identity and has a thin bench due to a combination of injuries and an unexpected departure.

Aaron Ness isn't worried about the state of the Gophers' defense corps.

If you knew nothing about the past few college hockey seasons, which description, would you think, describes the Beavers, and which describes the Golden Gophers?

Thankfully for Gopher fans, the players have been watching college hockey for the past few years, and know what they’re facing when the Beavers come to Mariucci.

“I think we’re a little bit of an underdog looking at the numbers and where they were last year,” said Minnesota captain Tony Lucia. “That’s what we need to instill in our minds that we need to play hard and play aggressive, because on paper they’re better than us. We need to go out and prove ourselves.”

After an 0-3-1 start, the Gophers have won three of their last four, so this should be a time of optimism for the team, if it weren’t so hard to keep track of who is still on the team, and in uniform. The trouble started in their Oct. 30 win over Alaska Anchorage, when freshman defenseman Nick Leddy (the Minnesota Wild’s first-round draft pick last summer) suffered a broken jaw and will be out for a few weeks.

In the following Tuesday’s practice there was a fluke collision between forward Jay Barriball and defenseman Sam Lofquist. It would be the last time they’d be on the rink together, as Barriball suffered a season-ending knee injury in the mishap (he had surgery this week) and later it was formally announced that Lofquist has left school at Minnesota and has joined the OHL’s Guelph Storm.

Added to the strangeness were the bad allergic reaction to some trail mix that caused Mike Hoeffel to miss last Friday’s 4-2 loss at Wisconsin, and the pre-emptive press release the school issued on Wednesday to refute rumors that Jordan Schroeder was going to leave the team at mid-season, or sooner, and sign with the Vancouver Canucks (who plucked him in the first round last summer).

Down to just a half-dozen healthy defensemen, the Gophers still express optimism that the worst is in the past, and there is hope for the near future.

“We’ll be fine,” said sophomore defenseman Aaron Ness. “You play with six D during the game anyway. We’ve got a solid core. We’re playing pretty well defensively and I think we’ll continue that.”

And defense may be the rule of the day this weekend with stingy Bemidji State coming to visit.

“They’re an older team and a veteran team, and they’re used to winning this year,” said Gopher coach Don Lucia. “They’re going to defend, wait for us to make mistakes and try to capitalize on those mistakes. They’ve only given up more than one goal in two of their games this year, so we’re going to have to do better than that if we expect to win.”

The elder Lucia is known as an expert on the ways of the computer system that determines who will get into the 16-team NCAA field and who will not. He seemed to already have an eye trained on that Sunday morning in March when he noted that playing a non-conference series versus an undefeated and nationally-ranked opponent like the Beavers is an opportunity for his team to score some national attention of its own.

It’s a potentially dangerous time in Minneapolis as the Gophers search for identity and adjust to new line combinations and defensive pairings out of necessity. One notion upon which both the coach and captain seem to be concentrating is ensuring that Minnesota does not misunderstand what it will face when the Beavers arrive.

“You’ve got to give them a lot of respect, to be in the Frozen Four last year and to start off this year undefeated, that’s no fluke,” said Tony Lucia. “They’re the real deal, so we’re taking them very seriously.”

The elder Lucia is quick to remind visitors that college is about learning and opportunity, and for better or worse, there are opportunities to learn in his lineup right now.

“We touched on the fact that it’s a team game, not an individual game and somebody’s going to get the chance to step in,” said coach Lucia. “The guys did a good job of that on Saturday night (a 5-2 win at Wisconsin) and hopefully that’s a good sign. Now we’ve won three out of four and hopefully we can continue to build on that.”

Everyone loves a good story, and this week’s college hockey slate is full of ‘em. Whether its the rematch of conference finalists, a historic rivalry that renews with the specter of an ugly on-ice incident from last season hanging over it, or a rematch featuring two teams that have gone in the opposite direction since their first meeting a month ago, we’ve got it all for you.

Drew Palmisano and his Michigan State teammates were winless in five games against Michigan a year ago.

Michigan vs. Michigan State (at Ann Arbor Friday, at East Lansing Saturday): Any more storylines for this series and we’re going to need J.J. Abrams to sort it all out. Beyond the obvious rivalry—the most heated in the CCHA and among the three or four best in college hockey—there’s Spartan forward Corey Tropp, the country’s leading scorer, returning to a building where last January he used his stick in a confrontation with Steve Kampfer as the Michigan defenseman was flat on the Yost Arena ice surface. Then there’s MSU seeking a measure of redemption; the Spartans dropped all five games to the Wolverines last season, losing by an average score of 5-2.

Coach Red Berenson read his team the riot act after getting swept by Miami in Ann Arbor last weekend, calling them “spoiled brats” after they piled up a number of undisciplined penalties in third period of Saturday’s series finale. Will they be able to keep their emotions in check? Conversely, how will the young Spartans deal with the intensity of this series? Of the 18 skaters Rick Comley had in the lineup for last Saturday’s game with Nebraska-Omaha, half were freshmen.

Bemidji State at Minnesota (Sat.-Sun.): Lost in the clamor of swirling rumors regarding Jordan Schroeder’s future, Jay Barriball’s season-ending injury, and Sam Lofquist’s defection to the OHL is this: The Gophers have played pretty good hockey the last two weekends, scoring 16 goals and allowing just eight in winning three of four against Alaska Anchorage and Wisconsin. Goaltender Alex Kangas has been sterling all along, and he’s finally getting some offensive support. He’ll need it against a Bemidji State team that ranks tied for seventh in the nation in scoring offense (3.75 goals per game). After scoring 40 points in 37 games last season, Beaver junior forward Matt Read has seven goals and 14 points in eight games. By the way, BSU also leads the country in scoring defense, allowing an average of just 1.25 goals per game.

Cornell at Yale (Friday): It’s a rematch of last year’s ECAC Hockey championship game when Yale hosts Cornell in New Haven. The Big Red appear to be the early favorites atop ECACH, but will be playing away from Lynah Rink for the first time this season. Yale won all three meetings against the Big Red last year and comes in after earning just one point on the road in a loss at RPI and a tie against Union to start its title defense. The third period has been the best for both teams. Through three games this year, Cornell has outscored its opponents 7-1 in the final 20 minutes and Yale has a 6-2 advantage over its opponents in the third period.

Vermont at Boston College (Sat.-Sun.): It doesn’t seem like a terrific series on paper given that the Catamounts are a .500 team while the Eagles enter the weekend with a 3-2-1 mark. These two clubs met in Burlington on Oct. 18-Vermont scored a 4-1 victory—but their fortunes have since diverged. UVM is 1-2-1 in four games since beating BC; the Eagles, meantime, are 3-1-1 since the loss at the Gut. Both are currently tied for third in Hockey East and, yeah, it’s early in the year, but a sweep either way would make the possibility of a top-four finish in the league standings that much more remote for the losing side.

Also: Two of ECAC Hockey’s early-season surprises meet Saturday when Rensselaer faces St. Lawrence … St. Cloud State is at North Dakota. The Huskies’ Garrett Roe won’t play Friday; he’s serving a one-game team-issued suspension … Can Merrimack continue its impressive start in its series with Boston University?

TV schedule: Friday—Harvard at Quinnipiac, NESN, 7:30 p.m. ET; Michigan State at Michigan, FSN Detroit, 7:30 p.m. ET; Ferris State at Miami, NHL Network, 7:30 p.m. ET; Alaska Anchorage at Wisconsin, FSN North Wisconsin, 8 p.m. ET; St. Cloud State at North Dakota, Fox College Sports, 8:30 p.m. ET. Saturday—Bemidji State at Minnesota, FSN North, 8:30 p.m. ET. Sunday—Bemidji State at Minnesota, FSN North, 7 p.m. ET.

CODY REICHARD
Miami
So. | G | Celina, Ohio

His Statistics: 2-0-0, 1.00 GAA, .959 save pct. in sweep at Michigan

His Impact: Miami made a strong statement in winning two games convincingly against CCHA rival and top-five ranked Michigan at Yost Ice Arena over the weekend. Reichard, the sophomore goalie who shared time with classmate Connor Knapp as a freshman, has emerged as Miami’s no. 1 in net and played very well in allowing just one goal each night against the Wolverines.

Reichard made 27 saves in Friday’s 3-1 win and stopped 20 shots in a 5-1 RedHawks victory Saturday. He and the Miami defense held the Wolverines to just one power-play goal in 14 opportunities on the weekend. Reichard and the RedHawks became the first team to sweep a weekend series at Yost since the early part of the 2001-02 season.

His Runners-Up: Brad Hunt, Bemidji State; Jeff Larson, Connecticut; Chase Polacek, Rensselaer; Carl Sneep, Boston College; Billy Sweatt, Colorado College

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

Former Michigan State standout Craig Simpson was the second overall pick in the 1985 NHL Draft and enjoyed a 10-year career with Pittsburgh, Edmonton, and Buffalo. He’s now the lead analyst for Hockey Night in Canda on the Canadian Broadcasting Company and, based on his performance last night, could be the winner of the CBC’s first Battle of the Blades.

Blades, a reality television series pairing ex-NHLers with figure skaters for a competition best described as Dancing With the Stars on ice. On Sunday, Simpson donned a blue crushed velvet suit and thick glasses as he and his partner, 2002 Olympic figure skating pairs gold medalist Jamie Sale, skated to Quincy Jones’ “Soul Bossa Nova”, better known as the theme from Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery. Corny for sure, but Simpson’s bringing it.

The Minnesota Duluth Bulldogs entered last weekend’s series at Colorado College as the nation’s second-most penalized team, and after racking up 51 PIMs in Saturday’s 6-2 loss they became the nation’s most penalized team. Among the infractions was a double-minor for roughing and instigating and a game misconduct assessed to Chad Huttel of the Bulldogs, who reportedly left the bench to start an altercation. These penalties came just 34 seconds after UMD closed to within two goals. Minnesota Duluth’s Drew Akins was called for a charging major and Dylan Olsen got a 10-minute misconduct, all with 2:18 remaining when CC scored its sixth goal..

“I’m embarrassed. We played like a bunch of spoiled brats. When you’re getting beat, you just keep working hard for the team. You don’t take it out on the other team and take stupid penalties that are going to hurt your team even further.” — Michigan coach Red Berenson following his team’s 5-1 loss to Miami Saturday.

The Wolverines racked up 51 penalty minutes in the third period, including a five-minute major and game misconduct to defenseman Tristin Llewellyn for checking from behind and misconducts to defenseman Chad Langlais and forward Kevin Lynch.

In eight years of compiling the INCH Power Rankings, the editors of this site can’t recall a team falling from the rankings in such dramatic fashion as Boston University has over the last two weeks. The Terriers were fourth in the Power Rankings of Oct. 25. We dropped them six spots last week, and completely from the Power Rankings this week. Why? Because they’re 2-5-0 and in last place in Hockey East. We don’t expect the Terriers to languish with that type of record over the long haul, but we can’t justifiably give them any recognition as one of the 20 best teams as they currently stand. That obviously wasn’t the case with many of the 50 voters in the USCHO.com Division I Men’s Poll, as BU was ranked 17th and received 235 total points on ballots. 

CoachTimArmy a disjointed game yesterday … after a day off today we’ll get back at it tomorrow … we’ll regroup and sort some areas of our game out.

The Providence coach, who has his team off to a respectable 5-3-0 start including wins at Massachusetts and Notre Dame, tweeted this message folloing the Friars’ 3-0 loss to Vermont Sunday. And while Army’s focus is obviously on hockey, he certainly hasn’t turned a blind eye to the rest of the world. The tweet that appeared just moments after the one above read, “and by the way … 27 and counting … go yanks!”

To say a hockey player has “great wheels” is to compliment his speed on the ice. But if you were to tell Rhett Rakhshani that he had great wheels while he was learning the game on the outdoor rinks of Southern California in the mid 1990s, all you’d have been telling him is that he was properly outfitted for hockey.

Rakhshani and Denver's other offensive-minded players will need to help carry the load while starting goalie Marc Cheverie recovers from injury.

The Denver senior started playing at age five, but was nearly twice that age before he tried the game on a sheet of ice. It’s no stretch to see the kid from Huntington Beach, Calif., list surfing as one of his favorite hobbies. But with no longboards and breakers to entertain him while playing developmental hockey in Michigan, and college hockey in Colorado, he’s had to be content with a different hobby he learned not far from the Pacfic beaches: creating offense and watching the goal light behind the opponents’ net glow.

With top goaltender Marc Cheverie out of the Pioneers’ lineup for a few weeks due to a nasty cut on his leg, the focus rightly switches to the new Denver goalie, freshman Adam Murray. But the burden of leading the team, as Denver heads to Alaska Anchorage this weekend for a pair, switches to the offense. And anyone who witnessed the Pioneers’ forceful statement at Mariucci Arena two weekends ago doesn’t have to look at the team statistics to know that Rakhshani leads the way as Denver seeks to bring the MacNaughton Cup back to Magness Arena for its third visit of the decade.

“Rhett has tremendous stick skills and he’s capable of doing some wonderful things that other people just can’t do,” said George Gwozdecky, one night before Rakhshani and Cheverie would help give the Pioneers coach his 500th win. “He has such great roller hockey hands and is so fast, so what he’s able to do - pick the corner or shoot a puck off a pass, maintain possession when he’s knocked off balance - those are the things that he’s really, really good at.”

He was held to just an assist in last weekend’s home win and tie with Minnesota State, but Rakhshani had three of the team’s six goals at Minnesota and leads the team with nine points in eight games. After the Gopher series was over and his team was packing to leave Minneapolis in possession of a serious statement about who is the WCHA’s team to beat, Rakhshani reflected on those early days of learning to skate and score on wheels and concrete, rather than on blades and ice.

“Roller hockey is more of an offensive game so there are more offensive opportunities you’re given,” he said. “Through that you get to practice and learn the play. A lot of it is just hockey sense, but over time I’ve been able to develop a little bit of a scoring touch and a quick release.”

Rakhshani comes from an athletic family - his uncle Vic played tight end for the USC football team - so it’s not surprising that when he switched to ice hockey at age nine, the only real transition was learning to stop. Perhaps that was a sign of things to come, as stopping him hasn’t been easy for opponents throughout his college career.

If his coach doesn’t seem as consistently awed by the skills as others, keep in mind that Gwozdecky has had a front-row seat for the show for three seasons, and has realized that Rakhshani’s unique talents, learned outside in the Southern California sun, aren’t easy to teach, duplicate, or rein in.

“What he does sometimes may be a special effort by others, but for him that’s pretty normal,” Gwozdecky said.

DAN RINGWALD
Rochester Institute of Technology
Sr. | D | Oakville, Ontario

His Statistics: 2 GP, 3-3—6, 5 power-play points

His Impact: The RIT Tigers made the jump to Division I hockey just five years ago and have experienced a lot of success in that time. Entering last weekend’s games with an 0-5-0 record was unfamiliar territory for the Tigers, but they broke through with a big offensive weekend in a two-game sweep of Connecticut in an Atlantic Hockey series.

RIT scored 13 goals over the two games with a 6-2 win on Friday and 7-0 win on Saturday. The Tigers were 4-for-7 on the power play in the Friday win and 2-for-9 in Saturday’s win and power-play quarterback Dan Ringwald keyed the offensive surge.

Ringwald had three assists in Friday’s win, all of which came on the power play, and scored a natural hat trick in Saturday’s win. His three straight goals in the first period stretched RIT’s lead to 4-0.

He’s been a consistent point producer over his entire RIT career and entered the season as RIT’s all-time leader in assists and points by a defenseman at the Division I level and is a two-time All-Atlantic Hockey first-team selection. His big weekend helped start turning RIT’s season in a positive direction.

His Runners-Up: Alex Beaudry, Providence; Scott Greenham, Alaska; Alexander Killorn, Harvard; Nathan Longpre, Robert Morris; Tony Lucia, Minnesota

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

Could you tell last weekend was Halloween for college hockey, too? A bunch of defensemen across the nation got into the spirit by masquerading as Paul Coffey.

Ringwald had back-to-back, three-point nights, but five other blueliners put forth three-point games. Ringwald’s RIT compadre, Al Mazur, had three goals and an assist against Connecticut Friday, the same night St. Lawrence’s Peter Child recorded a hat trick against Sacred Heart.

On Saturday, a trio of defensemen racked up three assists—Cullen Lundholm of Robert Morris, who had three assists in a win over Quinnipiac; Wisconsin’s Brendan Smith, who did it against New Hampshire; and Minnesota State’s Ben Youds, who accomplished the feat against Denver.

We briefly mentioned that there was some market correction in this week’s INCH Power Rankings in regard to some Hockey East teams. Specifically, these are teams that are at or below .500 through the first month of the season. Defending national champion Boston University is 2-3-0, as is Northeastern—an NCAA Tournament team from a year ago. Vermont, despite some impressive early wins, is also 2-3-0. BC is at .500 with a 2-2-0 mark and New Hampshire is 2-4-1 after being blown out in two games at Wisconsin last weekend. Full credit goes to Massachusetts (4-1-0), UMass Lowell (4-2-0) and upstarts Merrimack (5-3-0) and Providence (5-2-0), but the trend of slow starts for many of the teams is troubling. 

“I think that’s a terrible precedent for a league, and I think the integrity of the league’s at stake when you make that sort of decision … You’re actually encouraging member institutions to cheat, as long as they don’t get caught before the game is declared over.”—Nebraska-Omaha athletic director Trev Alberts to Chad Purcell of the Omaha World-Herald following the Mavericks’ controversial shootout loss to Bowling Green Friday in which the Falcons used an ineligible player.

Alberts, the former All-American linebacker at Nebraska and football commentator, went on to say that he was disappointed by the CCHA’s “lack of leadership.” He never minced words on the air, and it appears that hasn’t changed. That’s great, because in our opinion the happy-happy-joy-joy CCHA could use a little piss and vinegar. 

We’re nitpicking here—isn’t that the point of this feature?—but New Hampshire somehow appeared on the ballots of enough voters to garner seven points in the latest USCHO.com/CBS College Sports just days after getting throttled twice at Wisconsin last weekend. With a 2-4-1 record, can anyone honestly say UNH is one of the 20 best teams in the country or has even played to that level? It begs the question, are voters actually casting ballots based on the previous weekend’s results? In this instance, it seems more like a vote for the program or a vote of familiarity (i.e. UNH has been good in the past, so they’re probably good this year, too) more than anything.

SchlossmanGF Which Halloween costume of Jonny Toews is better? Dumb and Dumber or Wolverine?

Brad Elliot Schlossman of the Grand Forks Herald forwarded the above links Monday. In addition to former Fighting Sioux and current Chicago Blackhawks standout Toews, we get a look at the costumes of ex-collegians Adam Burish (Wisconsin), Duncan Keith (Michigan State), and Patrick Sharp (Vermont). Makes one wonder what these guys did with all the free time they had during the lockout.

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.

The headline of this piece doesn’t refer to the prowess any member of the INCH family has as a deejay, though, if asked, we’re more than happy to dust off our Eric B. and Rakim vinyl and take a turn on the wheels of steel. Instead, it refers to the picks for this week’s most intriguing matchups—a pair of single games pitting CCHA and Hockey East powers against one another and two conference series.

Junior goaltender John Muse allowed four goals on 16 shots in Boston College's season-opening loss at Vermont Sunday.

Boston College at Notre Dame (Friday): Notre Dame has won four of the last five games in this series with the lone loss coming to Boston College in the 2008 Frozen Four championship game in Denver. The Fighting Irish were shaky in series splits with Alabama-Huntsville and Providence, but shut out a listless Boston University team at Agganis Arena Tuesday. Listlessness must be spreading like H1N1 in the Hub of Hockey, because the Eagles looked as much in a season-opening loss at Vermont Sunday.

The most intriguing matchup in this contest pits the Irish forwards, who’ve yet to fire on all cylinders, against a young BC defensive corps that struggled against UVM. Notre Dame defenseman Teddy Ruth, who hasn’t played this season because of a lower body injury, will not dress against the Eagles.

Denver at Minnesota (Friday-Saturday): In this very space last week prior to its series at North Dakota, it was mentioned that Minnesota was a great unknown that could win by six goals or lose by the same margin. Two games into the season, I don’t know that we have any greater handle on the Gophers other than the fact that goaltenders Alex Kangas and Kent Patterson were pretty sharp.

The Pioneers won’t have standout center Joe Colborne in the lineup—he broke a finger in a loss to Ohio State last week. Also, DU coach George Gwozdecky tells Mike Chambers of the Denver Post that he plans to rotate goalies Marc Cheverie and Adam Murray for the third straight series.

Michigan at Boston University (Saturday): Offense shouldn’t be a problem for these teams, but it has thus far. The Terriers, a few days removed from being shut out by Notre Dame, have two goals in two games. The Wolverines, meanwhile, have nine goals in three games. Keep an eye on a pair of talented forwards who’ve yet to get untracked-or is it on track? Because untracked would seem to indicate derailment, and that ain’t good. Semantics aside, Michigan’s Louie Caporusso, who scored 24 goals and 49 points last season, has bagels thus far. BU’s Nick Bonino scored 50 points as a rookie; he, too, is scoreless.

RIT at Air Force (Friday-Saturday): Atlantic Hockey’s preseason favorites enter the weekend with a combined 0-7 record (to be fair, the league’s 10 teams are 1-23-0 thus far.) Air Force, which started last season with 13 straight wins, is 0-4, its longest losing streak in more than two years. Senior goalie Andrew Volkening has been abysmal as evidenced by his 5.91 GAA and .805 save percentage. RIT, meanwhile, has three narrow losses to ECAC Hockey opponents. In those three games the Tigers have fired a combined 119 shots on target, but have scored just six goals. That a shooting percentage of a little better than five percent.

Also: An offensive explosion could be in the works in Oxford—Miami and Michigan State have each played four games and scored a combined 34 goals … Is there a trio of forwards in the country better than Minnesota Duluth’s Justin Fontaine, Jack Connolly, and Mike Connolly? They’ll meet a St. Cloud State team that has yet to click offensively … UMass Lowell readies for a rugged stretch to open its Hockey East slate (Northeastern, Boston University, at Boston University, at Vermont, New Hampshire) with a non-conference match against Colgate at Tsongas Arena … Exhibitions for Ivies Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, and Princeton this weekend.

"An above-average game" is how Wisconsin goaltender Brett Bennett described his Badger debut, a 3-2 loss to Colorado College last Friday.

Prior to Wisconsin’s season opener, Madison’s famed State Street was jumping with an interesting mix of humanity clad in combinations of red, white, black, and gold. Alumni by the thousands came back to the Isthmus to celebrate the school’s homecoming, where they were greeted by foes in bumblebee colors—Iowa in football and Colorado College on the ice.

And at the Kohl Center, a show that was supposed to be new Badger goalie Brett Bennett’s triumphant return to the college game was stolen by a little-known rookie from the Front Range.

Bennett, a junior from the Buffalo suburbs, won 16 games for Boston University two seasons ago before he was released from the team. After a season in the USHL, Bennett made the sequel version of his college hockey debut at the Kohl Center and was relatively solid throughout with 23 saves.

“It was an above-average game, but I think there’s more to come,” said Bennett. “I think I’m better than that.”

On that Friday, he was not the best goalie on the ice. CC freshman Joe Howe turned aside 39 shots, keeping the Tigers close during the first half of the game when the Badgers appeared poised for a blowout and allowing CC to rally for a 3-2 win.

“Obviously, Joe Howe was our best player,” Tigers coach Scott Owens said, recalling an opening 40 minutes in which the Badgers had a 26-14 edge in shots. “That thing could have been 2-0 or 3-0 after one, and it wasn’t—it was 1-0.”

Howe, from suburban Minneapolis, hadn’t before played at the Kohl Center, but had been clued in by high school friends now going to Wisconsin that he’d face immediate hostility from the arena’s raucous student section.

“We came in and said we can’t let that affect us,” said Howe, who earned WCHA Rookie of the Week honors in helping the Tigers to a road win and a tie. “Teammates did a good job of blocking a lot of shots and letting me see a lot of shots too.”

Oddly, Wisconsin’s new goalie coach might have felt a sense of pride in watching Howe’s performance. Madison native Jeff Sanger, a four-year letterwinner in goal for the Tigers earlier this decade, admitted he was a little shocked after getting the Badger job to learn that his first opponent would be the one he knew best.

“When I first got offered the position and I saw [the schedule], it was one of those ‘oh my God’ feelings,” Sanger said. “It was tough after playing at CC for four years. I told them if I was in Colorado Springs and had an opportunity to coach CC, I would. But I’m in Madison with a chance to coach UW, so it is what it is.”

For decades, the Badgers have generally been known for riding one very good goalie for much of a season, but this will likely be a season of departure in Madison, with another junior, Scott Gudmandson, in the mix for the starting job. Gudmandson started the Saturday match with the Tigers, stopping 31 shots (to 26 for Howe) in a 1-1 overtime tie. The new goalie coach advised Bennett to forget the past and focus on the battle to earn favor with head coach Mike Eaves.

“I don’t know what the history was at BU; I just know that here he’s got to work his butt off,” Sanger said. “He’s competing against Scott Gudmandson, who’s a great goaltender as well, so it’s going to be a battle throughout the year and nobody can feel comfortable. They’re not set on one guy. Somebody’s going to have to take the torch and run with it.”

In Colorado Springs, meanwhile, it appears that Howe’s run with the Tigers’ goaltending torch is well underway.