As tonight’s Beanpot championship approaches, I figured that Monday would be a good day to take a look at the top Hobey Baker candidates in Hockey East and see how their performances this season measure up when I apply the Campbellnomics system and find out who’s coming up biggest at crunch time.

Campbellnomics, as you may recall from Sunday’s blog post, was developed by Ken Campbell of the Hockey News, and it focuses on the most meaningful goals of a game by awarding points only on seven types of goals: the first goal of the game, a goal that produces a lead, a goal that ties the game, a goal that produces the last lead, a goal that leads to a comeback, an overtime goal, and a shootout goal. The system also favors goal-scorers by awarding a full point for a goal in each of those situations, and half a point for an assist. One goal can count in multiple categories, so, for example, the scorer of a game-winning goal in a 1-0 win would receive four points: one for the first goal of the game, one for the lead, one for the last lead, and one for overtime. Meanwhile, a player who assisted on that goal would receive two points.

Ken keeps a running total throughout the season, and uses point totals rather than averages, since most NHL players play all 82 games. Because we’re dealing with college hockey, and different teams play different numbers of games, whether it’s because of tournament or travel exemptions or Ivy League restrictions, I’m using a per-game average. For frame of reference, the Campbellnomics leader as of last Tuesday, Sidney Crosby, was averaging approximately 1.18 CPPG (Campbellnomics Points Per Game). Also, while the CCHA does use a shootout, along with some holiday tournaments, I am not counting shootout goals, as they aren’t widespread enough in college hockey to make for a fair comparison.

Yesterday, I looked at the top five Hobey Baker candidates from Atlantic Hockey and the CHA, finding that Air Force’s Jacques Lamoureux led the the group with .80 CPPG, ahead of Bemidji State’s Matt Read (.73), Sacred Heart’s Nick Johnson (.73) and Canisius’ Cory Conacher (.71) Today, I’m turning my attention to Hockey East, and will be looking at five forwards: Maine sophomore Gustav Nyquist, UMass junior James Marcou, UMass sophomore Casey Wellman, New Hampshire senior Bobby Butler, and Boston College junior Brian Gibbons (later in the week, when I evaluate defensemen, I’ll be looking at UNH’s Blake Kessel, UMass-Lowell’s Nick Schaus and BU’s Kevin Shattenkirk or Colby Cohen…I still haven’t decided which).

Gustav Nyquist has been a key to Maine’s resurgence this season, which has the Black Bears contending for the Hockey East lead after a weekend sweep of UNH, not to mention a return to the NCAA tournament after a two-year absence. The Swedish sophomore is currently second overall in the nation in points per game with 14 goals and 26 assists in 26 games, an average of 1.54 points per game. He’s also only been held off the scoresheet in four contests this year. After looking at the game situations in which he scored, though, Nyquist comes up with a total of 18 Campbellnomics points, an average of .69 CPPG.

UMass has one of the most dynamic one-two punches in the nation in the tandem of junior James Marcou and sophomore Casey Wellman. Marcou, with his nine goals and 32 assists in 27 games, is No. 3 in the nation in scoring average at 1.52 points per game, while Wellman is 11th, his 19 goals and 16 assists averaging out to approximately 1.30 points per game. Under the Campbellnomics system, however, the roles are reversed. Because the system weights goals by awarding twice as much for them as for assists, Marcou’s total is 21 Campbellnomics points for a very respectable average of .78 CPPG, higher than any of the Atlantic and CHA players I evaluated on Sunday. Wellman, meanwhile, totaled 27.5 Campbellnomics points, averaging approximately 1.02 CPPG. Not only is Wellman scoring big for the Minutemen, but he’s scoring at big times, and Marcou is usually there with a helping hand.

New Hampshire’s Bobby Butler has been a Hockey East Player of the Month for the Wildcats, and has managed to keep up a high scoring pace following that honor. Overall, Butler’s 18 goals and 19 assists in 27 games give him an average of 1.37 PPG, good for seventh in the country. He also holds up nicely under the Campbellnomics system, totalling 24.5 Campbellnomics points for an average of .91 CPPG, No. 2 among all the players I’ve evaluated so far.

Finally, we turn to Brian Gibbons of Boston College, who made a nice impression at the Beanpot last week and will look to do the same tonight. Gibbons is ninth in the country in overall scoring, his 10 goals and 24 assists in 25 games averaging out to 1.36 points per game. Campbellnomics, however, is not kind to Gibbons, awarding him a total of 15.5 points, an average of .62 CPPG.

So, to recap:

Casey Wellman, So., F, UMass: 1.02 CPPG
Bobby Butler, Sr., F, UNH: .91 CPPG
James Marcou, Jr., F, UMass: .78 CPPG
Gustav Nyquist, So., F, Maine: .69 CPPG
Brian Gibbons, Jr., F, Boston College: .62 CPPG

Now, I’m certainly not saying that Casey Wellman is far and away a better canidate than Gustav Nyquist because of the cap in their scores. For one thing, I’m uncomfortable about not counting the goal that stretches a one-goal lead to a two-goal lead, particularly when a later score by the opposing team turns that goal into the game-winner. Also, Wellman has the benefit of playing with Marcou, a returning All-American, which Nyquist does not (this is not to discount the abilities of his teammates and linemates, but they don’t have Marcou’s credentials). This is just another element to look at as we compare these players and see who might be deserving of a spot as a Hobey Baker finalist when the selections are announced in a little more than a month.

And who knows? Maybe next season I’ll develop my own system. USCHOmetrics, anyone?

Before I get into the trivial stuff, condolences to everyone in the Miami hockey family after the loss of student assistant Brendan Burke. You had to be struck by Burke’s courage, which a lot of us came to realize in an ESPN.com article. He’s gone far too soon, but I’m guessing there are a lot of parts of The Brotherhood that are a lot better off for Burke’s time with the program.

Here’s what I think after the 18th week of the season:

* I learned a few things at the Camp Randall Hockey Classic on Saturday. First, standing in the elements for the better part of six hours is pretty tolerable if you’re well-dressed and have some good hockey to watch. So the second period of the Wisconsin-Michigan game? Yeah, pretty cold at that point.

Second, I think if you’re going to do an outdoor event with both a women’s game and a men’s game, you have to put them on different days. I know you’re trying to get attendance for the women’s game by partnering it with the men’s game, but by the end, it’s just too long of a day. And the weather wasn’t that bad for Feb. 6 in Wisconsin. Imagine playing two games in sub-zero temperatures. Maybe you could have the women’s game connected to a public skate or some other event and then have the men’s game the next day.

Third, Wisconsin defenseman Brendan Smith may have just officially launched his Hobey campaign. I’ve seen him play for the better part of his three years with the Badgers, and I can say there are times when I have been turned off by the risky plays he makes. But this season, he looks much more like the complete picture that everyone has thought he could be. The two goals he scored in front of the second-largest crowd ever to see a college hockey game made quite a statement in his favor (he now has 12 goals and a team-high 33 points), but I’ll remember his last big play of the game.

Smith got in the way of a potential Michigan breakaway pass in the final minute, preventing the shorthanded Wolverines from getting a chance to tie. Smith may have been out of position on the play — I didn’t have the best angle to be able to tell if he was responsible for the player breaking out of the zone — but in the final analysis, he made the play. It doesn’t always have to be by the book to get the job done.

* If Maine ends up in the NCAA tournament this season, it might be able to look back at this weekend as what put it over the top. A pair of wins over a good New Hampshire team vaulted the Black Bears to eighth in the PairWise Rankings.

And, hey, I guess we have a race again in Hockey East. UNH now leads Maine and Boston College — both of whom have a game in hand — by just three points.

* No such race in the CCHA, where Miami can wrap things up with as little as a shootout victory when it plays last-place Bowling Green on Friday. A 14-point lead is inflated, of course, by the CCHA’s three-point system, but that’s still almost a five-game advantage with the RedHawks having six league games remaining.

* I guess we’ve found the way for North Dakota to stay in the NCAA tournament picture. Quoting “War Games,” the only winning move is not to play. The Sioux are back up to being a No. 3 seed after sitting out and watching this weekend’s action play out.

* I’m tempted to take Boston University in the Beanpot final, but I’m going to go with Boston College. It has been a roller coaster of a second half for the Eagles, but scoring five, six and seven goals in the last three games (while allowing a total of three) is a sign that the offense is back clicking.

* I had the hardest time picking the 20th team for the poll this week. So I went with Northern Michigan, which might not have the greatest resume, but has been pretty solid in the second half if you discount a trip to Nebraska-Omaha.

Here’s my full ballot:

1. Miami
2. Denver
3. Wisconsin
4. St. Cloud State
5. Colorado College
6. Bemidji State
7. Boston College
8. Minnesota-Duluth
9. Maine
10. Ferris State
11. New Hampshire
12. Vermont
13. Michigan State
14. North Dakota
15. Cornell
16. Yale
17. Massachusetts
18. Union
19. Michigan
20. Northern Michigan

First of all, kudos to Wisconsin on a fantastic event Saturday at the Camp Randall Hockey Classic. I watched the game at a Buffalo Wild Wings (so I could watch the Rangers at the same time and have a good seat for UFC 109 as well), and it definitely turned some heads when people saw what was going on.

Sure, there was a little bit of an issue with the ice at one end, but to me, it was more than offset by cool stuff like Scott Gudmanson’s toque, the “IT’S A GREAT DAY FOR HOCKEY” sign on the boards in front of the benches, and of course, Adam Burish helping out on analysis between periods. I spent a fair bit of time talking with Adam during the 2005-06 season hope he heals soon and can continue his career with the Blackhawks, but he’ll be on TV for a long time when he’s done playing.

Anyway, in addition to watching for the event, I also had my eye on Wisconsin’s big stars and Hobey candidates: Brendan Smith, Derek Stepan, Michael Davies and Blake Geoffrion, and for once, I got to see something big from a Hobey contender in a game I was watching, as Smith scored the game-tying and game-winning goals in the third period in a huge comeback for the Badgers (and a heartbreaker for the Wolverines, who really could have used that win for their NCAA tournament chances).

As Smith scored his first goal, I said, “That’s a huge goal for him,” referring to his case as a potential Hobey winner. When he scored his second, I said, “Oh, just give it to him already.” Now, while I may have been a bit premature with that second statement, he’s having a Hobey-caliber season (his 1.27 PPG from the blueline is in the ballpark with Matt Carle’s 1.36 in 2005-06), and scoring two huge goals on a bigtime stage is the kind of performance that definitely gets a player closer to the Hobey.

But it got me thinking about the Hobey race and how best to account for when players put up their points, so I decided to take a closer look.

I’m going to borrow a system from Ken Campbell of the Hockey News, who posts his “Campbellnomics” columns on their website (according to his latest, the system is much kinder than the overall NHL scoring race to former collegians Zach Parise and Mike Cammalleri). Hey, lots of people think a guy named Ken’s system should determine the NCAA tournament teams, right?

The Campbellnomics system awards a point for on six types of goals: the first goal of a game, a goal that ties the game, a goal that produces a lead, the goal that produces the last lead, a goal that leads to a comeback, and an overtime goal. A goal can be counted more than once per category, so, for example, the player who scores the first goal of a shutout win would get three Campbellnomics points: one for the first goal, one for the lead, and one for the last lead. Assists on those goals count as well, but they only count for half a point per category, so the player who assisted on the aforementioned winning goal in a shootout would pick up 1.5 Campbellnomics points.

Now, it’s not an ideal system, from my point of view – I think a goal that stretches a one-goal lead into two or two into three is worthy of consideration – but it’s a pretty good way to go inside the numbers.

So, I’m going to take the Campbellnomics system and apply it to 30 skaters, five forwards from each of the “Big Four” conferences, five forwards from Atlantic Hockey and the CHA, and five defensemen. I’m not saying this is the be-all and end-all of who should be in the Hobey picture, but it’s something else to think about.

So, let’s get started with the Atlantic Hockey and CHA guys. There seems to be one spot a year reserved for a player from one of those conferences, and there are a number of worthy candidates for that spot this year, so it seemed like a natural to compare these guys first.

Canisius forward Cory Conacher has surged to the top of the national scoring chart this year, currently averaging 1.62 points per game on 18 goals and 24 assists in 26 games.  Based on when those points were registered, though, his 42 points translate to 18.5 Campbellnomics points, or .71 CPPG (Campbellnomics Points Per Game).

Air Force forward Jacques Lamoureux has fallen off a bit from his scoring pace of a season ago, when he was No. 2 in the nation in points per game with 1.29 PPG, and tops in goals with 33. On the overall scoring chart, Lamoureux’s 1.17 PPG is almost half a point per game behind Conacher’s pace. However, Campbellnomics gives him 24 points in 30 games this season, placing him ahead of Conacher with .80 CPPG.

Sacred Heart had a 12-game unbeaten streak snapped by RIT on Friday night, but the Pioneers won Saturday to give them an 11-1-2 record in their last 14 games, making them one of the hottest teams in college hockey. The driving forces behind Sacred Heart’s success have been senior forwards Nick Johnson and Dave Jarman, who are currently tied for fourth in the national scoring race, averaging 1.39 points on 39 points in 22 games. The Campbellnomics system, however, awards Johnson 20.5 points, while helper-happy Jarman comes up shorter with 16 points, giving Johnson and Jarman averages of  .73 CPPG and .57 CPPG, respectively.

Finally, we’ll jump over to the CHA and take a look at Bemidji State forward Matt Read, who’s been the conference’s top player from the drop of the first puck this season. Now, Read’s Hobey Buzz has fallen off since the early going, but he’s still one of the nation’s top 20 scorers – 19th, to be exact – with 14 goals and 18 assists in 26 games, an average of 1.23 points per game. Meanwhile, Campbellnomics awards him 19 points, an average of  .73 CPPG.

So, just to recap:

Jacques Lamoureux, Air Force: .80 CPPG
Matt Read, Bemidji State: .73 CPPG
Nick Johnson, Sacred Heart, .73 CPPG
Cory Conacher, Canisius, .71 CPPG
Dave Jarman, Sacred Heart, .57 CPPG

So, does that mean to pencil in Lamoureux for a Hobey finalist spot? Not necessarily. What we need to remember here is that Read leads a team that is ranked No. 7 in the country, and is in contention for a top-four seed in the NCAA tournament. The same can not be said for Air Force, which needs to win Atlantic Hockey to make the NCAA tournament. That’s a big difference maker.

Of course, Lamoureux also has the benefit of playing for a service academy, which ties in with the history of Hobey Baker, and a personal story and record of community work that bolster his case.

Could there be room for both? Possibly. But if there’s only one, my guess is that Read has the edge.

In any event, I think that Conacher is a candidate to go the way of Brian Leitch, Dave Borelli, and others who have posted big numbers but failed to receive Hobey recognition. But then again, he’s just a  junior, so there’s always next year.

But that’s just me. What do you think? You think Ken Campbell’s onto something?

USCHO.com Hobey Watch 2010 Podcast, Episode 2: George Gwozdecky

USCHO.com’s Jim Connelly and Ed Trefzger are joined by Denver head coach George Gwozdecky as they look at Hobey Baker candidates from the WCHA: DU’s Marc Cheverie, Wisconsin’s Brendan Smith, and Jack Connolly and Justin Fontaine of Minnesota Duluth.

I called up one of my most dependable interviews, Rensselaer head coach Seth Appert, to get his thoughts on ECAC Hockey vis a vis its non-conference challenges. Well-spoken, affable and cerebral, Appert has proven himself time and again to be a great source when discussing the more nuanced aspects of the game.

A goaltender at Ferris State from 1992-96, Appert then served as an assistant coach at the University of Denver for nine seasons before accepting his first head-coaching position at RPI.

Brian Sullivan: ECAC Hockey teams seem to be struggling on the national stage, when it comes to wins and losses in non-conference games. Thoughts?

Seth Appert: Frankly, the number of non-conference games that we have plays into that as well. We play more non-conference games, so just by its nature we tend to lose some of those games. The non-Ivies, specifically.

BS: If you look at it, you’re playing 22 conference games, whereas the other leagues are playing 27, or mostly 28. So mathematically, one way of looking at it is that one of your league games is worth 25 percent more than any other league’s.

SA: Correct.

BS: So it makes sense that, through nobody’s fault, ECAC coaches are going to prioritize league games because they’re that much more important.

SA: Well, I don’t know if I’d say that. I think that they are important for everybody. They carry more value for us because you don’t have as much time to make up ground, I guess; you don’t have the potential of a two-game weekend against the same team to make up ground, either. But at the same time, I don’t think that teams in other leagues are saying that their league games aren’t as important, and, ‘We’re going to save something for our non-conference series next weekend.’ I don’t think that’s the case.

BS: Well not exactly that, but if you’re in another league, then you’ll have fewer non-league games, so therefore each one might feel a little more important.

SA: Well there’s that. I do agree with that. All league games are important; I don’t know if I’d say that our league games are any more important. They carry more significance because there are fewer games, but I don’t think they’re more important. I think everybody treats league games with a high degree of importance, but certainly there are pluses and minuses to the non-conference (situation). The plus is how many non-conference games we get, but the minus is, as you said, there are so many of them – everybody else has six of them, you can get a little more focus on those six – when we have 12-14 of them, it’s a bit more difficult I guess. But at the same time, when you have those 12 or 14 non-conference games you can use them to play a lot of premier teams from other conferences as well.

BS: Well that’s another problem. Generally speaking, there are some big-time matchups between ECAC teams and teams from other conferences. We’ve seen Harvard go out and play Minnesota, RPI has played three big Hockey East teams (as well as Michigan and Michigan State), but there are some other schools – not to name names – who seem to load up on weaker opponents … kinda like SEC football, where you’re looking for wins and an opportunity to build your team, rather than looking for big statement wins.

SA: Well that all depends on the coaches’ philosophies on how to build their teams. It doesn’t hurt you to play lesser-ranked teams, as long as you win!

BS: Well that’s the problem, is we’ve seen some teams … who have lost a lot of games to bad teams. It also seems like with the added focus on league games – with fewer of them to play – it seems like some of the coaches tend to use their non-conference games to tinker around with their lineups a bit more, play their second- or third-string goalies more, rest some of their players more. Do you think – even if you’re going to do that – do you think you should change your schedule to where you’re playing more non-league games either on the heels of, or just prior to, a bye week, so there’s a little more focus on those games?

SA: Well we don’t have a lot of control over that; your schedule is what it is. You have certain open weekends, certain league weekends, certain non-conference weekends. So there’s not a dramatic amount of control that you have over that. The fact of the matter is that the non-Ivy teams in the ECAC have to play a lot of non-conference games in October: I think this year we played eight in October this year, all non-conference games.

BS: Is it your personal philosophy to go out and take on as many big-time opponents as possible, or do you feel that you do need a couple of “weaker” programs in there to give yourselves a break?

SA: I think you need a mix, but I’d prefer us to play a high degree of difficulty non-conference schedule. We went to Alaska, we played Alaska and Alaska-Anchorage, and while AA may not be at the top, they’re a strong team, and Fairbanks has a very good team. We played UNH, we played UMass, we played BU, Michigan, Michigan State … I think we’ve played some good hockey teams. Sacred Heart has won, I think, 11 games in a row right now (actually a 12-game unbeaten streak, 10-0-2). Army just beat and tied Air Force, who was a final-eight team in the national tournament last year. It’s not necessarily that those games are games that hurt your PairWise and RPI standings; you need to intelligently pick those teams that you play, because you want a good strength-of-schedule.

When you’re talking non-conference, sometimes it’s your best guess. You may think it’s a good team, but two years down the road they could end up not so hot, and so losing to that team could kill your RPI, and winning might not benefit you. A lot of non-conference scheduling is guesswork – look at us this year. New Hampshire, Boston University and Michigan don’t have the records they would normally have. UNH is on a run, and they’re on top of Hockey East, but they have a poor non-conference record, so our strength-of-schedule doesn’t look – right now – as strong as I’d anticipated it looking. BU is below .500, New Hampshire is just starting to pull away from .500, and Michigan is just above .500. Now normally at this time of the year, those teams might be 17-8-8, so those things factor into it and you don’t really have control over it (as a coach making a schedule).

BS: How far in advance to most major and mid-major programs set their schedules?

SA: Probably two to three. Maybe three-to-four for tournaments, things like that, but for the most part it’s two-to-three years out in the future.

BS: When it comes to tournaments that you’re not hosting, is that something where you have any say at all over who you play? Can you say that you prefer not to play another ECAC Hockey opponent, for example?

SA: You might not accept an invitation if they have the opponents up front. We’re going to a tournament – and I’d rather not speak in specifics – in the future, because we know that in the first round of the tournament we’re going to get to play a top-half Hockey East team, a team that consistently finishes in the top half of that league. So we know that the first day of the tournament will draw a real strong non-conference opponent, so those things factor into the decision.

BS: That’s in the contract, that you’ll get to play them?

SA: Correct.

BS: Here’s a two-part question: first, do you believe that the ECAC is hurt, at the end of the year – RPI-wise and PairWise(wise) – by its parity, and by beating up on itself?

SA: I’ll say this, we’re not if we take care of business non-conference.

BS: Well, you’re jumping the gun a bit; that’s Part 2. Basically, do you believe that the league looks weaker statistically by the parity that we have, playing against each other?

SA: No, I don’t think so. For instance, look at the WCHA right now. I think that our conference is the best in the country, top to bottom. I do. I think that our depth and our competitiveness on a night-to-night basis – there are very few free games in our league, you know? Where you win – or lose – going away, and I find that extremely impressive. But with that being said, the reason I say no to that question, is let’s look at the WCHA right now.

Everything’s cyclical, but right now the WCHA has a bunch of teams at the top of the PairWise. But they also have a bunch of teams where you could throw a blanket over the top of six teams, and say you couldn’t tell who was going to finish first and who was going to finish sixth in that league. All of those six are beating each other up, so none of their league records look spectacular. None of them are Miami, where they’ve only lost one league game. But that parity isn’t hurting them, beating each other up isn’t hurting themselves, because they won a lot of non-conference games this year.

So our league, beating itself up, makes us better for the end of the year – but we need to take care of business in the non-conference games. We did a good job of that last year, and our numbers bear that out, and that’s why we had three teams in the (NCAA) tournament, and almost a fourth with St. Lawrence being the first team out.

BS: Do you feel that there’s any way that the league can help lay the groundwork for a stronger non-conference schedule?

SA: We talk about that a lot in league meetings, and I’m not an expert on those things. There’s probably a lot of kids on our campus at RPI who can tell you more about the statistical probabilities and all that than I can. But there are some coaches in our league who are very good at it, and they bring in outside people to look at those things as well. I guess from my perspective – and I’ll do whatever’s necessary to get more league teams into the tournament – if there was anything we could do, that made rational sense, I’d certainly look at it. Right now, my sense of it is, for my program let’s go play the most games we can against the best teams in the country. For the last three years we’ve gotten our nose bloodied, in a big way, but this year we’re starting to turn the corner. The last three years we’d play those teams and play good, and lose, and play good, and lose. It would take a toll on us, from a confidence perspective, and now we’re starting to see the benefits from playing those games. Now when we play those types of teams, we’re ready for those kind of games. I don’t know about our record against teams of “big-name” quality, but I know that this year we’ve beaten UNH, we’ve beaten Michigan, we’ve beaten Boston University. Close loss to UMass, too. Now we’re used to playing in those games, and we’re starting to see some success in those games.

BS: I guess my last question for you is, among hockey people – folks you’re friends with who have carried over from your playing days and your time spent coaching in Denver – do you get questions where people just have total misconceptions about the state of the ECAC and its strength?

SA: Ummm .. I’d say yes, but there’s less now than there was. That’s because there are a lot of programs in our league that are doing very good jobs not only of coaching, but also of recruiting. I look at what Princeton’s done, I look at what Yale’s doing, I look at what Union’s doing, I know Cornell’s been there for a long time, St. Lawrence as been there for a long time. So I look around our league and I see programs that are continuing to get stronger right now. So I think the answer to the question is yes, but at the same time I think there are less and less of those, because we’re doing a better job in non-conference games. We got three, almost four teams to the national tournament last year. Look at the highly drafted kids that entered into our freshman class around the league last year, so I think those things are all starting to change opinions about us.

For those of you who went through all this trouble to get my Beanpot Consolation prediction: Northeastern 3, Harvard 2. I simply can’t place any confidence in the Crimson at all right now; it was all I could do to pick them over Brown in what will feel like a must-win game to Teddy Donato’s crew.

Some random (and not-so-random) thoughts after the 17th week of the season:

* I keep telling myself that the PairWise means nothing at this time of the year. I don’t listen.

* I’m very interested to see where North Dakota comes up in the USCHO.com Division I Men’s Poll on Monday. For the last two weeks, I’ve put the Sioux 10th on my ballot, and that actually has been better than their spot in the RPI. I was surprised both times to see where they showed up in the rankings — fifth two weeks ago and fourth last week.

I think I understand why. A lot of people (myself included) think the Sioux are a better team than their record, even better than they’re playing. But at some point, the results have to come, or it’s time to change the picture.

This might be the time. Denver left The Ralph with two wins this weekend, putting North Dakota under .500 in WCHA play (8-9-3). The Sioux have just one win in their last six games.

I know better than to rule the Sioux out. But let’s face it — they’re not a top-10 team right now.

* So the race for the CHA title will actually go into February. Bemidji State had a chance to lock up at least a share of the title with a win Saturday against Robert Morris, but the Colonials pulled the upset.

Seriously, though, how ridiculous is it that a team could have wrapped up a conference title in January?

* I got over to Wisconsin’s Camp Randall Stadium a couple times this week to check out the rink going in for next Saturday’s Camp Randall Hockey Classic, and I’ve got to admit that the way they can put an ice rink in the middle of a football field is impressive.

It still hasn’t changed my opinion on outdoor games as a whole — they’re just plain overdone. And now we have Michigan hosting Michigan State in December, meaning there will be three outdoor events in the 2010 calendar year. That’s just too much.

* Here’s how I voted in this week’s poll:

1. Miami
2. Denver
3. Wisconsin
4. St. Cloud State
5. Colorado College
6. Minnesota-Duluth
7. Bemidji State
8. Ferris State
9. New Hampshire
10. Boston College
11. Michigan State
12. Cornell
13. Massachusetts
14. North Dakota
15. Maine
16. Vermont
17. Yale
18. Michigan
19. Massachusetts-Lowell
20. Union

Every year when we start looking at the PairWise comparisons, we get a few questions and one comes up more than any others. It has come up this year again.

A reader wrote to us and asked, “I think that the PairWise has a bug. Miami and Bemidji State should be tied in Comparison Points, 2-2. The criteria in question is the TUC criteria, in which Miami has a better percentage. So they should win this comparison and the comparison should be 2-2, not 2-1 in favor of Bemidji State.”

Let’s take a look at this a little more closely.

As of January 29th’s games, Miami’s record against TUCs is 9-1-5, .7667. Bemidji State’s is 3-1-0, .7500.

So the reader is right. No, the reader is not.

From the NCAA Division I Men’s Ice Hockey Handbook:

“This category is only used only if the two teams being compared have played a minimum of ten games versus ‘teams under consideration’.”

In every day terms, if a team hasn’t played ten games against TUCs, then that criteria is not used to compare two teams.

Translated back to our PairWise comparisons, it means that for any comparison involving Bemidji State as one of the two teams, the TUC criteria is not used.

USCHO.com Hobey Watch 2010 Podcast, Episode 1: Tim Whitehead

USCHO.com’s Jim Connelly and Ed Trefzger are joined by Maine head coach Tim Whitehead as they look at three forwards who are potential Hobey Baker candidates from Hockey East: Maine’s Gustav Nyquist, New Hampshire’s Bobby Butler and from UMass, James Marcou.

It seems like the theme for this season’s Hobey Baker race os “Hobey’s Ark,”  because for the most part, the candidates have been coming two by two.

Early in the season, there was the Quinnipiac duo of Eric Lampe and Brandon Wong, and when the Ivy League teams joined the fray, Colin Greening and Blake Gallagher got off to a  scorching hot start, especially by the standards of the Big Red’s defense-first approach. Of course, while all four are still having very strong seasons, they’ve slipped down the national scoring chart, and with Quinnipiac fading out of the NCAA tournament picture, it’s not looking good for any of them as a true Hobey contender (although I wouldn’t be surprised to see one of the Cornell boys as a nominee).

All along, there’s also been a powerful scoring duo leading UMass in national scoring leader James Marcou and prime beneficiary Casey Wellman, and as Minnesota Duluth has climbed atop the WCHA standings, linemates Jack Connolly and Justin Fontaine have led the way. There’s even a trio from one team in the Hobey race at Wisconsin, as Derek Stepan and Micahel Davies have joined Brendan Smith, the nation’s top scoring defenseman, among the nation’s leading scorers.

Of course, having two top players like these guys can hardly hurt a team, and it’s hard to imagine any of these players’ coaches being particularly displeased with the idea of having two candidates for college hockey’s top individual honor, but the fact of the matter remains that with the Hobey, not unlike Highlander, “There can be only one.”

So, how do fans, voters, and school sports information directors know which player is the real candidate, and which is the supporting player?

Sometimes, it’s easy, and it certainly doesn’t get much easier than it did two years ago, when Michigan’s Chad Kolarik made no secret of the fact that Kevin Porter was the Wolverines’ real candidate for the Hobey, pumping the captain’s tires at every available opportunity. And of course, it worked.

More often, though, it can come down to goals, since Hobey likes goals, and that’s one place where Wellman has the lead over his senior teammate. Then again, it’s hard to deny Marcou, who, in addition to being the nation’s leading scorer, is an upperclassman, which also comes into play. After all, for all of the goal bias when it comes to the Hobey, Boston University’s Colin Wilson was right there in the Hat Trick last season, and there were definitely those making the argument for him as the winner over teammate Matt Gilroy (your humble correspondent, of course, wasn’t one of them) I don’t see either Minuteman winning the Hobey, but picking the better candidate is hard in this case.

It’s even harder at Duluth, where Connolly and Fontaine are currently separated by all of two points. If there was a pair of forwards I could see ending up in the Hobey Hat Trick together, a la Marty Sertich and Brett Sterling in 2005, it’d be these two. 

Perhaps the only easy group to pick a player out of is the crew from Wiscsonsin. Yes, Stepan has been on a roll since returning from the World Junior Championship, with seven points in four games, to say nothing of Davies, whose seven-game point streak has seen him score six goals and notch nine assists. Smith, however, remains the most remarkable of the bunch. His 1.30 points per game average is just a hair off of Matt Carle’s 1.36 clip during his Hobey Baker season, and that was accomplished on a team that didn’t make the NCAA tournament. Think Smith can make a run at the Hobey on a team that’s currently No. 2 in the nation?  Also, he’s the only of the Badgers’ potential Hobey candidates whose goal total wouldn’t be an issue.

Overall, while his scoring has faded a tad in recent weeks, Smith has the look of a Hobey winner more than anyone else in the race at the moment, although the Duluth boys are also worth keeping an eye on, especially with the way that trophy manages to find its way to the Twin Ports on a regular basis. Meanwhile, in the East, Bobby Butler has stayed hot, and carved out a place among the top scorers in the nation. Without a high-profile teammate to sipohon off support, and with the Wildcats leading Hockey East, don’t be surprised to see Butler emerge as the top Hobey candidate out of the east if he can keep his scoring pace going.

Also, keep an eye on goaltender Ben Scrivens of Cornell for a finalist spot. Marc Cheverie of Denver had a rough weekend against Wisconsin, and Scrivens posted a shutout of North Dakota on Friday. As it currently stands, Scrivens is tops in the nation among true everyday starters in both save percentage and goals-against average, and while that has been said about a number of Cornell goalies, it’s also gotten just about all of them into the top 10.

Of course, there’s a lot of hockey to be played before we get to that point.

A few random (and not-so-random) thoughts after the 16th week of the season:

* The lead of this blog really should be about how great a weekend of hockey we just saw, but I just feel compelled to repeat what I learned this weekend.

Speaking after his team beat Lake Superior State 6-1 on Friday, Notre Dame coach Jeff Jackson related that his players have suffered seven concussions this season.

Seven concussions.

I understand that concussions are a tough thing to define and there may be no two exactly the same, so it’s hard to know the severity.

Still, something is just plain wrong when a team has that many traumatic head injuries in one season.

On Friday, it was Ian Cole that was the seventh on that list after a hit by Lake Superior State’s Will Acton — one that drew a major charging penalty and, a day later, a one-game suspension from the league.

“That’s the seventh concussion for our team this year, and I’m starting to get really tired of the high hits and checks from behind,” Jackson said in the game story by USCHO’s Lucas Punkari. “It might come across as whining since we’re not having a great season, but it’s having a direct impact on my players’ futures and their lives.

“We have someone like Eric Ringel, who is still dealing with post-concussion syndrome and I don’t know if he’ll ever play hockey again. If we don’t do something soon about these things in all levels of hockey, something bad is going to happen. But for one team to have seven concussions in a season, it’s outrageous.”

How true.

* Only four of the top 20 teams in last week’s USCHO.com Division I Men’s Poll managed a sweep this weekend. Two of them — both home-and-home sweeps — were especially notable to me: St. Cloud State’s over Minnesota and Bemidji State’s over Minnesota-Duluth.

Will St. Cloud State finally get the top-10 recognition that it deserves? The Huskies are up to fifth in the RPI and are 8-0 since the holiday break.

And Bemidji State hasn’t had the greatest start to the second half of the season, but a pair of wins over a Minnesota-Duluth team that has been playing pretty well should be a notice that the Beavers are going to be a tough out in the NCAA tournament again.

How about that finish Saturday night? The Beavers’ Ben Kinne scored an extra-attacker goal with two seconds left to send the game to overtime. And Jordan George scored 36 seconds into the extra session to complete the road theatrics.

* That finish in Duluth was just one of the highlights Saturday night. The Denver-Wisconsin game was one of those that would fit into the top 10 of the season.

Ferris State got a much-needed victory over Michigan by scoring with 24 seconds left. Air Force got more dramatic, scoring with less than a second left in overtime for a victory over Holy Cross.

College hockey has taken some punches lately, but there were some pretty good reasons to think things are pretty good.

* I spent a lot of Sunday debating whether to go with Miami or Wisconsin as No. 1 on my ballot this week. I ended up with the RedHawks, although I wouldn’t argue much with someone who picked the Badgers.

Here’s my rationale: The RedHawks not only have the better RPI ranking, they have a few more “key” victories in my book. Yes, Wisconsin just got a very big win over Denver, but two wins would have looked a lot better than a win and a tie.

So here’s my top 20:

1. Miami
2. Wisconsin
3. Denver
4. St. Cloud State
5. Bemidji State
6. Ferris State
7. Minnesota-Duluth
8. Colorado College
9. New Hampshire
10. North Dakota
11. Boston College
12. Michigan State
13. Massachusetts
14. Cornell
15. Vermont
16. Union
17. Yale
18. Massachusetts-Lowell
19. Michigan
20. Maine