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

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

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

MADISON, Wis. — The term playoff atmosphere gets thrown around after weekends like these, but the reality is this type of game most often doesn’t get played in front of partisan crowds.

You usually see college hockey at this level on neutral ice in a conference or NCAA tournament, not when there’s still almost two months until things really get interesting.

What No. 1 Denver and No. 3 Wisconsin brought to the Kohl Center ice in two games, however, had as much intensity as any of those one-off postseason showdowns.

Never mind that it pushed the top five teams in the WCHA standings into a clump where the top is just two points ahead of the bottom.

Never mind that the Badgers had just a little bit more than the Pioneers at the end to come away with three points in the series.

If there was one thing to take away, it was that it doesn’t take the bright lights and national television of the postseason to showcase the top end of college hockey.

“That’s championship level in terms of college hockey,” Badgers coach Mike Eaves said after his team emerged with a 4-3 victory. “The intensity, the battle of two teams that have skill, that have strong will, have a strong work ethic, good goaltending. What better way to prepare yourself for the end of the year by playing these types of games.”

A crowd of 15,237 — Wisconsin’s first home sellout this season — saw the Badgers push, the Pioneers push back and the hosts give one last burst of energy: first to go ahead and then to hold the lead in the final minutes.

“The pace was unbelievable the whole weekend,” Wisconsin captain Ben Street said. “You could never really let up; if you had a bad shift, they were going to make you pay for it. That’s the way it is in playoffs. It felt a lot like a tournament game, where there’s a lot on the line. … That’s why I think we’re so happy that we came out with the ‘W’ at the end.”

Being on the losing end had to sting, especially because the Pioneers were able to point pretty clearly at their downfall Saturday — a start that didn’t match what Wisconsin put forth.

They rallied from two goals down to tie things in the third, but Wisconsin’s Michael Davies got the winner with 6:30 remaining.

“The intensity was great,” Pioneers captain Rhett Rakhshani said. “That’s what makes college hockey so much fun. You’ve got to enjoy weekends like this.”

Probably a little bit more when you get three points instead of one.

“Good to see our kids win these type of games,” Eaves said. “That gives us confidence. We understand from the inside out the type of things you need to do to win these type of games.”

Maybe you’ve seen this already. If you haven’t, it’s worth a look for the production value if nothing else.

Like most schools with a video board, Alaska has an intro sequence that plays before the game. I’m not sure anything I’ve seen tops this in terms of graphics talent, but there are some head-scratching moments here.

I’ll get to those after the video:

So, if I have this correctly, the Nanooks’ polar bear mascot is awakened by The Seawolf, a ship, and emerges from the ice to destroy it. The bear then takes aim at opposing team campuses with bombs from a fighter jet. And, if that wasn’t enough, the bear destroys earth.

Um, yeah.

Again, points for the graphics, but isn’t this just a little over the top? Maybe the polar bear is just getting its revenge for that whole climate change thing.

Some random (and not-so-random) thoughts after the 15th week of the season:

* You’ve got to think there’s at least a bit of panic at Quinnipiac. A team that finished November with a 12-1 record has fallen on hard times — big time.

In December and so far in January, the Bobcats are 1-8-1. They started December ranked fourth in the country — gaining seven first-place votes in the Nov. 30 poll, even — and making talk of an at-large NCAA bid, premature as it was, seem reasonable.

Now they’re not even listed in the PairWise Rankings because they’ve fallen to 28th in the RPI.

A record like 13-9-1 is still decent, but not when you started 12-1 and not when your schedule is the 45th toughest in the country.

It’s not the whole picture, but the Quinnipiac offense is an easy target for finger-pointing. The Bobcats hadn’t scored fewer than three goals in any game through November. But since, they’ve scored only one goal in six of 10 games.

What’s worse, the Bobcats are just 7-6 in conference and in fourth place, with everyone else holding games in hand.

Crazy how fast an outlook turns from sunny to cloudy.

* There are less than 10 weeks until we know which 16 teams will make the NCAA tournament, and I don’t think it’s too late for Minnesota to make a run up the PairWise.

The Gophers have already pulled back six games from that awful start — going from four games under .500 at the start of play Dec. 5 to two games over today — and returned to .500 in the WCHA with a three-point weekend against North Dakota.

And with the PairWise-rich WCHA providing plenty of opportunities to beat quality teams — the Gophers have series remaining against St. Cloud State (sixth in the PWR), Denver (tied for first), Colorado College (tied for 10th), Minnesota-Duluth (third) and Wisconsin (tied for fourth) — there’s a pretty clear path here where Minnesota can improve not only  its seventh-place standing but its 23rd spot in the PairWise.

I would be hesitant in saying that if not for the on-ice improvement the Gophers have shown lately. Going nine games with only one loss is a big step up for them, but it only begins to undo the mess they made themselves.

* Here’s how I voted in this week’s USCHO.com Division I Men’s Poll:

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

Some random (and not-so-random) thoughts after the 14th week of the season:

* I think it’s time for a new No. 1. I just wish, for the sake of further believing in my poll ballot, that Denver had stepped up and emphatically taken that top spot instead of just moving up by not losing.

Robert Morris’ stunning weekend sweep of top-ranked Miami should end the RedHawks’ reign at 13 weeks when the USCHO.com Division I Men’s Poll is released on Monday. It has been a good run for Miami, and I don’t think this is the last we’ve seen of the RedHawks atop the poll.

But losing twice to a team that is in the lower third of the RPI even after the results doesn’t seem No. 1-ly. Full credit to the Colonials, though, for a potential season-defining weekend that followed just three wins in their first 18 games.

Denver will be on top of my ballot this week, but the Pioneers didn’t exactly wow anyone in getting three points from a home series against Alaska-Anchorage. They were outplayed in a 1-1 tie on Friday and needed a last-minute goal for a 3-2 victory on Saturday, a game that featured 103 minutes worth of penalties assessed after the game thanks to a postgame brawl.

Still, Denver is the top team in the RPI, and, to me, that carries some weight.

* I had to double check to make sure the stat I had in my head was right. Ferris State now is alone atop the Division I wins list this season with 16.

And how’s this for a setup? The Bulldogs host Miami next weekend with the teams tied for first in the CCHA.

Ferris had a good start to a tough start to the second half of the CCHA schedule with a pair of wins at Notre Dame this weekend. We’ll reassess in a couple more weeks, after the Bulldogs play the RedHawks and a home-and-home series with a Michigan team that might be slowly finding its legs.

* Anyone who watched Tuesday night’s World Junior Championship title game should be pretty appreciative of the partnership USA Hockey and the NHL Network have put together to get that event on American TV.

After all, it wasn’t too long ago that you had to scour the satellite dish to get the Canadian broadcast.

* Was it just my imagination, or did it look like Boston University, not Boston College, that was the top-10 team for much of the Frozen Fenway game?

No one knows where BU is headed in the second half, but it would be a mistake to rule them out.

* Six of the top 10 teams in the RPI are from the WCHA. I’m not sure it was ever gone, but I think it would be fair to say that the WCHA is back. That, of course, doesn’t mean anything when it comes to national tournament time. You still have to win the one-off games, where the league has taken its lumps recently.

* Here’s my top 20 for the week:

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

You may have heard the criticism of the USA Hockey National Team Development Program at some point. In short, it goes like this:

Too much money on too few players.

I’m guessing you’d get a “bring it on” kind of look from a pro-NTDP person today if you tried to start the argument.

The majority of the United States team that beat Canada for the World Junior Championship title Tuesday night went through the NTDP in Ann Arbor, Mich.

The most defensive of the program should concede that not all of the skills those 12 players took to Saskatoon was a result of their time in Ann Arbor, but the most enthusiastic detractors probably should admit that some good was done there in relation to this year’s U.S. World Junior team.

Wisconsin coach Mike Eaves led the U.S. to its only other WJC gold, in 2004, was a coach at the NTDP before joining the Badgers, and his team plays the Under-18 Team on Saturday. So it seemed like a good time to ask about the program. Here’s what he had to say:

“There’s an ongoing debate, and it’s very passionate. You’re right about the statement that it’s a lot of money for a few amount of kids, but the fact is it worked. Those kids went there, they played up, they got great coaching, great training, played against tough competition, and were able to compete and win on the world level. What’s going on now with the USA Hockey, they’ve got a development program that they’re trying to implement now. So we’re almost flipping the pyramid upside down. We’ve gone to the top and worked with and spent a lot, and now they’re trying to tip it upside down, work on the base, and then create it so it will go up.

“So I’m talking out of both sides of my mouth, but the fact is they did something. They took action, they made a stand, they made it work, it’s been successful. Now they’re trying to get to the masses, and the argument of, well, why didn’t we do that in the first place? Well, I don’t know the answer to that. But the fact is, the program was successful, now they’re looking at broad-basing it, building it from the ground up, which hopefully, you would think that in the long run it’s going to create a broader base of talent. They’re going to try to do the right things with these young people, focus on skills, focus on practice, fewer games.

“This is going to be a tough sell in this country, because to a large degree parents want to see their kids play. They don’t want them to practice. They want to see them play. And yet you don’t get that much better in games because you don’t have the puck at all. It’s in practices. It’s this 10,000-hour theory of just getting on the pond and playing. It’s been interesting watching the outdoor game, and they got documentaries on pond hockey. This is where we used to learn the game, not with one 60-minute practice, but by just going out and playing.

“So that’s a long-winded answer, but the fact is I think we’re trying to get to do the right things, but this program that they started in Ann Arbor was successful.”

I’m not sure the argument will every completely die, but the scale may be tipping for the moment.

A few thoughts in an abbreviated (and delayed … thanks, Sunday tournament games) edition:

* Here’s a good read from Roy MacGregor of The Globe and Mail about the college-vs.-major junior issue, tied to the differences in the United States and Canadian World Junior Championship teams.

In the end, the choice between the two routes to the NHL will always be an individual one. But one with ties to college hockey indeed has to hope the message of Paul Kelly and College Hockey Inc. get through.

* I don’t believe I had ever personally seen a coach throw a stick on the ice in anger before Yale’s Keith Allain did so Sunday night against Wisconsin. On TV, sure. That and a garbage can, I think. But never in person.

It was obviously not the right thing to do by Allain, and he saddled his team with a bench minor.

But his gripe — if not his action — sure appeared justified. A Wisconsin player more or less tackled a Yale player and neither of the referees raised his arm. I usually give referees the benefit of the doubt, but that one didn’t even look close to being a no-call.

* Here’s my try at this week’s top 20:

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

Follow me on Twitter at www.twitter.com/toddmilewski.

Here are some interesting numbers from the 21-year history of the Badger Hockey Showdown, which came to a close Sunday with Wisconsin beating Yale in a shootout for the title:

34 — Teams that have played in the tournament. Bowling Green and Yale were the most frequently invited guests, each appearing four times.

18 – U.S. states that have been represented by a team in the tournament.

6 — Teams from Massachusetts that have played in the tournament (Harvard, Boston College, Boston University, Massachusetts-Lowell, Northeastern and Merrimack). Two states have had five each — Michigan (Ferris State, Lake Superior State, Northern Michigan, Western Michigan and Wayne State) and New York (Clarkson, Colgate, Cornell, St. Lawrence and Union). Two states have had two — Ohio (Bowling Green and Miami) and Rhode Island (Brown and Providence). Thirteen states have had one — Alaska (Alaska-Fairbanks), Nebraska (Nebraska-Omaha), Indiana (Notre Dame), Alabama (Alabama-Huntsville), New Jersey (Princeton), Vermont (Vermont), Connecticut (Yale), Maine (Maine), New Hampshire (New Hampshire), Colorado (Colorado College), Minnesota (Minnesota-Duluth), North Dakota (North Dakota) and Wisconsin (Wisconsin).

2 — Nations that have been represented by a team in the tournament. The University of Toronto played in 1991.

1 — Teams that played in the tournament as a member of two different conferences. Northern Michigan was in the WCHA when it appeared in 1993 and in the CCHA in 1997, 2002 and 2005.

550,281 — All-time attendance for 42 days of the tournament, an average of 13,102 per day.

617 — Goals scored in the tournament’s 84 games, an average of 7.3 per game.

5 — Record for most goals scored by one player in one tournament. Bowling Green’s Brian Holzinger potted five in the 1994 tournament.

38 — Most goals scored in a single tournament, done in 1992 and 1995. Boston University won the tournament both times.

21 — Fewest goals scored in a single tournament, done in 1998, 2002 and 2006.

11 — Tournament record for goals in a game, set by New Hampshire in an 11-3 victory over Brown in the 2001 title game.

105 — Most shots on goal by a team in one tournament. North Dakota had 40 in a loss to Boston University and 65 in a victory over Princeton in 2000.

5 — Times a tournament game ended in a shootout following a tie. Wisconsin took part in all five, going 4-1 in the shootout.