College Hockey   CC Tigers and USAFA Falcons Hockey

One of the tidbits of news from the CC team award brunch dealt with the strong  likelihood the annual Colorado Springs Sports Corp. Face-off Luncheon will be held during the NCHC meetings Sept. 12-13 with all eight league coaches in attendance.

Also, Wisconsin will be coming to World Arena during the 2014-15 and 2015-16 seasons.

The first official National Collegiate Hockey Conference meeting is in Naples, Florida Tuesday and Wednesday with full representation (coach, AD, faculty representative) from all eight member schools for the first time.

The league will discuss the officiating pool, communication between the league and coaches, operations manuals, and setting gameday standards to be met by each school and other procedural loose ends.

CC athletic director Ken Ralph said the coaches will have a lot of say in which officials are brought into the league.

The annual coaches convention at Marco Island, Fla. follows Thursday through Monday. Nothing binding will come out, but the coaches will weigh in on changing the NCAA regional format to go with home sites for top seeds, according to CC coach Scott Owens.  Other topics include honoring verbal commitments and tweaking the Pairwise rankings formula, he added.

The final WCHA banquet for CC and the other five schools leaving will be Sunday.

“There will be a little bit of awkwardness but its’ important to recognize and honor our 61 years together,” Owens said. “I think most people have moved on.”

Hobey Baker Award winner Drew LeBlanc of St. Cloud State is in Sports Illustrated’s Faces in the Crowd feature this week. he was added to the U.S. men’s national team earlier this week.

WCHA’s Minnesota State announced its team awards.

USCHO compiled a list of the 80 current and future NCAA players ranked by NHL Central Scouting for the June 30 draft.

College Hockey News is reporting that UConn will fill the vacant women’s job in the next few weeks before focusing on the men’s position.

Ohio State filled its vacant head coach position.

New Denver coach Jim Montgomery is featured by USCHO.

The CCHA media guides and memorabilia are now on sale if fans are looking for collectibles.

Former CC assistant Norm Bazin is the USCHO Coach of the Year for the second season in a row.

The Anchorage hockey community continues to criticize Alaska-Anchorage athletic director Steve Cobb. The UAA hockey alumni association, made up of 300 former Seawolf players,  issued a vote of no confidence. It has raised $100,000 for the athletic department in the past.

Cobb has been criticized for not having a member of the local hockey community on the head coach search committee, which picked Air Force associate coach Mike Corbett as one of four finalists.

Here is a look back at this season and a gander at next year’s Hobey Baker Award contenders. Please comment with anyone you think is missing.

Retired Boston University coach Jack Parker is honored by the school.

Well-regarded former Northern Michigan athletic director Ken Godfrey is remembered in this obituary article.

Western Michigan announced its team awards.

According to multiple reports, including the Denver Post, former Maine standout and current Dubuque coach Jim Montgomery, 43, is the new Denver coach.

The USHL coach is a former assistant coach at RPI and Notre Dame. A press conference is scheduled for 11 a.m. MT on Monday.

Montgomery is Maine’s all-time leading scorer (301 points). Both current DU assistants are expected to be retained.

Montgomery was a favorite to take over in Orono after that Hockey East program fired Tim Whitehead earlier this week. That makes George Gwozdecky, who was fired by Denver earlier this month, the likely leading candidate to take over the Black Bears.

Former Alaska-Anchorage coach John Hill wants his old job back. The other candidates include Air Force associate coach Mike Corbett.

Denver junior Nick Shore has left the program to sign with the Los Angeles Kings.

Yale blanked Quinnipiac 4-0 to claim its first NCAA championship as senior Bulldogs goalie and birthday boy Jeff Malcolm out-performed Hobey finalist Eric Hartzell.

Hobey Baker winner Drew LeBlanc signed with Chicago hours after receiving the award as college hockey’s best player. The SCSU honoree makes it nine WCHA players in the past 12 years to win the sport’s top award. Ben Hanowski moved on to the Flames.

Here is a list, started by the Grand Forks Herald’s Brad Schlossman, that I have added to this morning in an attempt to keep up with the offseason comings and goings.

 NCHC early signings

Denver

Scott Mayfield, so, D, N.Y. Islanders

Juho Olkinuora, so. G, Winnipeg Jets

Nick Shore, jr., F, Los Angeles Kings

Minnesota Duluth
Chris Casto, so, D, Boston Bruins

Nebraska Omaha
Andrej Sustr, jr, D, Tampa Bay Lightning

North Dakota
Derek Forbort, jr, D, Los Angeles Kings

Western Michigan
Dan DeKeyser, jr, D, Detroit Red Wings

Big 10 early signings

Michigan
Jacob Trouba, fr, D, Winnipeg Jets
Jon Merrill, jr, D, New Jersey Devils

Minnesota (four of top 5 scorers)
Mark Alt, jr, D, Philadelphia Flyers

Zach Budish, jr, F, Nashville Predators

Nick Bjugstad, jr, F, Florida Panthers

Nate Schmidt, jr, D, Washington Capitals

Erik Haula, jr, F, Minnesota Wild

Ohio State
Chris Crane, jr, F, San Jose Sharks

NCHC departures (seniors)

Colorado College

Andrew Hamburg, F, ECHL San Francisco

Joe Marciano, D, ECHL Orlando

Rylan Schwartz, F, San Jose Sharks

North Dakota

Corban Knight, F, Florida Panthers

Danny Kristo, F, Montreal Canadiens

Andrew MacWilliam, D, Toronto Maple Leafs

St. Cloud State

Ben Hanowski, F, Calgary Flames

Drew LeBlanc, F, Chicago Blackhawks

Western Michigan

Dane Walters, F, San Jose Sharks

Luke Witkowski, D, Tampa Bay Lightning

Raise your hand if you thought before the season began that the teams in the ECAC third-place game would be the ones playing for a national championship on Saturday? Be honest.

Yale edged UMass-Lowell 3-2 in overtime and No. 1 Quinnipiac blew past St. Cloud State 4-1.  That means the ECAC will have its first national champ since Harvard in 1989.

The composition of the Frozen 4 teams are good hints at what kind of recruiting it takes to win a national title; older, less-talented players who develop over a full four years.

SCSU’s Drew LeBlanc was named as the Hobey Baker Award winner, a first for the Huskies program.

The Denver Post cleared up some of the rumors by disclosing the four finalists for the open Pioneers job: Seth Appert, a former DU assistant under fired coach George Gwozdecky and the current head coach at Rensselear; Derek Lalonde, who succeeded Appert at DU before becoming the coach of the USHL’s Green Bay Gamblers; Jim Montgomery, a former Maine star and NHL player who is head coach and general manager of the USHL’s Dubuque Fighting Saints; and Boston College associate head coach Greg Brown.

The Troy (N.Y.) Record writes about Appert’s chances.

Montgomery is also a leading candidate for the open Maine job, which Gwozdecky is interested in. Meanwhile, the Alaska-Anchorage job remains open.

East First Team

West Second Team

Ticket package and individual game ticket sales surpassed the record set in 2007 already, Western Collegiate Hockey Association commissioner Bruce McLeod said during Tuesday morning’s media teleconference. Specific numbers were not announced.

“There’s a lot of great buzz about the tournament,” he said.  “I have already heard a lot about the secondary ticket sales (ticket scalping) and how those prices keep going up.”

It should be no surprise. No. 3 seed North Dakota usually has 8-9,000 fans come to St. Paul’s Xcel Energy Center while Minnesota, Minnesota State and St. Cloud State have considerable fan bases all within a two-hour drive of the Twin Cities.

No doubt, most fans feel their team has a chance to win it. It was the tightest WCHA race ever with the top six places all within four points of each other.

“I know Mankato is abuzz,” McLeod said. “It will be a terrific tournament. I can’t wait for the puck to drop.”

The league will recognize former WCHA coaches, the league’s major award winners and NHL alumni during and before games. Five of the six teams will have pep bands traveling in adding to the atmosphere provided by a jammed concourse.

On other news …

Here is more on North Dakota’s 6-0 win Sunday over Michigan Tech.

Nebraska-Omaha junior defenseman Andrej Sustr is leaving early for the pros multiple outlets are reporting, including his roommate. Other future NCHC players who will attract attention are UNO junior Ryan Walters, a Hobey Baker hopeful, and Western Michigan defenseman Dan DeKeyser who will find out Sunday if the Broncos make the NCAAs.

Former Tiger Richard Bachman was sent down to the AHL’s Texas Stars.

The preview notes from St. Cloud State and Colorado College are available by clicking the school name. Here is my preview focusing on the freshman class and a blog post about the contributions of the sophomores.

Here is the St. Cloud Times preview focusing on former SCSU assistant and current Tigers mentor Eric Rud.

CC senior defenseman Mike Boivin weighs in the underclassmen and talks about the SCSU offense he will try to contain this weekend in this video.

Tickets remain available for the series. About 750 seats remain for Friday with 400 left for Saturday as of Thursday afternoon. The $5 kids tickets are available at World Arena box office only from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. Friday & Saturday.

Here is the Air Force at RIT preview focusing on Pine Creek High School graduate Kyle De Laurell.

This preview for the North Dakota at seventh-place Denver series focuses on the importance of nonconference games.  Friday’s game is on NBC Sports Network; Saturday’s contest is on ROOT Sports. DU will try to take the vocal UND fans out of the game. Both programs are churning out NHL-ready players. UND fans are still struggling to see a Zajac in a Denver uniform.

Minnesota and Minnesota-Duluth renew their 60-year-old rivalry for the first time in almost two seasons this weekend. UM captain Zach Budish leads the Gophers. The rivals will next play a nonconference series Nov. 22-23, 2013. UMD is tied for eighth with CC so this series bears watching by Tiger fans.

The Pairwise rankings bear watching as this College Hockey News analysis shows.

The nonconference tournament involving the Minnesota schools next season needs a good name ala  The Beanpot in Boston. This columnist thinks Hotdish might be the ticket.

Sixth-place Wisconsin, seven points ahead of Colorado College, has struggled down the stretch in recent years. The problem this year could be a struggling power play. UW is expecting its ticket revenue to drop considerably after joining the Big 10.

The final Division I team without a win, Sacred Heart, broke through on Tuesday nigh with, a convincing 7-3 decision against Holy Cross. Five regular-season games remain before they will face the fifth-seeded team in the Atlantic Hockey tournament.

“The playoffs are a second chance, a second season,” head coach C.J. Marottolo told USCHO.com prior to the win. “Down the stretch we’re looking to gain some momentum and upset someone in the playoffs.”

The Penn State women’s hockey team, which includes junior captain Taylor Gross of Colorado Springs, was featured by the Big Ten Network in this video.

The 1995-96 NCAA runner-up team, captained by current Tigers assistant Eric Rud,  will be inducted into the CC athletics Hall of Fame this spring along with other Tiger sports notables.

North Dakota would be willing to play a nonconference outdoor game again and Target Field against Minnesota would fit the bill nicely in a few years.

Here is College Hockey News’ take on the Hobey race this season with two WCHA players — UNO’s Ryan Walters and UND’s Corban Knight — contending.

The attendance at future National Collegiate Hockey Conference programs is excellent as detailed by the Western Michigan beat writer.

The UNO exhibition game against the USA U-18 squad was rescheduled due to the snowstorm.

International Ice Hockey Hall of Famer and WMU coach Andy Murray took part in the latest YouTube fad: a Harlem Shake dance video. He can be seen to the left of the Broncos mascot gesturing for others to join the Lawson (Arena) Lunatics. The video may be used to promote this weekend’s games on CBS Sports Network.

Colorado College students are not immune to the craze either.