UMass will be facing the top team in the country on Friday night as Boston University is your new #1 in this week’s USCHO poll.  They slid into the top spot despite getting almost half as many first place votes as #2 Minnesota.  Boston College is #5, Lowell checks in at #7, while Merrimack dropped four spots to #8.  Maine is the final ranked Hockey East team at #12.

The Gophers are the top team on the USA Hockey/USA Today poll.

BU just won their Beanpot semifinal game over Harvard.

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For the second week in a row UMass did not have any weekly Hockey East award winners or Top Performers.  Joel Hanley is mentioned in the “Who’s Hot” section for his strong second half performance.

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The Collegian has a story on UMass’ slow starts to games of late.

UMass’ playoff hopes were gone in 24 seconds according to USCHO.

The New England Hockey Jounal highlights the recent success of Paul Dainton with the Springfield Falcons.  Dainton won his fourth game yesterday since being called up from the ECHL a couple weeks ago.

When Big 10 Hockey gets going in a couple years they’ll do their postseason a bit differently than other conferences, having all playoff games at neutral sites.  That site is rumored to be the Xcel Center in Minnesota.