Today marks the official start of the college hockey season.
Teams can have full-length practices with their coaches and even schedule games.
There are two nonconference match-ups: Ferris State at Colgate (the Gophers women's team vs. Colagte is the early game at the Starr Rink in Hamilton, N.Y, 2 p.m.) and Clarkson at Niagara.
The other 18 college teams in action play teams from across the border, Canadian teams. So it's a U.S. vs. Canada day of exhibitions across the land.
The Big East and WCHA have four of their teams playing, the NCHA three, and the Big Ten, Atlantic and ECAC two apiece.
NCAA teams should win almost all these match-ups because the best Canadian hockey players are not at colleges. They have turned pro or are playing major juniors or are at American schools on scholarship. Figure U.S. teams should go 14-4, 15-3 something like that.
Alaska Anchorage, a WCHA holdover, got the jump on everyone Friday, beating British Columbia 2-1 in Anchorage on power play goals by junior D Austin Coldwell in the first and freshman F Dylan Hubbs in the 2. Freshman Michael Matyas was in the nets for first-year coach Matt Thomas.
What's interesting is some of the names of the Canadian schools: Wilfrid Laurier plays at Bowling Green, bet Wilfrid's players wear ties and carry their books ... Laurentian is at Michigan Tech. The Laurentian Divide determines which way water flows in northern Midwestern states; these guys must be geography majors eh? ...McGill is at UMass-Lowell, the No. 1 team in preseason NCAA polls. Sounds like the name of a school for lawyers.
