 With six teams among our top 10, the Central Collegiate Hockey Association is showing the road to any NCAA championship this year will inevitably have to go through the Midwest.
There is such a thing as going out with a bang and the CCHA conference, which will disband after next season, is making its limited time count this year.
After Michigan State beat Minnesota and Miami rolled through Providence and Denver, CCHA teams are now 38-10-5 in non-conference games.
Notre Dame coach Jeff Jackson, who started in Lake Superior and has spent his entire collegiate coaching career in the conference, wasn’t exactly happy about the death sentence and the scattering of teams to the Big Ten, National Collegiate Hockey Conference, and WCHA. His own squad is on its way to Hockey East in a year and a half.
“I thought our conference was in great shape. If Penn State had just joined our conference, we would have been back to 12 teams and everything would have been fine, but they didn’t want that,” Jackson said last week of the CCHA. “It’s really sad that things turned out the way they did.”
On the flip side is Alabama-Huntsville, which announced earlier this season that it would cease operations as a Division I hockey team after this season. Since that announcement, the Chargers have essentially played dead, losing seven straight and being outscored 31-3.
 1. Merrimack (9-0-1): A light week for the Warriors consisted of a 6-0 throttling of Alabama-Huntsville. These days, a game against UAH is almost like a bye week. Expect Merrimack to keep rolling until consecutive road games at Boston University and Boston College the first weekend in January.
2
Miami (8-6-2): The RedHawks took the Denver Cup with wins over strong Providence and Denver teams to run their unbeaten streak to eight games.
3
Ohio State (10-3-1): The Buckeyes get to put their seven-game win streak and nine-game unbeaten streak on the line against a very surprising Lake Superior squad.
4
Boston University (7-4-1): The Terriers surrendered seven goals to Mass-Lowell in an ugly loss on Nov. 5. They’ve given up only eight goals in five games since. Avalanche prospect Kieran Millan is finally rounding into mid-season form between the pipes.
5
Minnesota-Duluth (9-3-2): It’s not the four upcoming road games at Michigan Tech and Wisconsin that should worry the Bulldogs, who are riding a 10-game unbeaten streak. It’s the 27-day layoff that will follow those road trips. ‘Tis the season, we guess.
6
Notre Dame (10-3-3): A long week that included three road games finally caught up to goalie Mike Johnson, who gave up four goals on just 14 shots in Saturday’s loss to Lake Superior.
7
Lake Superior (10-4-2): There’s no question on the expectation for Lake Superior’s offense. The 5-2 win over Notre Dame was only the eighth time in 16 games the Lakers have scored at least three goals. They’re 8-0-0 when they hit that magic number.
8
Michigan State (8-5-1): A win and tie against almighty Minnesota was a signature weekend for the Spartans. New coach and former CCHA commissioner Tom Anastos has righted the ship since MSU’s early-season 2-4-0 stumble.
9
Ferris State (10-3-1): For the first time in what seems like years, the Bulldogs don’t have a single NHL draft pick on their roster. And yet, they have the second best defense in Division I behind just Merrimack. In his 20th season at Ferris State, underrated coach Bob Daniels might just be doing his best job yet.
10
Cornell (6-3-0): When Boston forward and Blackhawks prospect Adam Clendening scored in a 2-1 overtime victory, it ended the Big Red’s shutout streak at 213 minutes, 33 seconds.
11
Minnesota (11-4-1): Will the real Kent Patterson please stand up? The Gophers goalie and Avalanche draftee has posted six shutouts, but also given up at least four goals in a game six times.
12
Air Force (7-4-2): Unless he gets more playing time, poor freshman goalie Paul Moberg may become an unwitting bit of trivia for the season. In five minutes of ice time, Moberg faced one shot on goal … and missed it. We can’t get Elias or STATS, Inc. on it, but we can’t remember if a goalie has ever had an officially recorded save percentage of 0.000 for a season.
13
Denver (6-4-3): There’s no reason a team with the talent like the Pioneers have should be firing only 18.6 percent on the power play and sloughing through penalty kills at a pedestrian 80.9 percent success rate.
14
Colgate (9-4-1): The Red Raiders have yet to lose a second-intermission lead, but have yet to rally for a win when behind after two periods.
15
Union (7-3-3): During last season’s run to the NCAA Tournament, the Dutchmen still lacked a big impact win in the regular season. Their 6-3 pasting of Michigan last week in Ann Arbor was just that.
16
Boston College (10-4-0): Junior forward and New York Rangers prospect Chris Kreider may lead the team in scoring with 10 goals and 18 points, but he also leads the team with 30 penalty minutes.
17
Colorado College (7-4-0): The Tigers are still undefeated at home, where they’ll play nine of their next 11, with just a trip to struggling Minnesota State to break up the home-cooking.
18
Mass-Lowell (7-4-0): Their only action last week was a 3-0 win over Alabama-Huntsville … so yeah, just a bye week for the River Hawks.
19
Michigan Tech (8-5-1): Santa obviously didn’t take care of the December schedule for the Huskies. The surprise team of the WCHA gets, in order, Minnesota-Duluth, Minnesota, Northern Michigan and Michigan State. This could be a month-long reality check for Mel Pearson’s squad.
20
Yale (5-3-1): When you outshoot a team 53-19 as the Bulldogs did against Sacred Heart, you shouldn’t lose 7-6 … as the Bulldogs did against Sacred Heart. Goalie Jeff Malcolm, who looked like a Hobey Baker candidate just a week earlier, will have to brush it off quick.
Three Stars
Stevie Moses, New Hampshire
The week: Five goals, including four against the hapless Chargers of Alabama-Huntsville.
Fun fact: Despite growing up in Massachusetts, he is an avid surfer.
Grayson Downing, New Hampshire
The week: Three goals and three assists in a loss to Harvard and win over UAH
Fun fact: Once begrudgingly admitted to having Justin Bieber’s “Baby” on his iPod.
Scott Greenham, Alaska
The week: Stopped all 39 shots he faced in back-to-back shutouts of Bowling Green.
Fun fact: Nominated for the Lowe’s Senior CLASS Award for maintaining a 3.57 grade-point average and volunteering for Fairbanks-area non-profit organizations.
Photo by Getty Images
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