Every year, maybe just for my own amusement, I compile the rankings of college hockey’s holiday tournaments in order of combined winning percentage. It started as a quest a few years back to track how many tournaments there were on a yearly basis — it seemed like the number was getting out of hand — but it changed into a crude look at which tournaments should be the best, based on the teams’ records.
Before too long, I realized rankings involving records that may be inflated by mediocre schedules wasn’t really the best way to go about things, but it was too late to abandon the pursuit. And since the RPI is still a little skewed at this point of the season, I didn’t want to turn to that yet.
So here’s this season’s rankings of the 10 holiday tournaments:
1. Shillelagh Tournament (UMass-Lowell, Minnesota-Duluth, Union, No. 1 Notre Dame) 38-22-9, .616
2. Florida College Classic (Colgate, Maine, St. Cloud State, No. 10 Cornell) 31-21-6, .586
3. UConn Hockey Classic (No. 11 Air Force, Connecticut, Merrimack, Quinnipiac) 29-27-4, .517
4. Catamount Cup (Ferris State, St. Lawrence, Colgate, No. 13 Vermont) 29-27-9, .515
5. Ohio Hockey Classic (Clarkson, No. 2 Miami, Army, Ohio State) 29-28-9, .508
6. Denver Cup (No. 3 Boston University, Rensselaer, Holy Cross, No. 5 Denver) 32-33-4, .493
7. Ledyard Bank Tournament (Army, Dartmouth, Bemidji State, Massachusetts) 25-26-2, .491
8. Dodge Holiday Classic (Brown, No. 4 Minnesota, Western Michigan, No. 6 Northeastern) 23-25-13, .484
9. Great Lakes Invitational (No. 12 Michigan, Michigan Tech, Michigan State, No. 18 North Dakota) 28-40-6, .419
10. Badger Hockey Showdown (Lake Superior State, Harvard, Alabama-Huntsville, No. 14 Wisconsin) 19-30-11, .408
And I write this as I’m sitting in the Kohl Center press box waiting for No. 10 to begin.
