The start of the New Year means that the games are starting to get more amplified in the college hockey season.
That’s especially the case in ECAC Hockey, where the margin of error for making the NCAA tournament is tight for several of the league’s contenders.
While there’s still plenty of time left, Quinnipiac would be the only conference team in position to receive an at-large bid to the national tournament if the season ended today. The first-place Bobcats were seventh in the PairWise as of Tuesday night.
The next highest ranked team is Clarkson (21) followed by Harvard (24) and Cornell (26). With the exception of last year, when only four teams played an abbreviated league schedule, ECAC Hockey has had at least three bids to the NCAA tournament every year since 2013.
That streak appears in jeopardy this season.
The conference’s .434 out-of-conference winning percentage isn’t great but is in line with recent seasons. What’s really hurting the league is the presence of five of the conference’s teams (Union, Dartmouth, Princeton, Brown, and Yale) in the bottom 15 of the PairWise. None of those teams played last season due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Big Red also didn’t play year due the pandemic, but Cornell has the sixth best winning percentage in Division I. Despite that, the Big Red are currently not in position for an at-large bid. Cornell didn’t do itself any favors by getting swept at Arizona State last weekend, but it has also been hurt by the new PairWise rules that only counts a 3-on-3 overtime win as 55 percent of a win; the Big Red have three overtime wins this season.
Cornell is about to enter a crucial stretch of games. The Big Red travel to North Dakota (second in the PairWise) this weekend and then host Quinnipiac on Jan. 22. In between facing the Fighting Hawks and Bobcats, the Big Red play Yale, Brown, and Princeton. A loss to one of those teams would deal a big hit to Cornell’s PairWise rankings.
There’s still plenty of time left. But given the nightly competitiveness during conference play, ECAC Hockey’s contenders can ill-afford any slipups in the final two months of the regular season.
COVID Updates
A number of teams adjusted their schedules or attendance policies due to the spread of the Omicron variant of COVID-19.
Here’s a look at those changes:
— Harvard announced that it is closing attendance to the general public at all home athletic events through Jan. 23. Any guests of the student-athletes or coaches will need to show a vaccination card. A negative test result is no longer sufficient to gain entry.
— Yale will hold all home games without fans until Jan. 6.
— Union will require all fans to provide proof of vaccination to attend any home game.
— A number of games were also postponed last weekend due to COVID-19 outbreaks. A home-and-home series between travel partners Quinnipiac and Princeton was rescheduled for Jan. 18 and Jan. 26. Clarkson postponed its game Monday against Canisius, while Union postponed a two-game series against Massachusetts set for last weekend. Neither school has announced makeup dates for its games.
