Week 2: Games to Watch Around College Hockey

Story posted October 15, 2015 in CommRadio, Sports by Mike Wszolek

The official start to the college hockey season kicked off a week ago. However, this upcoming weekend is one where there will be some really exciting matchups. A decent amount of ranked teams will be in action, and some will even be going head to head.

No. 14 Minnesota State at No. 12 Saint Cloud State:

The team from St. Cloud, Minn., will be hosting an exciting weekend series against the Mavericks of Minnesota State. St. Cloud comes off of a 20-win season last year which they will look to build off of. St. Cloud comes in with a record of 2-0 after convincing wins in Alaska against University of Alaska Fairbanks and University of Alaska Anchorage. Look out for Judd Peterson and freshman, Robby Jackson, who are coming off of a great series in Alaska. On the flipside, Minnesota State is 0-2 after dropping its first two games to third-ranked Nebraska-Omaha. These two teams will play on Friday and Saturday, and it should be a battle until the end in both games. 8:35 p.m. EST will be the start time on Friday, but the puck will drop at 7 p.m. EST on Saturday.

No. 3 Nebraska-Omaha at No. 20 Vermont

Speaking of Nebraska-Omaha, they will travel to Vermont to take on the Catamounts. Vermont went to Minnesota last Saturday and defeated the Gophers, which was a huge win to open up their season. The Catamounts needed to win that game to have momentum going into an even tougher opponent in Nebraska-Omaha this weekend. The Mavericks will travel to Vermont coming in as the No. 3 team in the country. Previously, Nebraska-Omaha was ranked 10/11 and went to a Minnesota squad who was ranked even higher than them at 6/7. After defeating Minnesota, Nebraska-Omaha moved up and now look to be a scary team throughout the season. Sophomore Jake Randolph has started the season strong scoring three goals in their weekend series at Minnesota State. The puck will drop at 7:05 p.m. EST for both games.

No. 7 Minnesota-Duluth at No. 15 Minnesota

The Bulldogs of Minnesota-Duluth will have to rebound this weekend if they want to gain some momentum moving forward. The Bulldogs were upset at home by unranked Bemidji State last Saturday. The team will travel to Minnesota on Friday but then host the Gophers on Saturday. Minnesota-Duluth is a great hockey team and so are the Gophers, but both suffered crushing losses in the first week of college hockey. Minnesota suffered a shutout loss to Vermont last Saturday so both teams will be playing for their first wins of the season. Expect it to be a battle in both games, especially because they are both teams within the state of Minnesota. Puck drop for both games is at 8 p.m. EST.

It should be an incredible week of college hockey with many more games to follow. Opening week is over, but the second week is extremely important because all teams are fighting for either their first wins or to maintain their momentum going into the third week.

Mike Wszolek is a freshman majoring in broadcast journalism. To contact him, email mewszolek@gmail.com.