Around the Water Cooler: Space Heaters are Key

Whether to escape the cold or to hit the books, everyone’s been spending a lot of time indoors as of late, and Ivy League sports teams are no exception. Hockey’s well underway, with two Ancient Eight squads leading the way nationally. And in basketball, the Ivy League is trying to continue its new tradition of upsetting big teams. Don’t worry, we’ll explain everything in our weekly chat around the water cooler.

This year, men’s hockey just isn’t Harvard’s game. The squad hasn’t taken home a “W” since Nov. 12, and since that time, the Crimson has been outscored, 25-10. Consequently, Harvard now finds itself at the bottom of the ECAC standings, ranked 11th out of the 12 teams. And the competition won’t get any easier tonight, as the Crimson faces off against No. 18 Quinnipiac, which found the back of the net five times in its last match against Harvard.

But while the Crimson is struggling, other Ivy League teams are ripping it up, as Yale, Princeton, and Dartmouth round out the top three teams in the ECAC. In fact, the Bulldogs are, for the first time in school history, the top-ranked team in the nation. In this week’s poll, Yale slipped past former No. 1 Minnesota-Duluth to claim the top spot, and with good reason: off to their strongest start in 81 years, the Bulldogs have only dropped one contest so far and have yet to score less than three goals in a game.

Things might get ugly when Harvard and Yale face off in Cambridge on Jan. 8. The Bulldogs beat the Big Green, 7-3, and Dartmouth has beaten the Crimson by scores of 8-2 and 5-2. You do the math.

On the women’s side, Cornell holds the top spot in the ECAC, with Harvard fourth in the conference and Yale a distant eighth. Voted the top team in the country, the Big Red has made it look easy so far. In 12 of the team’s 14 contests, the women from Ithaca have limited their opponent to one goal or fewer. But the Big Red’s defense isn’t the whole story, as the team has averaged 4.4 goals per game. This shouldn’t come as a total surprise, though, as Cornell nearly won the national championship last year.

While no top rankings are coming for the men’s basketball teams of the Ivy League, the conference certainly has risen in esteem in the past few years, highlighted of course by Cornell’s run in the 2010 Big Dance. The upward trend seems to be continuing this year. Harvard nearly (and probably should have) upset Michigan last weekend, blowing a large lead at half time to fall, 65-62. And tonight, Penn has a chance to topple a big team of its own, as it faces off against No. 12 Villanova at home. A win would be a huge boost for the Quakers, who have already nearly equaled last year’s win total, but the odds are against them. Villanova might just be too good.