One week after rising to its highest poll position in school history, the Harvard men’s ice hockey team took a small step back on Monday.
After falling 4-1 to Yale on Saturday, the Crimson (10-2-2, 6-1-2 ECAC) dropped one spot from third to fourth in both the USCHO.com and USA Today/USA Hockey Magazine polls. Harvard also spent three weeks at No. 4/4 from December 15 to January 5 during the winter break.
Leapfrogging the Crimson was Minnesota State, who made the jump from fourth to first in both polls. North Dakota and crosstown rival Boston University rounded out the top three, with UND receiving a slight edge from USA Today and BU having the advantage according to USCHO.com.
Despite its latest loss, Harvard still earned five first-place votes in each poll. Meanwhile, the Bulldogs, who had their way with the Crimson on Saturday, rose one spot to No. 18 in the USCHO.com poll.
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Here at The Back Page, we have asserted before that with a little help from our friend degrees of separation, we can prove that Harvard actually should be the one playing in the national championship game Monday. In advance of the Oregon-Ohio State matchup, we’ve taken the courtesy of proving once again that, no matter who wins, undefeated Harvard is the real college football champion.
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The Harvard men’s basketball team (9-3) righted the ship Monday with a 46-point thrashing of Saint Rose—the team’s largest-ever victory under coach Tommy Amaker—but faces a bigger challenge in Hanover, NH as it starts conference play Saturday against Dartmouth (7:00 p.m., Ivy League Digital Network). Below, The Back Page takes a look at the three main things to keep your eye on as Harvard starts the “14-game tournament”.
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The No. 3 Harvard men’s hockey team will face No. 19 Yale at Madison Square Garden next Saturday in the second edition of the Rivalry On Ice. On Dec. 26, a brief ECAC Hockey press release promoting the match-up stated the following:
“This year’s game also features a unique intermission skating performance with Olympic gold medalist Sarah Hughes (Yale alum) and her Olympian sister Emily Hughes (Harvard alum).”
In the 2002 Salt Lake Olympics, Sarah Hughes stunned the skating world by capturing gold in the ladies’ singles event. The next year, Sarah declined her early admittance to Harvard and enrolled at Yale. In 2006, Sarah’s younger sister took the Olympic stage. Emily Hughes ’11 placed seventh in Torino before her freshman year in Cambridge.
Surprised by the press release, I used Twitter to reach out to the Hughes sisters, who kindly granted a video chat interview from their New York home. While I quickly learned that Sarah and Emily would not, in fact, be lacing up between periods on Jan. 10, they are planning to take the ice for the ceremonial first face-off alongside former New York Governor George Pataki (Yale ’67) and New York Rangers greats Mike Richter (Yale ’08) and Mark Messier (Rivalry On Ice brand ambassador and uncle of Harvard sophomore forward Luke Esposito).
In the following conversation, the Hughes sisters talk about their connection to college hockey, their previous performances at the Garden, and the Ivy League’s rich tradition of Olympic figure skating.
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The Harvard men’s ice hockey team continues its rise.
On Monday, the Crimson (10-1-2, 6-1-2 ECAC) rose from fourth to third in the national rankings. In the midst of the longest winning streak in college hockey, the team sits behind only No. 1/1 University of North Dakota and No. 2/2 Boston University in both the USCHO.com and USA Today/USA Hockey Magazine polls.
The Crimson received more first-place votes (13 out of 34) than any other team in the USA Today/USA Hockey Magazine poll and tops the PairWise, RPI, and KRACH rankings.
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