#1 Fairfield Prep (9-2) - 1 loss out of state
-Not much to say. They beat a very good NJ Prep school last Saturday but had their marquee games this week, vs Hamden on Wed and Xavier on Sat, were both postponed due to the weather (see: http://hssportsct.blogspot.com/2011/02/all-sports-snow.html). The Hamden game is next Tuesday and the Xaveir game may be next Friday but otherwise Prep does see ND-Fairfield on Saturday. One way or the other, Prep will either prove their top spot or could be giving it up to Hamden, New Canaan or Xavier (Xavier would have to beat them) as early as next Sunday!
#2 New Canaan (14-0)
-New Canaan's week featured a win over DIII's top team (Staples-Weston-Shelton) and two DII teams, a decent Trumbull squad and Fairfield Warde/Ludlow, all required FCIAC games. They have the most important week of their regular season coming up with a short trip to Darien on Wednesday, a home game versus St. Joseph on Saturday and the extremely highly anticipated showdown at Lou Astorino Rink against Hamden on Friday, February 11. These three games also represent the three most difficult detriments remaining to their undefeated season (Wilton also has a shot but not much).
#3 Xavier (9-4) - 2 losses out of state
-Xavier did receive a little scare last Saturday when it took a Trevor Buchas goal in OT to beat North Haven but other than that, they sat the week out, like Prep, with no games on schedule except the one at Fairfield Prep that got postponed. Right now it looks like they only have a resurgent East Haven to worry about next week but look for the Prep game to possibly be rescheduled on Friday the 11th.
#4 Hamden (7-2-1) - 1 loss out of state
-Hamden had themselves a relatively good week by taking down Notre Dame-West Haven 4-1 on the road last Saturday and then skating past Simsbury 6-2. However, they also tied West Haven 3-3. The ND-WH win means a lot to me and I wish the Prep game did not get postponed but that means that things are very difficult the way they stand. Let me break this down for why I have Xavier at 3 and Hamden at 4: Hamden beat Prep but really Prep should have won that game (yes, I was there) and Hamden has tied West Haven 3-3; Xavier lost to New Canaan in a game I think they should have won (again, yes, I was there), lost to ND-WH but beat Hamden, being up 4-0 at one point, and the fact that X won the head-to-head between these two is very important. Note, however, if Hamden beats Prep, they are #1 or 2. Luckily they play Prep Tuesday and then New Canaan on Friday so that decision for the rankings will not be too hard next week. Both look to be superlative games! In a move that could help or hurt them, Hamden plays four games in five days from Tues-Sat, with out-of-state Mt St Charles come to Lou Astorino on Wednesday a trip to South Windsor on Saturday...weather permitting on all four of course. The S Windsor game will say a lot for both teams as well but I expect Hamden to come out on top, regardless of the results from their other games.
#5 Notre Dame-West Haven (9-4)
-Simply losses to New Canaan, Fairfield Prep this season and then Hamden last week dropped them to #5. Encouraging is that the Prep loss was only 2-3 in OT but their win over Xavier was also only by one goal. I won't get near as much backlash for this ranking as I thought I was going to because ND lost to West Haven on Saturday, 2-3, so its hard to argue they belong above Xavier (Xavier plays WH on 2/26) and even arguing Xavier belongs below Hamden (a team one can't argue belongs below ND) is hard to do. Therefore, ND-WH says in the Top Five, ahead of even WH you'll notice, and has chances to move up again with games against ND-Fairfield, Amity, Prep and Hamden all left on their schedule.
#6 West Haven (7-3-2)
-The Blue Devils have the quality wins over Darien 6-2, North Haven 4-0, ND-Fairfield 2-1 and a 3-3 tie with Hamden to add to their monumental 3-2 win over ND-WH. However, the thing I worry about with WH is inconsistency. They tied Greenwich 2-2 to start the season, lost to ND-WH 1-4 the first time, got blown out (to put it nicely) by Prep 0-8 and even lost to Amity 2-6, another inconsistent team. It may be a result of all this parity in DI hockey this year; Xavier also looks slightly inconsistent from time to time (the difference being one part of the team, forwards, defensemen, goalie or simply the ability to bend not break [much like a Bill Belichick-coached defense, as much as I hate to say it] and play through their struggles, always seems to pick them up). Nonetheless, for now, WH will stay at 6 and has a big game versus South Winsdor on Wednesday.
#7 Ridgefield (10-3)
-The Tigers are on a four-game win streak, starting last Saturday: ND-Fairfield 5-0 on Sat, Greenwich 3-1 on Mon, Wilton (a top DII team) 4-2 Thurs and Darien 3-2 in OT just this past Sat. In the week ahead, they play at a decent Tumbull team on Wednesday and then the top DIII team, Staples-Weston-Shelton, comes to the Winter Garden Ice Arena on Saturday. Those are all FCIAC games, aside from ND. Looking forward, Ridgefield gets a shot @ Prep next Wednesday and closes with quality games against G-bury and St. Joseph.
#8 Darien (7-6-1)
-The Blue Wave have been hot but only as of late, winning five in a row before the loss to Ridgefield, 2-3 in OT. Watch out for Darien who has the potential to pull the upset on NC when the Rams come to Terry Connors Rink on Wed 2/9 at 4pm. After that, however, they finish out the month/regular season with the easier part of their FCIAC schedule...watch out for Wilton and St. Jospeh in that span though.
#9 South Windosr (11-2)
-I thought I was going to be able to say their 1-0 win over Conard was impressive, especially after Conard beat Glastonbury...but then Conard lost to Farmington. See post on Conard below. South Windsor is hands down #1 in the CCC now, for what it's worth, and they will represent the conference Wed @ West Haven, Sat vs Hamden and next week @ North Haven and vs ND-Fairfield. Those will be crucial games to see how well S Windsor will will potentially do in the DI state tourney.
#10 Glastonbury (9-4)
-The Conard loss wasn't that bad since it was in OT and I liked how G-bury played in that game (see: http://hssportsct.blogspot.com/2011/02/boys-hockey-thursday-and-friday-23-and.html) except that Conard went and lost to Farmington 1-3 on Saturday. When you read my "First Teams Out" below, this ranking makes more sense. However, that will also tell you that many teams are right on their heels. In fact, if Amity had not lost to East Haven on Saturday, Amity would be #10 right now. Glastonbury needs to be careful @ Northford Ice Pavillion Wed when they take on North Haven and then on Sat against Wethersfield (a home game for both teams). If they lose to either, except a new team in the Top Ten next week.
First Teams Out:
Conard is sitting at 4-5-2 right now and can definitely qualify for the state tournament but them seem to be plagued by inconsistent play/the parity of DI as well (see West Haven write-up above). Their "flashes of excellence," as I will describe them, are really messing things up for the CCC teams when Conard plays well against them but loses to Farmington or Trinity Catholic. Conard has the chance to shake things up even more with games remaining against Guilford, North Haven, ND-Fairfield and Xavier.
I always say don't sleep on teams like ND-Fairfield (1-9-1), Greenwich (3-8-2), Amity (5-7), St Joseph (10-2) and even East Haven (8-3) now but I can't make the case for any of them to crack the Top Ten without more meaningful wins.
We'll start with the new kids on the radar: East Haven. Amity and Wilton are their only good wins but thier losses are also only 0-4 to Prep, 1-4 to WH and then, making them another example of an inconsistent team, 1-4 to Westhill (average DII team).
ND-Fairfield has that possibility of pulling an upset each and every night, as seen in their win over Ridgefield, 2-3 loss to Darien then 2-2 tie three days later, 3-4 loss in OT to Hamden, and 1-2 loss to WH in last 35 seconds. They also play like a 1-9-1 team when they lose 1-5 to Xavier, 2-7 to Prep, 0-4 to ND-WH, 1-8 to NC, and 0-5 to Ridgefield. They also have 1-3 loss to G-bury that looks real bad now with G-bury's recent loss to Conard.
Greenwich has a 2-2 tie with West Haven and a 2-0 win over Darien so maybe they can sneak it at the bottom depending on how they play against Staples-Weston-Shelton and St Joseph. St. Joseph has a win over Amity, Wilton and S-W-S but a loss to Guilford. They have chances to make their case with NC (2-6 loss last time), Amity, Darien, Greenwich and Ridgefield.
*Amity has really only lost to quality teams in state (Hamden by 2, Darien by 2, and Xavier by 1 in OT), until East Haven 1-4. They are my favorite moving forward, with games remaining against North Haven (still searching for their big win), St. Joseph, G-bury and a huge season finale with ND-WH on 2/26 at Bennett Rink (home ice for both teams).
You hear me talk a lot about Trumbull (8-6-1) Wilton (8-4-1) and Guilford (10-0-1).
In fact, Trumbull seems almost a DI team with all the FCIAC teams they play, however they have yet to come within 3 goals of a DI team, aside from a 2-2 tie with Greenwich. In addition, they started off the season with a loss to a DIII team (Watertown-Pomperaug). They also lost to my next good look in DII, Wilton.
The Warriors beat Greenwich 3-2 but the losses holding them back are 0-4 to East Haven, 1-7 to St Joseph, 2-4 to Ridgefield, 3-4 to S-W-S and a 3-3 tie at the beginning of the season with 3-6-1 Milford Co-op. FCIAC teams better not overlook them though or you never know what might happen.
Finally, the DII team with all the buzz that I do like a lot, still undefeated Guilford. The Indians have a nice 5-2 win over St. Joseph in the season opener and the 3-3 tie with Cheshire in the very next game. Next Mon they get another shot at Cheshire on Cheshire's second-half-of-the-season home ice, Northford. The two games they have to earn some DI respect vs Conard on Thurs and then vs East Haven next Sat, 2/19.
THANK YOU FOR READING, I received 950 page views in my first week, and am now over 1,000, with last week's rankings being the most popular post and then Saturday's scores a close second by 4 page view (CT football recruits was 3rd). So again, I just wanted to say thank you, it really means a lot to me and I wanted to shout-out a blog my friend Jordan and I do, http://everythingsportsmj.blogspot.com/, he is an amazing sports write, check out his posts on College Basketball and one of my favorite blogs to read, by Hamden defensemen R.J. Ugolik, http://rjshockeynotebook.blogspot.com/. I hope everyone is staying safe and warm with the weather we've been having and I look forward to spending the last month of the regular season with you, which is also my favorite month of the year, February!
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