(Shoutout to Adam Steinbach and Drew Kohrs for providing a new stash of Stick Taps and Snark photos to use - thanks so much!)
↑ Hat trick heaven – The multi-goal boom continued this week, with Joy Dunne scoring three for Ohio State, Carina DiAntonio notching a natural hat trick for Yale and Reichen Kirchmair scoring four for Providence, including a natural hat trick in 4:41 during the second period and the overtime game-winner.
↓ Opening weekend issues – There were a good number of small issues that came out of the opening of the new arena at St. Thomas - the audio didn't come close to matching up with the video feed, all the social media posts were wildly out of order, making me think the wifi was struggling, but the most important one seemed to be an inconsistent accounting of shots on goal - most noticeably, that Providence had the same amount of shots before and after scoring their sixth goal.
↑ Fabulous freshmen – Six different rookies are among the top-20 in scoring so far this season. Clarkson's Sara Manness is tied for the national lead with 12 assists, followed closely by Penn State's Danica Maynard, with 11. Both are in the top-20 overall in scoring, joined by OSU's Hilda Svensson, Boston College's Ava Thomas, Wisconsin's Adéla Šapovalivová and Penn State's Matilde Fantin.
↓ Injuries – If any readers are women's soccer fans, they know how brutal the injury bug has bitten this season and it sure feels like that trend is continuing into the women's hockey season. Certainly injuries happen, but it feels like there have been a ton to start the year, with new players leaving games every day. Information tends to be pretty closely held in the college space, so unless a player misses a game or is spotted in the stands or on the bench in street clothes, we don't always know what's going on, but here's hoping this trend takes a bit downturn, particularly in an Olympic year.
↑ Poll movement – The early chaos and upsets has led to a lot of movement in the polls. Cornell is up to the #4 spot while Brown debuted at #15 this week. St. Thomas stayed ranked after a weekend split
And a little self-stick tap/promotion:
I've published my yearly breakdown of the demographics of NCAA D1 players over at USCHO. Go check out all the data viz looking at the country and state origin of every rostered player this season.
