The NCAA released their Academic Progress Ratings(APR) for the 2009-2010 academic year, and once again college hockey remained immaculate. Every school avoided penalty by being above the 925 threshold for their multi-year score, while four schools, Boston University, Brown, Princeton, and St. Lawrence had perfect multi-year scores, which is a pretty impressive feat. Men's ice hockey is one of the few sports that has never received a penalty from the NCAA for their APR scores, mostly because its a sport where Chicago State doesn't field a team. It's nice to see a verification of the work college hockey players are doing in the classroom though. Meanwhile, like, a lot of CHL players take advantage of their education package. What percentage? Shut up percent.
College Hockey News has a pretty good beat on all the realigment talk this summer. I think it's a very strong likelihood that we'll see some of those Atlantic Hockey schools moving west to the CCHA. Taking all of them seems difficult though. Robert Morris seems a given. Niagara and Mercyhurst seem like strong candidates, but play in arenas that seat 1500 people.
Michigan has hired former player Brian Wiseman to replace Mel Pearson as assistant coach. Wiseman was an excellent collegiate player who probably would have won the Hobey Baker Award in 1994 in a more just world, or if he had a ridiculous mullet. Wiseman was most recently an assistant coach with the Houston Aeros.
Also, Michigan added men's and women's lacrosse teams. This was maybe more idle speculation than anything serious, but during the push to grant men's lacrosse varsity status, some suggested Michigan might add a varsity women's hockey to offset the Title IX hit, but varsity women's lacrosse is much less of a financial black hole.
Colorado College defenseman Doug Leaverton chose to leave the Tigers and will look for another school to play for. Leaverton said he is looking at Ohio State and Penn State. Playing on a smaller ice surface would definitely suit Leaverton's game better. Penn State is particularly intriguing because the Nittany Lions could use some older players transferring in to give their roster more balance.
As I speculated when he was drafted by Sarnia, BU recruit Anthony DeAngelo will definitely be signing with the Sting fairly soon and playing in the OHL next year.
The NAHL is holding their draft tomorrow.