Your arguments, obviously, have at least
some validity to them. That said, your (or the "others" you mentioned) assessment of our previous opponents is pretty subjective (win, or, lose--there's losing, and then there is
losing) and having much in the way of hard and fast opinions about our opponents, to-date, is akin to taking much stock in the AP or USA Today's Coaches Poll any time before October 1st in football. There is a lot of season left to to go here. It's why I take Pairwise rankings with a grain of salt before the end of November, unless somebody has played a pretty exemplary schedule, with a lot of success, prior to that.
I'll further qualify what I said, though, in the interest of giving your side of it at least
some props here.
If any of the teams currently ahead of us in the College Hockey News power rankings had the same resume', to date, that UNO does, my contention is that it is entirely possible that UNO would be ranked higher than 6th, despite any observations or opinions you might have about our opponents and their quality, to-date.
As an example, since we know where your sympathies are, are you
really going to tell me you're
more impressed with SCSU's overall body of work, to-date, than UNO's? Enough that they are
for sure deserved of being one spot higher in the ranking than UNO? The reason Michigan Tech and UMD are WCHA bottom feeders, currently, is because it IS so early in the season and they got swept in one of the few conference series they have played. We suffer for beating up on them because we're a big reason they are there in the first place? UMD was a ranked team when they showed up in Omaha!
St. Cloud State has 2 non-conference losses at #5 New Hampshire. 2 non-conference game wins, at home, against arguably the worst team in the country. A conference sweep at home of a team with a brand new head coach, one who has never been a college hockey head coach anywhere before, and who is the 11th place team, currently, in the conference. And, a conference split on the road against the current conference leader and overall #2 team in the country.
Now, I am not trying to tell you what UNO has done is more impressive in any meaningful way. We could argue about that for days one way or the other. I'm just trying to say that in any comparison between UNO and these other, ahem, "established" schools, we are not going to get the benefit of the doubt. That's all.
By the way, I went to the Icebreaker in Kansas City and UNO ran Army right out of the building. We'd have beaten them far worse than we did if their goalie had not had an outstanding night in goal. Jeff Jackson, in post game interview on the ice after UNO's Notre Dame game, said the following "
That's the
#7 team in the WCHA?
FYI, St. Cloud State is me and the missus road trip this season, December 7th & 8th.
As an aside, it's raining WCHA Player of the Week awards here in Omaha:
http://www.wcha.com/men/pres1213/201211/nov13wpm.php
Two weeks in a row, now.
