Miami - A Dynasty In the Making?

First an update on rankings....

Michigan State did drop a couple spots in the USCHO.com poll this week. The Spartans enter the bye week ranked 15th in the country in this poll.

USA Today kept the Spartans right in the same spot at #14 in the country.

INCH.com saw it the same way putting MSU 15th in their latest power rankings.


Miami Ice Hockey - on the brink of dynasty:

At least that is what The Miami Student would want you to believe back in 2007.

That article was printed back at the start of the 2007 season (the season after Michigan State won a national title). For those keeping score, Miami had the following to brag about in its entire history...

CCHA Titles (2) -  1992-93, 2005-06
CCHA Tournament Titles - (0)
NCAA Appearances (5) - 1993, 1997, 2004, 2006, 2007
NCAA Frozen Fours (0)
NCAA Championships (0)

So you can imagine there was a bit of internet splash back when that article first made an appearance. None of those numbers hardly point to a dynasty. That's a word that is tossed around way too easily in the sports world, and the original article really doesn't help that matter. This led some people to refer to Miami as "The Dynasty" or some of my friends to refer to Miami(OH) as Miami(NTM) meaning 'Miami, not that Miami' because most college sports fans think of the 'U' when you think of Miami.

Basically what the article is trying to point out is Coach Enrico Blasi had the program on the verge of becoming an 'upper tier' program. A program that finally had a national face and would be a force on both the conference and national levels.

We said Enrico Blasi not Palazzo

That's better....



Since that point, Miami has made two frozen four appearances, including a national runner-up, won a CCHA tournament title, and a CCHA regular season title, along with making the NCAA tournament every year since (2008, 2009, 2010, 2011). Still not exactly dynasty worthy numbers. Oh, and they built a new arena.

So maybe the original intent of the article really wasn't that far off, though still missing the mark on the Dynasty. Miami did come into this season as the #2 ranked team in the country, but they struggled to a 2-5 start. Since that point though Miami has been back on track going 19-8-2 since that point including winning 12 of their final 16 games (a stretch that started with a two game sweep at Munn), and winning their last six games to secure the fourth and final home ice spot in next weekend's CCHA quarterfinals.

A Dynasty? No, but still a great program under Coach Blasi.