By Ryan Stieg
In college hockey, you can be rolling through your season at one point, but then roll into the ditch the following weekend. That’s pretty much how my 2025 has gone.
It started off so well and now, it’s just been miss after miss for me. Once again, I almost achieved a winless week, but the team I cover on a weekly basis was the one that bailed me out. Many thanks to St. Thomas, who split with Bowling Green and kept me from embarrassing myself.
Well, I’ve got to regroup quickly because this week is a special one for me as my birthday is on Thursday and Valentine’s Day is the following day. A great birthday/V-Day gift would be another perfect week and I could really use one. This is an odd week as there’s only two matchups, so that’ll make it either really easy to go perfect, or really easy to go winless. Let’s hope for the former. Here’s the two matchups in CCHA Week 19.
Michigan Tech at Augustana
The Vikings had a chance to potentially lock up the MacNaughton Cup last week with a sweep of Minnesota State, but instead, they were swept aside by the Mavericks and Augie tumbled out of the Top 20. Meanwhile, the Huskies held their fun Winter Carnival last week and ended up getting swept by Bemidji State, so both teams are coming in shaky. In those types of situations, I pick splits and that’s what I’m going to do here. Tech breaks Augie’s heart on V-Day, winning 3-2, but the Vikings rebound Saturday 4-2.
Lake Superior State at Ferris State
Well, which Lakers team is going to show up this week? It really is a question mark at this point. There was a stretch where LSSU was the hottest team in the league, but it’s cooled off significantly. The Lakers should’ve split with Augie, but fell apart in the final minute and ended up getting swept. And then last week, they should’ve easily swept Northern Michigan, but ended up splitting with the Wildcats after falling in overtime Saturday. Then there’s the Bulldogs, who were off last week after humiliating Bemidji on the road the week before. Home ice is a long shot for both of these teams, but with a lot of the teams ahead of them off this weekend, this would be their best chance to make up some ground in the standings. Since both teams need points this week, I’m picking a split here too. Ferris gives its fans some V-Day love with a 3-1 win, but LSSU bounces back Saturday with a 4-1 victory.