by Quinn Kreck, staff writer
Colorado College Men’s Ice Hockey team earns best National Ranking in over 10 years.
Colorado College’s long streak of poor season performances appears to be coming to an end, as the Tigers are off to a great start to the 2024-25 season. The Tigers head into week 10 off a bye week with a record of 9 wins 2 losses and 1 tie and are ranked number 8 in the country by the United States College Hockey Organization (USCHO), their best ranking since 2012.
They started the year on an 8-game winning streak for the first time since 1956, a year in which they won the national championship. The Tigers outscored opponents 25-12 across that streak with one shut out. Their first loss of this season came in a 2-3 overtime loss against no. 11 Western Michigan (WMU) on November 15th. Since the win streak was snapped the Tigers are 1-2-1 (including the loss to WMU) with 3 of 4 games going into overtime. The Tigers face off against no. 10 University of Providence, who are 10-3-2, in Providence this Friday and Saturday, and play rival no. 2 University of Denver in the first two gold pan match ups of the season next weekend.
Leading the way for the Tigers strong start is Junior goaltender Kaidan Mbereko, with a .940 save percentage (shots on goal saved, out of 1.000) and a 1.56 goals against average through 12 starts. Assistant captain center Noah Laba who has 9 points through 7 games and Graduate student defensemen Ty Gallagher, a Boston College transfer leads the team with 10 points in 12 games, both play important roles in the offence for the Tigers. The Tigers currently have 9 NHL draft picks on the team helping raise the team’s skill level. The strong start to the season is built off last season’s success.
The 2023-24 season was the best for the Tigers since 2010-11, with a 21-13-3 record last season. Last season gave the Tigers their best record since the creation of the National Collegiate Hockey Conference (NCHC) in 2013, going 14-8-2 in in-conference games. The Tigers climbed from unranked halfway through the season to no. 10 by the end, beating high ranked opponents like no. 13 Arizona State University, no. 9 Minnesota, rival no. 2 Denver once, and sweeping no. 1 North Dakota in N.D. The strong season did not translate into playoff performance as the Tigers lost against no. 12 Omaha in a three-game series, a team that they failed to beat in the regular season.
The Tigers’ recent success has not been a common theme in the last decade. Colorado College has had a lot of bad seasons in recent years, winning as little as 6 games in 2015-16. The Tigers had 6 seasons from 2013-14 to now with less than 10 wins, with only two NCHC frozen faceoffs in that span.
The Tigers ice hockey program appears to be on the upswing as they look to keep their strong start going, hopefully deep into the regular season and into the playoffs.
