Seriously, folks. ECAC Hockey doesn't have the same rankings portfolio as the other "Big Four" conferences - just No. 11 Clarkson and No. 16 Quinnipiac - but this may be the wackiest race of them all. Seriously, did anyone see Princeton as being tied for the conference lead?

Yes, Princeton, and it's not just the Tigers, either. Certainly, the success for Guy Gadowsky's bunch is a nice surprise, but organize the ECAC Hockey standings by winning percentage - which you kind of have to do, since some teams have played 10 or 11 games while others have only played six - and you get Clarkson, Cornell, Yale, Princeton and RPI.

In a sense, it shouldn't be all that surprising...after all, this is what the school administrations had in mind when they hired George Roll, Keith Allain, Guy Gadowsky and Seth Appert. And some schools have played almost twice as many conference games as others...we'll have to follow this one as the schedules even out, especially since the Golden Knights are the only team that doesn't need the Whitelaw Cup to get into the NCAA tournament.

Cornell certainly showed that it can play with Clarkson down in Florida. Princeton was embarassed pretty thoroughly by the Golden Knights at Baker Rink back in November. Yale has the goaltending to give Clarkson one hell of a game, as the Bulldogs showed in Potsdam. RPI has the bonus factor of pure unadulterated hatred of its fellow N.Y.-based tech school, and as we all know, any thing can happen when there's a rivalry involved. More pertinent, of course, are the lessons that Appert expects his team to learn from their brutal non-conference schedule. Appert has said that they were lessons for this season, but just how effective they were is something that we'll have to learn...and I can say with some certainty that we'll have ample opportunity.