Editor’s note: NESN’s Tom Caron is on the 50-member USCHO ranking committee, and you can find his votes and thoughts on the college hockey week that was every Monday on NESN.com.
In my USCHO.com ballot this week, the Harvard Crimson have made the biggest jump of any team in my eight-year history as a voter. Ted Donato’s team made my ballot for the first time last week, debuting at No. 15. This week I’ve got them all the way up to No. 2 after they beat top-ranked Boston University and fourth-ranked (second in my vote) UMass-Lowell.
While North Dakota moved back to the top spot in my poll after a win and a tie against 11th-ranked Nebraska-Omaha, it’s the Crimson making the big noise in my poll this week. Harvard was picked seventh in the pre-season ECAC coaches poll and 10th in the media poll after finishing tied for 10th in the 12-team ECAC. That, after finishing dead last the season before.
North Reading, Mass., native Jimmy Vesey is once again the leading scorer for Harvard and is well on his way to having the best year of his career. Vesey, son of Jim Vesey — the all-time scoring leader at Merrimack College — has at least one point in each of the Crimson’s 10 games and has eight goals already this season. He scored a career-high 13 last year as a sophomore.
Vesey’s success comes as no surprise to hockey fans who saw him skate alongside J.T. Miller and Johnny Gaudreau on the top line for the gold-medal winning USA squad in the 2013 World Junior Championships. He was the Eastern Junior Hockey League MVP when he skated for the South Shore Kings and was a third-round pick of the Nashville Predators in 2013.
Twenty-five years ago, Donato was a member of the Harvard team that won an NCAA Championship. They haven’t won one since. Vesey and his Harvard teammates have a chance to further solidify their spot as a national contender this coming weekend with a pair of road games at Princeton and Quinnipiac, who are ranking 20th in my poll.
Jim Vesey Sr.’s alma mater is in my top 20 this week for the first time. I’ve got Merrimack ranked 18th after a pair of wins over Colgate. Mark Dennehy’s Warriors are 10-4-1 on the season.
Here’s my official USCHO.com ballot for the week of Dec. 1:
1. North Dakota
2. Harvard
3. Boston University
4. UMass-Lowell
5. Miami (Ohio)
6. Michigan Tech
7. Minnesota
8. Minnesota State
9. Minnesota-Duluth
10. Denver
11. Vermont
12. Colgate
13. Providence
14. Bowling Green
15. Boston College
16. Union
17. Nebraska-Omaha
18. Merrimack
19. Northern Michigan
20. Quinnipiac
And here is the USCHO top 20:
1. North Dakota
2. Minnesota State
3. Boston University
4. Miami (Ohio)
5. Michigan Tech
6. Minnesota
7. UMass-Lowell
8. Minnesota-Duluth
9. Harvard
10. Denver
11. Vermont
12. Nebraska-Omaha
13. Colgate
14. Bowling Green
15. Quinnipiac
16. Providence
17. Boston College
18. Merrimack
19. Northern Michigan
20. Robert Morris
Thumbnail photo via Twitter/@Harvard_Hockey
