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Hermantown’s Jesse Jacques got a short-handed breakaway and when Marshall goalie Alex Busick stopped him, Jacques got two more swats and finally scored for a 2-0 lead in the Hawks 3-1 victory in the final of the Hilltopper Classic. Photo credit: John Gilbert

The preliminaries, as they say, are over. I couldn’t resist kidding UMD hockey coach Scott Sandelin that he has a unique formula for success: Get up to the No. 1 rank in November, then take the rest of the year off.

The Bulldogs didn’t really plan it that way, it just seems like it. They were named No. 1 in the country, while leading the National Collegiate Hockey Conference, and held that spot while splitting at Denver and in a home-and-home with Bemidji State – their only action since mid-November.

But hopefully, the Bulldogs are all rested up and ready, because from here on, there are no breaks. UMD is at home this weekend against Colorado College, and follows it with another series at AMSOIL Arena against St. Cloud State. Then there are games every weekend, with the only interruption in a 14-game stretch of NCHC battles coming on January 27-28, when they play at Xcel Center against Minnesota and either Bemidji State or St. Cloud in the statewide tournament.

Indications are, incidentally, that the five-team instate tournament will end after this year. Minnesota’s insistence on playing every year, while the other four rotate, seems both arrogant and badly timed, coming at the same time the Golden Gophers have slipped into the Big Ten and out of mainstream popularity.

Colorado College is in the midst of a seemingly interminable rebuilding plan, but the Tigers are capable of surprising somebody. And UMD faces the question of whether a three-week interruption in the season’s flow can simply be reconnected by a Bulldog outfit that negotiated through the first half of the season without any apparent weaknesses.

With college hockey shutting down, the Minnesota Wild kept interest at a fevered pitch with a franchise record 12-game winning streak coming to an end when Columbus smacked them 4-2 at Xcel Center. The Blue Jackets extended their record to 15 consecutive victories in that one. The Wild has had five days to get over it and start a new streak Thursday night out in San Jose.

High school hockey hit its usual holiday peak, with Hermantown rising highest by winning the Hilltopper Classic at Mars-Lakeview. The Hawks beat a solid Bemidji team, then overran Delano-Rockford with a narrow 4-3 victory bolstered by a 41-15 shot advantage. In the championship game, the Hawks beat Marshall 3-1 in an intense and rugged battle.

The tournament drew huge crowds, jamming every vantage point in Mars-Lakeview, and drinking up all the chicken wild rice soup on the final day. The big crowd saw an ugly ending to festivities. Ryan Sandelin scored the clinching goal into an open net in Hermantown’s 3-1 victory with 1:15 remaining, and on the game’s final shift Sandelin skated up the ice and when he got to the Marshall blue line, he cut to his left and was met solidly by Marshall defenseman Willy Stauber. Stauber lunged and flattened Sandelin with the blindside check, and while several Hawks pursued Stauber, Sandelin got to his feet and scrambled after him.

Hermantown’s Logan Judnick got a point-blank shot at Marshall goaltender Alex Busick. Photo credit: John Gilbert

The officials gave Willy Stauber a 5-minute major for targeting an opponent’s head, and a game disqualification penalty, meaning he had to sit out Marshall’s next game. Sandelin was given a double minor. “He came across, and I saw him in time to try to duck out of the way,” said Sandelin.

Hermantown coach Bruce Plante said, “I really wanted to win this game. We were tired in the third period, in fact I thought we were tired through the whole game. But we played well tired. That’s something you have to do – You have to play tired and you’ve got to learn how to do it.”

Plante was asked about the intensity of the rivalry with Marshall, a team Hermantown also beat 3-1 three weeks earlier. “I don’t know,” Plante said. :They’re always close, tough games. Maybe it’s because we’ve won a few in a row...”

How many? “I think it’s 13 or 14 straight now,” Plante added.