Defending MacNaughton Cup champion Colorado College played an exhibition game Monday at World Arena, its home rink in Colorado Springs and started slowly.

The University of Alberta, Canada’s defending national champion, led 2-0 before CC rallied for a 5-2 victory.

Senior center Chad Rau, from Eden Prairie, had two goals and two assists for CC. One of his goals was shorthanded. For those who forgot, the media picked Rau as its preseason MVP in the WCHA. He seems ready for the season.

Richard Bachman and Drew O’Connell split time in the nets for CC. Bachman was the league MVP last season as a freshman.

The Tigers had a 30-24 edge in shots on goal.

Two other WCHA teams played exhibition games even before CC. Michigan Tech, playing in Houghton in a fixed up John MacInnes Student Ice Arena, lost 3-1 on Saturday to the University of Toronto.

The Huskies had a 41-16 dominance in shots, but the Varsity Blues (Toronto) scored three power-play goals.

Last year Tech beat Toronto 7-0. Now the all-time series between the two teams stands at 4-4.

As for the 4,000-plus seat facility in Houghton — where the Gophers play their final regular-season series — it has new seats and a new floor.

On Sunday, the second official day of the college hockey season, Minnesota Duluth thumped Lakehead University of Thunder Bay, Ontario 6-0 before 3,011 at the DECC.

Nice crowd. Captain Matt Greer, a senior right wing, had two goals. Kyle Schmidt, Jordan Fulton, Justin Fontaine and Mike Gergen also scored for the Bulldogs who led 4-0 after one period.

The Dogs outshot Lakehead 42-20.  Junior Alex Stalock started in goal for UMD and had 10 saves through two periods; freshman Brady Hjelle had 10 stops in the third period.

UMD is 9-0 in its series with Lakehead and 29-3-2 all-time vs. Canadian colleges.

Minnesota plays the University of British Columbia at Mariucci in an exhibition game on Friday after UBC plays at St. Cloud State on Wednesday.

This entry was posted on Monday, October 6th, 2008 at 11:55 pm and is filed under Gophers men's hockey. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.