NCAA Hockey 101 is a weekly feature on U.S. Division I college hockey. Stick around and you just might learn a thing or two.

Earlier this week, both USA Hockey and Hockey Canada released their preliminary rosters for the World Junior tournaments which start in about two weeks. And to the surprise of no one, college hockey players are heavily featured in the US's roster and has three kids in camp for Team Canada.

With 15 current college players in camp for the US, it's very likely that you'll see at least a few guys you recognize from your league.

The WCHA leads the way with seven invitees (of course) including three from Wisconsin. Hockey East is next with four, three of which are from BU. The CCHA has three, two from Michigan. And the ECAC has just one, RPI's Jerry D'Amigo. Canada, meanwhile, invited two players from the WCHA and one from the ECAC.

So let's have a look and see who's going to make the teams.

Name/school/position: Chris Brown, Michigan, forward
Notes: If the US wants a

(No, the first decade of the 21st century doesn't technically end until 2011. Save your bellyaching. But we've had nine NHL seasons and one stolen from us since 1999-2000, and Yahoo! Sports has decided it's time to rank the best and worst of the last "decade." Enjoy, and snark freely in the comments. Today's edition is written by "What We Learned" author Ryan Lambert.)

In the course of researching this list, I came to the realization that this would be a difficult one to cook up. There's never been a decade like this, where half of it was full of insane contracts from three or four teams and the other half was ... well I guess it was also full of insane contracts from three or four teams, but those were under the salary cap and were therefore even more insane.

(Like, for example: Eric Staal's(notes) cap hit of $8.25 million for seven years. Players that make more than that: Alex Ovechkin(notes) at $9.358 until 2021, Sid Crosby at $8.7 million until 2013 and Evgeni Malkin(notes) at the

Hello, this is a feature that will run through the entire season and aims to recap the weekend's events and boils those events down to one admittedly superficial fact or stupid opinion about each team. Feel free to complain about it.

We are now sufficiently deep into the season that we can start looking at whether or not a team's offseason moves have worked out for the best. If nothing else, it will give you a reason to feel really good or really bad about the team you have chosen to support.

To be honest, a shocking number of huge decisions have turned out to be very, very good. The Dany Heatley(notes) trade is working out for everyone, Phil Kessel's(notes) been lights-out in Toronto, Jay Bouwmeester(notes) has helped the Flames' defense be not-terrible and Ryan Smyth(notes) was dominant in LA before going down with an injury.

But those aren't as interesting as some of the massive blunders GMs across the league have made in acquiring what they thought would be exceptional players

NCAA Hockey 101 is a weekly feature on U.S. Division I college hockey. Stick around and you just might learn a thing or two.

As if things weren't bad enough for Michigan.

Earlier this week, not one but two players, current sophomore forward Robbie Czarnik, a Los Angeles Kings prospect and incoming freshman goalie Jack Campbell, the top-rated goalie in Central Scouting's latest report.

Both jumped from the program, or, in Campbell's case, a commitment to the program, in favor of joining the OHL, and both serve to underscore problems with the NCAA's relationship with Major-Junior hockey in Canada.

First is the case of Czarnik, who, unhappy with his current role on the team and his development overall (he only had 8-14-22 in 51 games for Michigan) jumped to the Plymouth Whalers. The reason for Czarnik's desire to change is obvious. Michigan is off to a poor start at just 5-7-0 after going 29-12-0 last year, and they haven't even looked good doing it. Czarnik wasn't playing as much as

(No, the first decade of the 21st century doesn't technically end until 2011. Save your bellyaching. But we've had nine NHL seasons and one stolen from us since 1999-2000, and Yahoo! Sports has decided it's time to rank the best and worst of the last "decade." The following is written by Ryan "Two-Line Pass" Lambert, author of our ‘What We Learned' and College Hockey 101 columns. Enjoy, and snark freely in the comments.)

Let's face it, you and I are always going to love hockey. If we've suffered through a lockout, Gary Bettman's antics and a Red Wings dynasty, then we're going to suffer through anything. And the NHL knows that.

They can add 30 more franchises, all of which are south of the Mason-Dixon line. They can make every NHL game feature not just a shootout, but also a speed skating and hardest shot competition. They can even go so far as to replace the Avalanche with a team of skating bears. And we'd still watch. That's what makes the NHL the dichotomous professional sports

Hello, this is a feature that will run through the entire season and aims to recap the weekend's events and boils those events down to one admittedly superficial fact or stupid opinion about each team. Feel free to complain about it.

Prior to the start of the season, everyone was just brimming with optimism. Hockey was, after what felt like a painfully long summer, almost back. The glee was palpable.

As so many pundits do, I made what I called 20 bold predictions (where "bold" usually either meant "sarcastic" or "painfully obvious" but occasionally bordered on "somewhat daring").

Now that every team in the league has played at least 20 games and we're more than a quarter of the way through the season, I figure it's as good a time as any to see how those predictions are coming along.

My guess: Not well. Feel free to hold me accountable.

[Coming up: Your ol' pal Lambert looks at his miserable failures, Anaheim needs to hire new doctors, Kyle Okposo(notes) loves him some mediocre AHL

NCAA Hockey 101 is a weekly feature on U.S. Division I college hockey. Stick around and you just might learn a thing or two.

Last week I talked about some of the great traditions in college hockey, and the common theme to all of it was fan interaction. College hockey has great fans but, as I alluded to, sometimes the fans can go a little too far.

Personally, I'm more than a little comfortable with profanity, and chants featuring the word [expletive], [expletive] or even [expletive] don't bother me. I get it, it's college-age kids having a good time and being vocal in support of their team at a college sporting event. If it were up to me, I'd let the kids go crazy, say whatever they want.

But the problem is that probably the biggest percentage of college hockey attendees are families. Families have little kids. Parents don't like their kids hearing sweary cursey words thrown around liberally. And if they're motivated enough, they can raise a stink and cause schools to do something like

Hello, this is a feature that will run through the entire season and aims to recap the weekend's events and boils those events down to one admittedly superficial fact or stupid opinion about each team. Feel free to complain about it.

The Immaculate Reception. The Shot Heard 'Round the World. The Catch. The Hand of God. The Miracle on Ice.

All these pale in comparison with what must now be recognized as the greatest achievement in the history of human athletic competition: the Carolina Hurricanes actually winning a game.

Some might scoff. They might say the Hurricanes blew two separate three-goal leads to a team that is, in many ways, almost as bad as them (so bad that AHLer Robbie Earl(notes) was on the top line), played like garbage for the majority of the second half of the game and didn't do anything of note in OT except not lose, which, technically, isn't a bad strategy.

To those doubters -- nay, haters! -- I say pish-posh.

(Coming Up: Henrik Zetterberg(notes) dominates for the