Here’s an analogy for you. Think back to those snowy days in elementary school. (If you didn’t have snowy days in elementary school, shame on you.) Remember how the snow plow would make a big snow hill on one end of the parking lot? You and your buddies would play King of the Hill on it. Great game, you know.

Everyone’s goal is to get to the top, and once one kid gets to the top, everyone gangs up to knock the kid to the bottom. It usually ends with Danny on the asphalt with a bloody nose and a nun yelling, “That’s what you get for horseplay! Now, go inside and write the Nicene Creed on the board…in Latin.”

OK, maybe that’s an extreme example. But you get the point. Harvard and Cornell were on top for two years. Now they have Kleenex in their nostrils. But it’s not because of one bully. A bunch of kids got together and pushed them off the hill.

The ECAC has always been this unpredictable. Some years, Clarkson and St. Lawrence rule the roost—that, in fact, happened as recently as three seasons ago. Some years, Rensselaer or Vermont makes a run. And some years, an Ivy team or two is strong.

But the ECAC, with its conglomeration of programs—four scholarship schools, seven non-scholarship schools, and one scholarship school on the way out (Vermont)—is topsy-turvy by nature. A lot of it depends on recruiting—whether or not a school can string together two or three solid recruiting classes in a row, something that’s very difficult to do at an Ivy League school.

Those in the ECAC camp hope that one team shines above the others, with one or two 20-win teams close behind—like Cornell, Harvard and Dartmouth did last year—to get at least two, maybe three, teams into the NCAA tournament.

There is no chance that will happen this year. Colgate is a bubble team that might make the NCAA tournament as an at-large selection if it reaches the ECAC final and loses. Cornell and Dartmouth are lurking on the fringe of the tournament field, but in the end, their lot will probably be like everyone else’s: Win the ECAC tournament and you’re in. Lose and go home.

And who’s the consensus pick to win in Albany? Your guess is as good as anyone else’s. “I don’t see any prohibitive favorite,” admitted Harvard coach Mark Mazzoleni.

Two years ago at this time, Mazzoleni’s team transformed itself from an underachieving also-ran into the ECAC champion. One season ago, the Crimson was in the thick of NCAA contention and eventually squeezed its way into the field— a tremendous accomplishment for both Harvard and the league.

Now Crimson players and coaches are in the same place they were two seasons ago—in the thick of a crowded ECAC, with teams not much better and not much worse than themselves in either direction.

How quickly things change. And how quickly they return to normal.

So Colgate, here’s some advice for you: While you’re on top, savor it. No one seems to stay there very long. Timmy and Bobby and Jimmy and Ronnie are probably on their way up the hill already.

WHERE’S THE O?

One of the contributing factors to the league’s extreme competitive balance is its general lack of goals in comparison to last season.

• Last year, the ECAC had 19 double-digit goal-scorers, led by Yale’s Chris Higgins (18 goals). This year, it has only 10—none of whom play for Harvard—with Colgate’s Jon Smyth leading the league (15).