By Tim Robertson

Now don’t think that I’m copying what analysts have said for weeks, but the state of Massachusetts is currently the greatest sports state, and the surprise is that it’s not just the Sox, Pats and Boston College football that is reigning supreme in their respective sports.

I start with the next obvious kings of Mass., the Celtics. Sports Illustrated rated them tops in the Eastern Conference this season in last week’s NBA preview, although they predicted the Celts luck would run out in the conference championship against the Pistons. With the additions of Ray Allen and Kevin Garnett to line up next to Paul Pierce, there is excitement back in Boston surrounding the Celtics for the first time since the old days of Parrish, Bird and McHale.

Although mainstream America may know about those football Eagles, another set of Eagles – as hard as it is for me to admit – is better than the football bunch. Boston College’s men’s hockey team ranks fifth in the country early in the season. But, don’t let that fool you. The ice Eagles have made the national championship game in each of the last two seasons.

Moving west along the Mass. Pike corridor, UMass Amherst is attempting to break into the top echelon of Hockey East (the same conference as B.C. and Boston University). Since Hockey East, dominated by six Massachusetts schools, is difficult to recruit in, the Minutemen’s success last season is impressive. UMass (not to be confused with UMass Lowell, also in Hockey East) won 21 games last season under coach Don Cahoon, the most in the team’s D-1 history en route to their first NCAA appearance. UMass success continues into this season, as the Minutemen rank 20th in the country heading into this weekend.

And, even the Bruins. Remember they play in the National Hockey League – I felt like I needed to spell this one out. The B’s, as the old-timers remember them as, haven’t reached the days of Bobby Orr and the early 70s or anything, but they are in playoff contention early in the season. Boston sits sixth in the Eastern Conference, as of Monday. This isn’t quite like their Garden sibling, but it is an improvement for a team that finished 16 points out of the playoffs a year ago, and hasn’t played hockey in May since 2004.

Another team that maybe most New Englanders forgot about, the Revs, as they are called back home, are making a run of their own. The New England Revolution finished second in the East behind D.C. United in Major League Soccer, and play game two of their two game aggregate score series against the New York Red Bulls Saturday night at Gillette Stadium – yes, that Gillette Stadium. (An aggregate scoring series combines the scores from the first two games to determine a winner. The Red Bulls and Revs tied in their first match last weekend.)

For a state with one major city and millions of people less than New York, California or Illinois, where sports usually reign supreme, it’s impressive that the capital of Red Sox nation is a hot bed of young hockey talent where everyone is embracing the NFL’s greatest dynasty preparing to go Back to the Future on the back of Kevin Garnett and company while keeping a keen eye on those Bruins, all while two teams, the football Eagles and the Revolution, emerge from obscurity to the top of their respective sports.

Matt Ryan of the Boston College Eagles, one of many teams (sports.yahoo.com)