Boston College rallied from down 2-0, scoring the game’s final four goals as the No. 2-ranked Eagles defeated No. 14 Western Michigan on Saturday, 4-2 (Photo: Boston College Athletics)
It was in no way easy, but No. 2 Boston College survived its single game against No. 14 Western Michigan, registering the game’s final four goals including Ryan Leonard’s game winner with 51.5 seconds remaining to overcome a 2-0 deficit and win 4-2 at BC’s Kelley Rink.
Leonard ended the game as the hero, not just scoring the game-winning goal late but tacking on an empty-net tally with 23.4 seconds remaining.
Western Michigan grabbed an early 2-0 lead on first-period goals by Owen Michaels and Robby Drazner.
The host Eagles struggled to find the net early and only cut into the lead with 3:33 remaining in the second period, when Andre Gasseau’s shot deflected off the leg of a Western Michigan defender and into the net.
Teddy Stiga evened the game at 1:00 of the third when he cut in from the right side and tucked the puck past goaltender Hampden Slykynsky (32 saves).
The game remained tied until Leonard’s give-and-go goal with Gabe Perreault in the game’s final minute.
Jacob Fowler earned the win for Boston College with 20 saves.
No. 3 Boston University 4, No. 7 North Dakota 3
A night after getting whitewashed at North Dakota, 7-2, No. 3 Boston University rebounded with a 4-2 victory over North Dakota in Grand Forks.
The Terriers scored twice on the power play, including Tom Willander’s eventual game winner with 3:52 remaining in regulation. Jack Harvey and Devin Kaplan (shorthanded) each registered a goal and an assist for the Terriers while Cameron Berg notched the same stat line for the Fighting Hawks.
Mattieu Caron earned the victory making 29 saves for Boston University.
LIU 5, No. 17 Notre Dame 2
Long Island University earned arguably its biggest program win on Saturday, scoring three second-period goals en route to a 5-2 victory over No. 17 Notre Dame.
It was the program’s third win over a nationally-ranked opponents having previously beaten Ohio State when the Buckeyes were ranked 12th and Alaska when they were ranked 20th.
On Saturday, five different Shark players recorded goals, including Chris Pappas who scored the eventual game-winner at 11:36 of the second.
Goaltender Noah Rupprecht stopped 25 saves to earn the victory in a game that LIU outshot the Fighting Irish, 42-27.
New Hampshire 3, No. 11 Quinnipiac 2
One night after getting waxed on the road, 8-2, by No. 11 Quinnipiac, New Hampshire responded with a 3-2 road victory behind goals by Cy Leclerc, Nick Ring and J.P. Turner.
J.P. Turner with his first goal of the season! Wildcats lead 3-1!
The Wildcats never trailed in the game, taking a 2-0 lead through two on second-period goals by Leclerc and Ring.
Quinnipiac scored on the power play at 7:56 of the third when Travis Trealor scored, but UNH’s quick response, a Turner goal assisted by Leclerc, gave the Wildcats the edge they needed.
Hockey East announced today that Vermont sophomore forward Mateo Dixon has been suspended for one game stemming from an incident at 17:36 of the first period on Oct. 25 against Providence.
On the play, Dixon was assessed a five-minute major for boarding and a game misconduct.
Dixon is ineligible to play Oct. 26 against the Friars and is able to return to the Catamounts lineup on Nov. 2 at UConn.
North Dakota scored five goals in the first period Friday night and defeated BU 7-2 on home ice (photo: Russell Hons).
No. 7 North Dakota had its offense going Friday night, knocking off No. 3 Boston University 7-2 at the Ralph Engelstad Arena in Grand Forks, N.D., thanks to a five-goal first period.
Jackson Kunz scored two goals for the Fighting Hawks, while Louis Jamernik V had a goal and two assists and Jake Schmaltz, Abram Wiebe and Mac Swanson all had a goal with a helper to back TJ Semptimphelter’s 27 saves between the pipes.
Ben Strinden also scored in the win and Jayden Perron contributed two assists.
For the Terriers, Tristan Amonte and Quinn Hutson scored. Mathieu Caron started in goal and made two saves on six shots through 10:31 before Max Lacroix played the rest of the way and made 25 saves on 28 shots.
Gavin Morrissey and Quinn Finley netted goals for the Badgers and goalie Tommy Scarfone made 21 saves.
No. 4 Michigan State 3, Canisius 0
Tanner Kelly scored once and added two assists and Trey Augustine stopped all 15 shots he faced as MSU blanked Canisius 3-0 at the HarborCenter in Buffalo, N.Y.
Here's a look at Tanner Kelly's goal that started below MSU's own blue line. Apples to Vansaghi and Geary. pic.twitter.com/79LIp5wKVd
Joey Larson and Daniel Russell also scored for the Spartans.
For Canisius, goaltender Ethan Robertson made 32 saves.
No. 5 Minnesota 7, St. Thomas 1
After St. Thomas’ Liam Malmquist opened the scoring at 6:43 of the first period, Minnesota tallied the next seven, including two from Sam Rinzel, to knock off the Tommies 7-1 at 3M Arena at Mariucci in Minneapolis, Minn.
Ryan Chesley, August Falloon, Connor Kurth, Matthew Wood and Brody Lamb also scored and Nathan Airey made 20 saves between the pipes.
Cam Lund broke Boija’s shutout bid at 18:39 of the third period.
No. 9 Colorado College at Alaska Anchorage (in progress)
This game at the Chuck Homan Ice Arena was still in progress early in the third period at the time of this post. CC led 1-0 on an Owen Beckner goal at 1:37 of the second period.
Kaidan Mbereko (CC) and Greg Orosz (UAA) were the starting goaltenders.
No. 11 Quinnipiac 8, New Hampshire 2
Aaron Schwartz posted two goals to lead Quinnipiac past New Hampshire 8-2 from the M&T Bank Center in Hamden, Conn.
Tyler Borgula, Jeremy Wilmer, Alex Power, Jack Ricketts, Mason Marcellus and Victor Czerneckianair also added goals for the Bobcats and netminders Dylan Silverstein and Matej Marinov combined to make 29 saves.
Josh Zinger and Daimon Gardner also scored for the Huskies and Isak Posch made 29 saves in goal.
Owen Bohn scored two goals for the Vikings, Owen Baumgartner the other, and goalie Josh Kotai stopped 25 shots.
No. 13 Providence 3, Vermont 2
Nick Poisson’s scored at 1:29 of overtime to give Providence a 3-2 win over Vermont at the Gutterson Fieldhouse in Burlington, Vt.
The win was also Friars coach Nate Leaman’s 400th NCAA victory.
Here's a look at Nick Poisson's OT winner to give us a 3-2 win on the road at UVM. Austen May and Hudson Malinoski with the assists.#GoFriarspic.twitter.com/nQKYM5xc2s
John Mustard and Will Elger also scored and Philip Svedebäck made 21 saves in goal.
Joel Maatta and Simon Jellus, at 19:20 of the third period to force overtime, scored for Vermont and Keenan Rancier finished with 27 saves.
No. 15 UMass 3, UConn 3
UConn’s Ryan Tattle put the Huskies up 3-2 at 19:09 of the third period, only to see Aydar Suniev tie it 3-3 for UMass at 19:43, which is how the game ended after the five-minute overtime from the Mullins Center in Amherst, Mass.
The Minutemen then won the shootout for the extra Hockey East point.
Cole O’Hara and Francesco Dell’Elce also scored for UMass and Michael Hrabal made 14 saves in goal.
Kaden Shahan and Ethan Whitcomb scored for UConn and goalie Tyler Muszelik made 20 saves.
No penalties were called in the game.
No. 18 Minnesota State 4, No. 16 Omaha 3
In the battle of the Mavericks, Rhett Pitlick’s goal at 19:18 of the third period stood as the game winner and Minnesota State edged Omaha 4-3 from the Mayo Clinic Health System Event Center in Mankato, Minn.
Brett Moravec, Brian Carrabes and Josh Groll scored the game’s first three goals for the Mavericks before Zach Urdahl, Sam Stange and Tyler Rollwagen replied for Omaha.
Minnesota State goalie Alex Tracy made 26 saves, while Simon Latkoczy turned aside 26 as well for Omaha.
No. 17 Notre Dame 4, Long Island 1
Axel Kumlin, Cole Knuble, Danny Nelson and Ian Murphy scored for Notre Dame in the Irish’s 4-1 win over LIU at Compton Family Ice Arena in South Bend, Ind.
It has been nearly three years since Milwaukee School of Engineering (MSOE) announced a plan to add women’s hockey and subsequently named a head coach who was expected to launch the program. Expectations and excitement were high, but more time passed and the team seemed no closer to taking the ice.
Then, last October, MSOE announced they had hired former Wisconsin Badger Baylee (Wellhausen) Marabella to lead the program. It was a surprising and abrupt shift from what had seemed to be the previous plan.
At 28 years old, it is the first collegiate coaching role for the Williams Bay, WI native. She is taking over a program that has languished and let some of its prospective players down, some of whom were beginning to believe that the promise of a team might never come to fruition, Marabella said.
“I’ve had to earn their trust, for sure,” said Marabella.
Despite the inauspicious beginnings, she’s focused on drumming up support and excitement around the MSOE campus and community to ensure that once the team finally hits the ice, the only thing anyone is thinking about is what they can accomplish as a team.
Marabella is very aware that she’s an unconventional hire. She’s young and doesn’t have head coaching experience. But she believes that’s also part of what made her an appealing candidate. MSOE had hired a proven coach and the program had not gotten off the ground. Marabella represents a different direction and now she has a full roster that’s ready to drop the puck on their inaugural season on November 1.
Marabella brings a unique combination of background and familiarity that made her someone the school was willing to take a chance on. She was asked to apply because she was known to the university after spending hours at the rink with her now-husband David Marabella, who played four years for the Raiders, captaining the team his final two seasons.
Coaching wasn’t really on her radar when the opportunity came up and she took time to think about if it was a path she wanted to pursue. Marabella had purposefully spent the years since she graduated from UW-Madison with a Journalism degree working to figure out who she was away from the sport that had been the driving force in her life since she was in grade school, leading her to Shattuck St. Mary’s, Wisconsin, two IIHF U18 World Championships and the Professional Women’s Hockey Players Association.
She needed to find out who she was beyond hockey and that has allowed her to make her way back to the sport. She says she’s grown into herself and who she wants to be, but she’s still close enough to her playing career to give her insight on what MSOE’s players need for this first season to be a success on and off the ice.
The MSOE opening took Marabella by surprise, but the more she thought about it, the more the idea excited her. She’s had plenty of moments second-guessing herself in the year since she took on the role, but she said whenever she starts to feel like she’s unprepared to lead a team, she reminds herself of her own experiences as an elite player for more than a decade. She knows what practice needs to look like, what drills to do and how important it is to have a coach that is committed, cares and has been where these players are. She even knows how important it is to take a break and not let hockey consume your life.
“I’ve been where they are. I know the skills they need to be successful on and off the ice,” she said.
And while Marabella is well set-up to succeed on her own, it would be disingenuous not to recognize that she has a massive support network that provides a safety net of sorts when she needs it.
Marabella’s stepmom is Christina Granato, meaning women’s hockey legend and assistant general manager of the Vancouver Canucks Cammi Granato, US Hockey Hall of Famer Tony Granato and NHL coach Don Granato are her aunt and uncles. The family’s years of playing, development, college and professional coaching and management experience mean she has a vast network of sources to reach out to no matter what issues she comes up against.
Knowing the absolute compendium of knowledge that’s accessible via text or phone call means there’s not a lot about this new role that feels too scary or overwhelming.
Additionally, MSOE has undergone massive athletic department growth in the past few years, particularly on the women’s side. Having a number of other head coaches who’ve recently launched programs and who are familiar with all the big and small issues on the horizon has been invaluable, Marabella said.
The past year has been one of learning and asking questions, she said, as she comes to understand the minutiae of running a Division III team, from recruiting and compliance to team gear, meals and lodging.
Despite having played Division I hockey at one of the best programs in the country, Marabella said fundamentally, the student-athlete experience isn’t all that different. She knows that there will be plenty of bumps in the road, but Marabella is committed to ensuring her players have a positive student-athlete experience that helps them improve on the ice and develops them into strong, confident leaders off the ice.
With the stretched out timeline, there is mounting anticipation and mounting pressure for this new program to get off the ground and do so successfully. MSOE took a risk in hiring Marabella and she feels like she took a leap of faith in deciding to take on coaching. After planning, arena renovations, recruiting and practice, they’re finally going to get to see if those choices will pay off.
The MSOE women’s hockey team opens their season with a home and home series against Marian College, today at 3 pm central in Fond du Lac, WI and tomorrow at 8 pm central at the Kern Center on MSOE’s campus in Milwaukee.
Denver’s NCAA-record 10th national championship banner went to the rafters of Magness Arena last Friday (photo: Denver Athletics).
Josh Berlo knows more than most about how to celebrate a college hockey program’s national championship success, and he’s at a university that knows what that’s like better than anyone else.
The current Denver and former Minnesota Duluth athletic director has had a hand in celebrating four men’s Frozen Four titles. Denver’s ninth in program history came in 2022, a couple months before Berlo arrived in the Colorado capital, and after the Pioneers won again last season, Berlo and DU’s athletic administration quickly started thinking about how they would mark the Pioneers becoming the first NCAA Division I men’s hockey team to reach double figures.
The 10th national championship banner was raised into the Magness Arena rafters Saturday, ahead of Denver’s second 5-2 win over Northeastern in as many nights. After Pioneers captain Carter King took a pregame lap around the rink with the trophy his team won April 13 in St. Paul, Minn., he scored twice and matched his career-high four points front of a Magness record crowd of 7,051.
Berlo credited Angel Field, Denver’s senior associate AD for external operations and service, for leading coordination efforts for Saturday’s ceremony, which capped the university’s week-long homecoming festivities.
“We had gotten back from the Frozen Four, we had a celebration for our fans who couldn’t be there, and the team immediately started preparing to celebrate the 10th championship in the classiest and the most celebratory way possible,” Berlo said.
“I made some remarks about the totality of the achievement and the significance of it as something that goes back 75 years with four different coaches winning championships here across generations of athletes, and we had a really energetic recap of the last game, and a lot of people’s Apple watches were vibrating with alerts based on the noise level of Magness Arena. It was a cool and special moment, and I appreciate the contributions of all our staff that put that together.”
And of course, Saturday’s celebrations weren’t only special to those working at, or playing for, the university.
“It’s critical to have the fans be a part of it, and many of our attendees have been generational season-ticket holders, and there’s also the student body with their classmates on the hockey team,” Berlo said. “This was about engaging the people that are part of our community that get behind the program and power it to do something special.
“Our objective was to make this a very inclusive event for all who have contributed to this success, and celebrate their role in it, whether it’s somebody who likes wearing a Denver hoodie, or if it’s the staff or the student-athletes themselves and the leadership of their program.”
DU officials had taken notes from recent celebrations six miles down the road for the NHL’s Colorado Avalanche and the NBA’s Denver Nuggets. Between that and what Berlo saw following Minnesota Duluth’s titles in 2018 and 2019, there wasn’t much mystery as to how Saturday’s ceremony would go.
“There’s certainly a playbook that we use on how to celebrate these things,” Berlo said. “Doing it pregame, having a video introduction, those elements are key in making sure you engage as much of the student body as possible, and you don’t want to dedicate a milestone when perhaps the students are on a holiday break or something of that nature, and we look at what other folks do.
“We raised the banner out of a box and had a smoke machine and prominently had the banner on one of the end lines and then moved it to the side where it hangs with the other nine. We played to the pageantry of the moment, and we’re certainly always looking to make it more exciting, but I think we nailed this one from the feedback I got.”
Scaled-down versions of the 2024 national championship banner were also handed out to fans in attendance Saturday. Berlo doesn’t have one of those, but he’s fine with that.
“I get to walk out of my office every day and see the real one,” he said. “That’s good enough.”
Josh Kotai earned both wins in goal at Omaha last weekend for Augustana (photo: Dave Eggen/Inertia).
It’s hard to get too excited about exhibition results, but when Augustana knocked off North Dakota in one earlier this month it certainly got the college hockey world talking.
“Wait, AUGUSTANA? The second-year team? Beat NORTH DAKOTA? In HOCKEY?”
The Vikings’ 4-1 win over the Fighting Hawks ultimately doesn’t count for either team’s record or on any players’ scoring sheets. But for Augustana it at least gave their fans–and the rest of the college hockey world–a sign of things to come.
Augustana officially opened their regular season with a home split against independent Long Island before traveling down Interstate 29 to take on Omaha. The Mavericks, who came into the series ranked No. 12 in the country, were coming off an Ice Breaker tournament win that featured a victory over Minnesota in the title game. On paper, perhaps the Mavericks looked like the stronger team, but perception is not reality: Augustana swept UNO 2-1 and 4-0.
The Vikings are now 3-1 overall as they head into another road weekend against a ranked NCHC team in St. Cloud State. All of a sudden, those exhibition results look more like the work of a team playing a regular season game in midseason form.
“I’m happy with the start, especially how our guys have played and stuck together, we’ve had great energy,” Augustana coach Garret Raboin said. “We are fairly young, which has helped, because there’s a youthful energy, there’s an excitement, appreciation for the opportunity, and that’s led us to be competitive in every game.”
The Vikings went 12-18-4 in their inaugural season – not bad considering how the roster was a combination of transfers and freshmen with no shared history of playing together. But there was a learning curve. The Vikings’ brand-new on-campus Midco Arena didn’t open until midway through the season, so the team was practicing at a rink across town and getting dressed in a trailer until mid-January.
Raboin said having access to the Midco Arena basically at all times has been a game-changer for the program, but there’s more to it than just the physical aspect of having their own rink.
“There’s also the comfortability of knowing where your classes are, knowing where your dorm or apartment is, knowing your professors. You just know what your day to day looks like a lot better,” Raboin said. “A year ago, we had a bunch of guys that arrived in the fall. We didn’t have a rink, [and] we didn’t have a weight room in a facility. We didn’t have a lot of things that we do now. And you feel like that is one step in just settling things down and helping our guys to focus on our academics and athletics.”
It’s also helped the Vikings’ on-ice chemistry, too. Offensively, they’ve already scored 12 goals through the first four games – a small sample size, to be sure, but still good enough to lead the CCHA as the conference’s teams make it through their first month of the season.
Luke Mobley, Augustana’s leading goal scorer last season with 12, leads the team currently with a goal in each of the Vikings’ four games. He’s not the only notable scoring threat, however. Sophomore Owen Bohn has scored twice, Alaska transfer Payton Matsui has a goal and three assists, as does sophomore Brett Meerman, and the Hennan brothers – sophomore Hayden and freshman Tyler – have each added two assists.
“A year ago, we had a big group of guys that scored a little bit,” Raboin said. “But with increased opportunity, with a year to train, knowing what they’re in for, as you come into year two, we need some guys to score more than just a little bit. If we’re going to take that step as the program, we have to have some guys that increase offense. Maybe some of that comes with the chemistry of it all and knowing how we want to play as a program, too. It takes time to all get on the same page, and it doesn’t happen overnight, but we’re speaking more of the same language, for sure, than we were a year ago.”
Raboin also seems to have found his go-to goaltender in sophomore Josh Kotai. As a freshman last year, Kotai split his playing time with Bowling Green transfer Zack Rose and fellow freshman Kayden Hargraves. With Rose graduated, Kotai has played every competitive minute for the Vikings this season, and he’s been excellent. Through four games, he has allowed just four goals for a save percentage of .969, a goals-against average of 1.01 and two shutouts.
“He’s certainly done a great job to start. Part of our build is we had to give three different goalies an opportunity to play [last season], which is pretty rare in college,” Raboin said. “Year two, Josh has been the guy that we decided to go with. He’s earned the right to start all four games through his preparation and body of work, but we like our goalie room. They’re young, they’re energetic, they’re trying to get better each and every day, and it’s been Josh’s turn in the early going, and hopefully he continues to take advantage of it.”
The Vikings now have an even tougher test than their series against Omaha when they travel to Minnesota this weekend for a series in St. Cloud. It will be a homecoming for Raboin, who played for the Huskies and was behind the bench at the Herb Brooks National Hockey Center for six seasons. Raboin was one of Huskies’ head coach Brett Larson’s assistants at the 2023 World Junior Championship and played under assistant coach Eric Rud at St. Cloud.
In other words, St. Cloud is a special place for Raboin, but he’s looking at this series as a challenge, both personally and for his team.
“I’m not here without all that came with my opportunity at St. Cloud,” he said. “I couldn’t have more respect for that staff, and they’re certainly fortunate to have them. It’s just our next challenge. We had a good weekend at Omaha. Now, as a young program, you’re trying to find that even keel. That’s what the best teams are: an even keel, week in, week out, a standard of how they prepare, how they play on the weekend. We’re in a race to try to obtain some of that. And why not? St Cloud State’s not very far. They’ve had just an outstanding track record of success, and we’ll learn a lot more about our group through the weekend.”
Matt DuBrey and his supportive family are facing leukemia together after his recent diagnosis (photo: GoFundMe).
For 20-plus years, Matt Dubrey’s voice provided the backdrop to Union College’s rise as a college hockey program.
The mainstay of the Dutchmen and their Garnet Charger successors, he lived the team’s growth away from ECAC Hockey’s perennial bottom rung, and he’d been with the team as it pinballed through its Cinderella story over the past decade. He was there when Union won the national championship in 2014, and to this day, he remains the person most connected to parents, siblings, grandparents and extended family members watching Union hockey among fellow fans and friends.
In short, he best exemplified Union hockey, but after starting this season in his customary spot overlooking Messa Rink, his conspicuous absence from the men’s season opener against Army West Point led to the harrowing and awful discovery that he’d been hospitalized with acute lymphocytic leukemia. In an instant, the season that ordinarily would have been defined by wins and losses twisted on a dime, and the purpose of all of us in college hockey, particularly those who watch ECAC and work with the Union program, shifted to a greater, more real-life situation.
“I think we want to be a program that’s a family and takes care of each other,” said Union coach Josh Hauge. “It’s something that we always preach, but it made me realize that we take for granted some of the things that people do for us. He’s been here every single day, telling our story, and we don’t get to say thank you. To me, this is more of wanting to see him and spending a little bit of time with him to make sure that he knows how important he is to us. Someone’s going to keep his seat warm, but as soon as he’s ready, he’s right back in it because he is a big part of our family.”
Dubrey’s absence feels significantly harder for anyone connected to ECAC simply because the league doesn’t exist in its form without the personalities attached to its programs. A loving father and husband, he began commentating for Union in the immediacy before Nate Leaman’s arrival in Schenectady. As the team took flight in the mid-2000s, his voice cast the soundtrack to the team’s first-ever runs to postseason glory. As Rick Bennett led the team to the national championship and the years beyond its first banner, he rarely, if ever, missed games.
“When you look at Matt, he’s the voice of our program,” said Hauge. “A lot of the time, he’s giving the message to families, to recruits and to the community about our team, and he’s done a tremendous job. He’s been here for 22 seasons and has been a loyal supporter, that when you think about the stories that he has, it’s amazing for me, as a newer coach, just to hear about the program from him.”
“We started calling Union games together near the end of 2004, early 2005,” said broadcast partner Brian Unger. “He had been there a couple of years before me, and our relationship was multifaceted because we took the journey with watching Union hockey turn from a program that was clearly not a powerhouse by any stretch of the imagination, flourish and unbelievably reach the mountaintop with a national championship. But the other part of the relationship was just getting to know Matt and becoming fantastic friends with him.
“Being associated with a really great guy, he’s the kind of person who stops everything and is there by your side when the chips are down. As great as it is to work with him, even as the program went down the other side of the hill with some rough patches, by far the best part of anything I’ve done with Union hockey is getting to know Matt and calling him one of my best friends.”
Acute lymphoblastic leukemia is defined by the National Cancer Institute as a type of cancer in which the bone marrow makes too many lymphocytes, a type of white blood cells. Signs and symptoms of it include fatigue and fever while presenting like the flu or other common diseases. It requires a blood and bone marrow test to receive a diagnosis and is mainly treated through long-term chemotherapy, per the American Cancer Society. Prognoses vary by age group, but five-year survival rates typically decline in their percentages as patient blocks get older.
A GoFundMe page established for Matt and his family explained that he began treatment immediately and will remain in the hospital for four weeks while battling the disease. Doubly worse, as a small business owner in the Capital District, it likewise meant that he wouldn’t be able to work through the busiest time of year between October and December – all while remaining off-air with Union.
“When you’re on the road, you’re together on the bus and sharing a hotel room,” said Unger. “You’re eating meals together and figuring out how to prepare for a broadcast, and that relationship so quickly translates into every other part of your life. You find out that you don’t like doing many things without your broadcast partner…that’s how close you become, and that’s what I think about him, his wife and his kids.”
“The amount of people that have reached out to him has been tremendous,” added Hauge. “It’s great to hear him talk about how excited he was that former coaches reached out, that former players stepped up and took some time out of their day to let him know how important he is and how important his family is to Union. I think you could sense how it would uplift him, so it means a lot to me that people have reached out to help him.”
Union recognized Dubrey’s impact ahead of its Homecoming and Family Weekend games against Mercyhurst this past weekend, but the season itself is taking on a larger meaning for a team expected to compete for one of ECAC’s more elite tiers because one of its most important parts isn’t at Messa Rink’s final season. Albeit temporarily, the celebration doesn’t feel right without his presence, and there isn’t a person within the conference – or college hockey – who won’t shed a tear when he’s able to return to his fabled booth.
“We talk about family here,” Hauge said. “And it’s trying to do better for people around us. He’s a big part of our family, and we’re going to compete hard for him every single night. He’s going to be fighting hard, so we want to do our part to fight with him.”
USC’s Chris Chow and Zack Quezada battle for a faceoff against Cal in a recent game (photo Anthony Ciardelli).
By Anthony Ciardelli/Special to USCHO.com
A college hockey team is celebrating its 100th birthday.
It’s held long and heated rivalries, won league titles, competed in national tournaments and played international opponents. You might think this is a storied NCAA Division I hockey program, but it’s not.
It’s the University of Southern California’s ACHA hockey team. Now, with 100 years under its belt, some feel the time is right to start an NCAA Division I program at USC.
100 Years
The Trojans established their club hockey team in 1924, and according to the USC yearbook, El Rodeo, mostly “novice players” rounded out the first roster. But, once the word got out that there was a hockey team at USC, “a number of former hockey players from the East and Canada turned out.” The first coach was professional hockey player Leo Cook who had played in WCHL, a major-league rival to the fledgling NHL.
The team took off in early 1929 when USC athletic director Gwynn Wilson elevated it to intercollegiate status and named Arnold Eddy the coach. It became quite the success, gaining the upper hand in newly established rivalries against Loyola Marymount University, UCLA and Cal.
Starting in 1931, the Trojans rattled off two undefeated seasons.
In 1938 and 1939 the team reached its height, sweeping two games against Big Ten champion Minnesota in California, and then again in Minnesota the next season.
1940-41 was intercollegiate hockey’s final season at USC, the war years saw the Trojans fail to field a team, but the club eventually returned during peacetime.
Its next golden era came in 1994. Mark Wilbur, a former player, took over as coach and the team had a renaissance. Wilbur – who was born in California but grew up in Minnesota, working the benches for famed Minnesota coaches Herb Brooks and Doug Woog – says he used his hockey experience and connections in the business world to negotiate sponsorships and develop alumni relationships to fund the club team on a varsity level.
We used to joke we were “Division 1/2.” Wilbur said. “We had corporate sponsors. We were on radio. We were streaming. We were like ‘Wow, the only thing these guys don’t have is hockey scholarships.’”
That included traveling internationally. According to Wilbur, USC became the first U.S. college hockey team to play in China when the Trojans played the Chinese national team in Beijing in 2002. They traveled to Iceland, Italy, France, Japan, Thailand and China again throughout the 2000s.
Under Wilbur, USC found success in league play as well. It maintained a .735-win percentage, strung together two undefeated seasons, and captured eight Pac-8 titles while qualifying for ACHA Division II nationals seven times.
Wilbur retired as USC’s coach in 2017. Now the Trojans are coached by Jerry Toy, who has had to guide USC back to its competitive legacy after the world shut down in 2020.
“The club was doing well and then COVID hit and we got shut down that next season,” Toy said. “We had one returner, so we started a new class of freshman who are now seniors. We’ve been building up and we’re in a good spot.”
USC goalie David McQuillen Young faces down a Cal scoring opportunity (photo: Anthony Ciardelli).
Universities from non-traditional hockey regions are starting programs. Arizona State’s hockey team is now nearly a decade old. Tennessee State University, a historically black university, is slated to begin its NCAA Division I play next season.
Still, the USC athletic department hasn’t indicated that it is, or has ever investigated starting an NCAA hockey program.
In an email, USC senior associate athletic director Cody Worsham wrote, “Our focus at this time is on our current student athletes and programs.”
Though it isn’t an outright confirmation that USC isn’t looking to start a program, it isn’t encouraging for fans hoping to someday see the Trojans take on a powerhouse like Michigan or rekindle their long-lost rivalry with Minnesota at the NCAA level.
However, now that USC varsity teams are members of the Big Ten conference, the school’s path to NCAA hockey is getting easier. Sean Hogan, executive director of College Hockey Inc, says USC should benefit from its new conference.
“Hockey is unique in the sense that we only have one multi-sport conference, the Big Ten, which USC and UCLA are now a part of,” Hogan said. “Not having many multi-sport conferences, schools that are looking to add hockey, need a home and a schedule.”
In other words, if USC wanted to start an NCAA hockey team, they don’t need to find a conference. Its schedule would already primarily be composed of Big Ten opponents.
Although things have changed in the days of NIL, USC still has an advantage that already exists for many of its other sports: recruiting.
Wilbur says that playing on an NCAA hockey program in Southern California would be a prime destination for recruits coming from the cold-weather areas where hockey thrives.
“USC would instantly be competitive in ice hockey,” he said. “It would not be a long time because kids from Finland, Sweden, Canada, the Northeast, the upper Midwest, you name it, they’d love to be in Los Angeles where it is 75 degrees in January.”
That’s before you include the increasing number of California-raised NCAA Division I hockey players who might like to stay closer to home to play their college hockey.
Varsity Costs
USC would face the same obstacle other colleges face when starting an NCAA hockey program: cost.
Hogan pointed to the first major expense.
“A facility would be No. 1 for most at the NCAA Division I level,” Hogan said. “For Division I hockey, unless you are near either a multi-use either 5,000 or 6,000-seat arena that is capable of holding ice, an ice arena on campus is usually the biggest hurdle.”
Though there are facilities that meet this description in Los Angeles, the word “near” is relative. Crypto.com arena is too big and too busy. Arenas in Long Beach and Irvine would fit the bill, but they can take more than an hour to get to from USC’s campus in LA traffic.
When USC designed the Galen Center – which hosts its basketball and volleyball teams – in the early 2000s, Wilbur, who says he participated in the planning committee, urged the school to include ice making capability.
“It was just one of those things they took out of the equation,” Wilbur said. “When they were finished with Galen, it actually ended up being too small to effectively put a hockey rink there anyway.”
There’s another cost variable involved. Schools must take Title IX into account when making the decision to add new sports.
Title IX requires equal opportunities for men and women at universities and plays a huge roll in the calculus of starting new sports programs.
Hogan says starting a women’s hockey program to mirror the men’s is not required, but leveling out the added benefit is.
“If someone wants to add Division I men’s hockey, they won’t always be adding Division I women’s hockey along with it,” Hogan said. “It will be maybe raising opportunities in another sport, but there is a little bit of a factor there.”
USC’s Rocky Ji wearing the team’s home jersey with its 100th anniversary patch (photo: Anthony Ciardelli).
First Strides to NCAA Hockey
Ryan Sefidfard, who played for the team until 2009, hopes to parlay ACHA success into an NCAA program. He’s the chair of the USC Hockey Association and is attempting to follow a path that proved successful for another recently minted NCAA program.
“I really feel like there is an opportunity to do something unique here. Looking at Arizona State and what an amazing job they’ve done, they didn’t grow into that overnight,” Sefidfard said. “I look at that and think, ‘why not us?’”
That means restoring the resources that once buoyed the team back up to where they were.
“I’ve been reaching out to notable alumni of USC,” Sefidfard said. “I’ve been reaching out to some of the local NHL teams, to other successful ventures and business folks that have acquired professional teams in different sports, particularly those in the Los Angeles market. I want to share what our vision is for making USC successful at the ACHA level and hopefully get the support to help us do well in our current division and then to help us do well at the ACHA Division I level. I want to capitalize on that momentum to get significant support and, who knows, maybe do something like USC lacrosse did in building a stadium near campus.”
According to Wilbur, who prepared two detailed proposals for the athletic department in the past, the financial interest is already there.
“If USC wanted to put a Division I team in place, we could literally line up sponsors and donors to cover 30-40% of what’s needed on day one,” Wilbur said. “There’s plenty of people in Southern California that I’ve met over 19 years of coaching that are well funded and very much into USC and ice hockey.”
Toy thinks it’s also a matter of who runs the administration.
“I don’t know where [USC president] Carol Folt stands on this,” Toy said. “But now that we’re in the Big Ten, hopefully there is a change in thinking.”
Hogan also sees west coast NCAA hockey in college hockey’s future.
“I do believe with continued prying and pushing that we will see Division I hockey in the West Coast.”
Maine senior Harrison Scott played a key role in the Black Bears’ sweep over Quinnipiac last weekend (photo: Anthony DelMonaco).
The biggest challenge facing Maine as it kicks off Hockey East play this weekend might be leaving the confines of the Harold Alfond Sports Arena, where it’s been virtually unstoppable since the start of last season (16-2-2), and heading into a two-game series at Northeastern’s Matthews Arena, where they’ve been anything but in recent years.
In fact, one would have to go way back to find the last time the Black Bears were victorious at Matthews — a 7-1 win on Feb. 25, 2012. Maine has gone 0-14-2 at the 114-year-old Back Bay arena since then.
“The two or three times we’ve been there, we haven’t been good enough,” said fourth-year Maine coach Ben Barr. “Whether it’s been penalty kill, power play, goaltending, it’s something. And that’s the game of hockey. (The) execution piece is going to be important.”
Of course, the Black Bears of today are a much different program than the one of the last dozen years. Maine (3-0-0) is coming off its first NCAA tournament appearance since that 2012 season, are ranked No. 6 in the latest edition of the USCHO.com Division I men’s poll and are riding high after a home sweep last weekend of then-No. 7 Quinnipiac.
After opening the weekend with a 2-1 win over Quinnipiac Friday, Maine seemed well on its way to a sweep when it took a 4-1 lead less than a minute into the second period on Saturday. Quinnipiac responded with four straight goals to take a 5-4 lead before Maine’s Brandon Holt tied it 5-5 with 28 seconds remaining and goalie Albin Boija pulled for an extra skater.
David Breazeale picked a great time for his first goal of the season, scoring with 36 seconds remaining in overtime to give Maine the win and send the Alfond crowd into a tizzy.
“It’s on to the next game,” said Breazeale. “Obviously, you want to enjoy the two wins, because they were big wins at home. That’s kind of what Sunday’s for, to soak it all in and recover, then when you come to the rink on Monday, we’re thinking about Northeastern.”
The senior defenseman from Grandville, Mich., was just 11 the last time the Black Bears won at Matthews. Though aware of his team’s history at Matthews — which is slated to be demolished at the end of the season to make way for a new rink — Breazeale said he and his teammates plan to treat the weekend series like any other.
“They’ve had our number there for a number of years,” Breazeale said. “For us, it’s just about going down there playing simple, playing our brand of hockey, keeping the game in front of us. They’re fast and skilled and can score in bunches. So we have to be really good defensively and be gritty around the net.”
Senior forward Harrison Scott registered a career-high four assists in the overtime win vs. Quinnipiac. He said the Black Bears are excited to start Hockey East play.
“We know Northeastern’s a good team,” Scott said. “They’re skilled just like Quinnipiac was, but we’re going to worry about our game. We know what we need to do and what our formula is.”
Barr said through three games and one exhibition, all at home, he likes what he sees from his team but is looking for constant improvement as the season enters its conference-play phase.
“If we can get everybody playing their best, I think we’re going to be a tough team,” Barr said. “Three games, so far so good. Up here, we do have an advantage at our rink. Going on the road, it’ll be a different task for us.”
Barr said the Black Bears will have to play mistake-free hockey, or something close to it, to break their 16-game winless streak at Northeastern.
“They’re a team that can frustrate you,” Barr said. “You can play well and not get rewarded and that one mistake, because of their skill level and offensive ability, (the puck) can end up in the back of your net.”
The six teams of the PWHL recently announced their rosters for an upcoming preseason camp set to start November 12. In total, 175 women received invites.
Of the 175 invitees, all but 10 played collegiately in North America. There are 11 invitees who played collegiately with USports programs in Canada and 154 women that played collegiately in the NCAA.
In all, invitees represent seven USports universities and 33 different NCAA institutions. There are 22 players who played for more than one program and in the interest of ease and clarity, those players are counted as alumnae of both institutions.
The WCHA leads the conferences with 72 alumnae and Wisconsin leads the schools with 18 former player invited to camp.
Robert Morris started the 2024-25 season with two wins over Miami (photo: Justin Berl/RMU Athletics).
Last season was version 2.0 of the Robert Morris men’s and women’s hockey teams.
Both had to start from almost scratch after the programs were canceled in 2021 but revived for the 2023-24 season.
Most of RMU’s players transferred out after the program was shuttered, requiring coach Derek Schooley, in his 20th season at RMU, to rebuild his team with young talent and through the transfer portal.
There were growing pains, but steady improvement culminating in an upset win over host Bentley in the first round of the Atlantic Hockey tournament.
By the end of last season, the all-freshman line of Tanner Klimpke, Cameron Garvey, and Walter Zacher had emerged as the Colonials’ top threat.
So while there was optimism going into this season, there was also the reality that RMU is still a very young team without a starting goalie, as Chad Veltri graduated after playing 32 games for the Colonials last season.
But so far, so good. After playing three exhibition games in three days to start the season, RMU officially opened its 2023-24 campaign with a home-and-home sweep of Miami, winning 5-1 and 4-1.
In both games, the Colonials scored the first two goals and never looked back.
“For the first couple of minutes we were on our heels a little bit,” said Schooley of Thursday’s win. “When you have 16 freshmen and sophomores in the lineup, that’s to be expected.
“But I really liked our poise. Every game is a different challenge for a young team. For the most part, I thought we rose to the challenge.”
Out of the gate, the now-sophomore line of Klimpke, Garvey, and Walter Zacher combined for four goals and 11 points (Zacher has a team-leading four goals) while Trent Wilson, a freshman, had a pair of goals in Thursday’s 5-1 win.
Another rookie, goaltender Croix Kochendorfer, started both games and stopped 48 of 50 shots for a pair of wins.
Schooley says he has three capable goalies: Kochendorfer, Dylan Meilun, a junior transfer from Stonehill, and Dawson Smith, a redshirt freshman transfer from Western Michigan.
“We used them all in the exhibitions,” he said. “Dylan tweaked his groin a bit, so we went with Croix, and he played very well.
“We have three capable goalies, but unfortunately there’s only one net.”
Schooley says he and his staff have made some adjustments from last season.
“Last year, we gave up too many shots and wore down our goaltending,” he said. “This season, we’re stressing pushing opponents to the outside and limiting their chances.”
To prepare his team, Schooley scheduled three exhibitions in three days against Bowling Green, Simon Fraser and the U.S. NTDP.
“I’m not sure I would do three in a row again,” said Schooley. “But it worked out. We used everybody, which gave every freshman a chance to get some game action.”
The wins over Miami were a rare sweep by an Atlantic Hockey America program over an NCHC school. Niagara opened its 2022-23 season with a sweep of Omaha, and Canisius shocked North Dakota with a pair of home wins over the Fighting Hawks in 2018-19.
AHA teams were 5-5-2 out of conference last week, an improvement over a 3-20-2 start to the season.
Robert Morris opens conference play this weekend with a home-and-home series with Niagara. The teams will meet again in February using the same format.
“I like the home-and-home,” said Schooley. “It breaks up the home games. I think fans can get more engaged if it’s just one game on the weekend.”
College Hockey Inc. Director of Women’s Hockey Sadie Lundquist joins USCHO.com’s Nicole Haase and Todd Milewski to talk about the 2024 Ice Breaker Tournament in Columbus, Ohio, on Friday and Saturday. Ohio State, Stonehill, Penn State and Cornell are the four teams in the fourth edition of the event.
Nicole and Todd also look back at No. 1 Wisconsin’s road sweep of No. 3 Minnesota, an important shootout victory for St. Cloud State and a surprising start for Cornell.
The PodKaz is a production of USCHO.com. Have a question for our mailbag? Reach out to Nicole (@NicoleHaase) or Todd (@ToddMilewski) on social media or email [email protected].
Penn State is 2-1-0 this season heading into the Nittany Lions’ home-opening series this weekend against St. Lawrence (photo: Penn State Athletics).
Two years ago, the Nittany Lions were an overtime goal away from a trip to the Frozen Four.
After beating Colgate 8-0 in the first game of the 2023 Midwest Regional semifinal, Penn State fell to Michigan 52 seconds into overtime of the regional title game.
Last season, Penn State finished sixth in the Big Ten with seven conference wins and 15 overall. In this year’s B1G preseason coaches poll, the Nittany Lions were picked to finish sixth.
Guy Gadowsky has no problem with that assessment.
“Because of where we finished last year, I think it’s fair,” said Gadowsky, now in his 13th season at Penn State. “I’m not sure we have anything to prove to anybody else, but we certainly do to ourselves. There are aspects of our game last year that we think justify why we finished sixth. We need to do a much better job of keeping the pucks out of our net.”
The Nittany Lions began this season with a pair of wins in Alaska, where Gadowsky began his collegiate coaching career in 1999, and lost 3-2 on the road to Quinnipiac Oct. 12.
“What we found out in Alaska is that the guys travel really well,” said Gadowsky. “The staff did a good job in preparing the guys for what they’re going to face with travel and how they’ll have to acclimate … especially coming back and then traveling to Quinnipiac.
“I don’t like our start at all in Quinnipiac.”
Against the Bobcats, the Nittany Lions allowed three five-on-five goals through the first two periods, during which they were uncharacteristically outshot 18-12, limited to just three shots on goal in their opening stanza.
In the first minute of the third period, Ben Schoen – who sat out the 2023-24 season because of injury – scored his first goal of the season to make it a 3-1 game. Danny Dzhaniyev scored his second of the year five minutes later to bring the Nittany Lions within a goal. Aiden Fink, a second-team Big Ten preseason honoree, had the first assist on each of those goals. In that third period, Penn State held Quinnipiac to just four shots on net.
“We’re not going to find our total identity in two weekends,” said Gadowsky. “I think we made a couple steps in the right direction, or at least we found that we could have some confidence from the games we played. Obviously, there’s other areas we have to work on. We’re not going to be a finished product any time soon.”
That identity – the gritty, shoot-from-anywhere, up-and-down-the-ice style that has been a hallmark of the Penn State team since its inception – may be something that the Nittany Lions have struggled with in recent years, but there is always a sense that Penn State is never out of the mix.
In spite of having finished sixth in the Big Ten conference standings in 2022-23, Penn State had 22 overall wins and finished eighth in the Pairwise to advance to the 2023 Midwest Regional, and the Nittany Lions’ run ended that year when three future NHL players — Mackie Samoskevich, Dylan Duke and Seamus Casey – combined for Michigan’s game-winning goal.
Last year’s sixth-place B1G finish didn’t lead to an NCAA berth, but the Nittany Lions did have win or ties against everyone ahead of them in the Big Ten standings except for Wisconsin. While Gadowsky sees the need for improvement from last year in several aspects of Penn State’s game, he also recognizes that the Nittany Lions are playing in arguably the toughest conference in Division I hockey.
“Last year, I think every single team finished in the top half of the PairWise,” said Gawdowsky. “It’s like that every year. They’re all excellent teams. They are. Those that can predict try to figure out which one of those excellent teams are going to be the very best. That’s a different story, but one thing I can guarantee is that they’re all going to be very, very good.”
Four Big Ten teams earned spots in the 2024 NCAA tournament, and the three that didn’t – Notre Dame (22), Penn State (23), Ohio State (26) – finished in the top half of the PairWise, just as Gadowsky said. That can, of course, be attributed to the conference’s small size of just seven teams, but Gadowsky’s point is a valid one. From top to bottom, B1G Hockey is a league that has competed at a high level for several seasons.
“If you look at the interconference records in the Big Ten,” said Gadowsky, “haven’t we had the highest winning percentage for two seasons in a row that’s ever been recorded? I think the Big Ten is in great shape, absolutely great shape. That’s a tough stat to argue with.”
The 2017-18 season is the first that the Big Ten registered the top nonconference win percentage (.694) among all D-I leagues, and the Big Ten has led all conferences the past three seasons, with win percentages over .700 in 2022-23 (.715) and 2023-24 (.731).
That nonconference success hasn’t translated into a national championship for the Big Ten yet but not for lack of trying. Since the league’s first year of play in 2013-14, four teams – Michigan, Minnesota, Notre Dame, Ohio State – have combined for nine Frozen Four appearances. Notre Dame, it should be noted, joined the league in 2017-18.
The seven-team league has 28 total NCAA tournament appearances, including Penn State’s in 2023, after having finished sixth in the conference.
“I welcome anybody else to take on our last-place team,” said Gadowsky.
This weekend, the Nittany Lions host St. Lawrence for two games. The Saints enter the weekend with a 4-2-0 record, having most recently blanked Ferris State 8-0. Gadowsky anticipates challenging games for the Nittany Lions’ first home stand of the season, and while Penn State is still coming together as a team, Gadowsky is encouraged early on.
“We’re definitely getting back to more of the roots you’ve seen in the past” said Gadowsky. “We’re definitely a grittier, tougher team and I like that. It fits Penn State very well.”
Alex Mandolidis has been named an assistant coach for the Marian men’s hockey team.
“I’m grateful to have worked with so many talented players and coaches over the last 15-plus years and help players advance to the next level ranging from the CJHL to the NHL,” said Mandolidis in a statement. “My wife and I look forward to being a part of the Marian family and community here in Fond du Lac.”
Mandolidis most recently served as the head coach and general manager for the MJHL’s Winnipeg Blues. During his time in Manitoba, he also served as a head coach for Team Manitoba U16 and helped them to a gold medal at the 2023 WHL Cup. Mandolidis was also an assistant coach for Team Canada West at the 2023 World Junior A Challenge with that team also earning a gold medal.
Prior to his time in Manitoba, Mandolidis served as an assistant coach for the men’s hockey team at Mount Royal University and the AJHL’s Calgary Mustangs. He also served as a head coach for the U18 AAA Calgary Northstars and Calgary Flames.
He has completed several coaching certification programs, including the Hockey Canada/National Coach Certification Program High-Performance II, USA Hockey Level 4, Hockey Alberta High-Performance I, and Hockey Canada’s U17 Program of Excellence Seminar.
Mandolidis has served as a head coach for several Alberta Cup teams and was a video and assistant coach for Team Alberta U16. At the 2019 Canada Winter Games, he helped lead Team Alberta to a bronze medal. He also served on the Mac’s U18 Hockey Tournament board.
Rylee Orr has been named head coach of the Lawrence men’s hockey team.
Orr is the 10th head coach in Lawrence history and comes to Lawrence from Marian, where he had been an assistant coach the past two seasons.
“We are thrilled to welcome Rylee Orr as our new men’s ice hockey coach,” Lawrence director of athletics Jason Imperati said in a statement. “His strong vision for the program aligns perfectly with our athletic department and university values. With his familiarity with the league and his commitment to hard work, we are confident he will drive positive outcomes for our student-athletes both on and off the ice. Together, we look forward to an exciting future ahead.”
“I am excited and honored,” Orr added. “My wife Heidi and I love the city of Appleton and are pumped to make the move and be part of the community.”
Orr replaces Brett Wall, who spent two seasons with the Vikings before stepping down this past spring to coach the NAHL’s Janesville Jets.
A native of Maple Creek, Sask., Orr brings head coaching experience to the Lawrence program. For five seasons, he served as the head coach of the ACHA team at Oregon. Under Orr’s guidance, the Ducks won three Pac 8 Conference championships and posted an overall record of 77-21-5.
“I am very excited for the opportunity to take over the Lawrence hockey program,” said Orr, who was named Pac 8 coach of the year at Oregon. “I have heard nothing but great things about the guys, and I can’t wait to start getting to work with them. I would like to thank Jason, as well as the rest of the athletic department, for putting their trust in me and giving me this opportunity.”
In two seasons at Marian, Orr put together some of the best special teams in the NCHA. Both the power play and penalty kill excelled under Orr’s guidance, and both units ranked in the top three in the league during the past season. The Sabres reached the NCHA Harris Cup playoffs in each of Orr’s two seasons.
“We’ve got a team that made some noise down the stretch last year, and I am excited to see if we can build off that,” Orr said. “This conference is very unforgiving, but I think we have a good group to work with and my goal is to continue building it in the right direction.”
A 2017 graduate of Utah State with a bachelor’s degree in human movement science, Orr was a standout player for the Aggies ACHA team. Orr led the team in points in two of his four seasons and helped them qualify for the ACHA national tournament three times. Orr led his team to the conference championship as a senior and earned the team’s MVP award.
Following his graduation from Utah State, Orr also played professionally for EHC Neuwied in Germany.
Connor Kurth has posted four goals and eight points through four games this season for the Gophers (photo: Kelly Hagenson).
Each week during the season, we look at the big events and big games around Division I men’s college hockey in Tuesday Morning Quarterback.
Ed: Jim, last week on our USCHO Spotlight podcast, Rensselaer coach Dave Smith answered our question about how he was dealing with the transfer portal. He summed it up by saying that they are building a team through “draft picks and free agency.”
On first blush, it’s a pretty apt analogy.
However, when you think about it a bit more, there are some parts of the comparison that fall apart.
The first one that came to mind to me was the salary cap. In the NHL, teams are currently limited to $88 million with a floor of $65 million. While college hockey has a limit of 18 scholarships, there may soon be a lot more disparity between teams. If the House v. NCAA agreement results in allowing 26 scholarships for teams that opt in, that also comes with revenue sharing with athletes. Couple that with name, image and likeness money, that could mean a huge gap between well-funded teams with big NIL programs and smaller schools with 18 full rides and maybe some NIL money from t-shirt sales.
Are we headed into an era of “haves and have nots?”
Jim: I will admit that you get that feeling about there being two tiers in college hockey. There will be teams that want to invest heavily in college hockey – both men’s and women’s – and thus you may find a distinct division in the level of talent that is recruited.
But then I look at recent years and wonder why we won’t still have some breakthrough teams. In the last two decades, we have had teams like Yale, Union, Providence, Minnesota Duluth and Quinnipiac win national championships. Denver won last season, and though they have the most national championships with 10, no one confuses the size of Denver and its athletic department for Michigan or Minnesota.
Will there be a need to invest more in college hockey in order to be successful? Probably. But does that exclude smaller schools from finding a way to fundraise to make sure that their team remains competitive? No.
My biggest concern is if smaller programs out there don’t see a road to building a competitive program and they might decide to drop hockey. That would make the recent expansion with the additions of schools like Stonehill, LIU, Augustana and St. Thomas seem less significant if the overall number of programs drops back below the 60-team plateau. To me, that is the biggest issue.
Ed: That 60-team plateau has ebbed and flowed a bit over the last 20 years, even as there is talent enough for 80 D-I men’s teams. I agree that teams throwing in the towel could be an issue.
You mentioned Union’s championship, which was a great achievement by a team that didn’t have scholarships at the time. But would that program have had the success it did under today’s climate? I think it’s more than likely that several stars of that team could have been lured away to more prominent and resource-rich programs via the transfer portal. I’m sure several teams would have loved to have had Shayne Gostisbehere on their roster, let alone some of the other names that it was fun for me to go back and look at.
I don’t think it’s going to be like it was in the 2013-14 season for Rick Bennett’s Union team ever again.
Last week, Virginia basketball coach Tony Bennett made a tearful retirement announcement at the age of 55, saying he wasn’t the right coach for this era.
“I think it’s right for student-athletes to receive revenue. Please don’t mistake me,” he told media at a press conference. “The game and college athletics is not in a healthy spot. It’s not. And there needs to be change, and it’s not going to go back. I think I was equipped to do the job here the old way. That’s who I am.
“It’s going to be closer to a professional model. There’s got to be collective bargaining. There has to be a restriction on the salary pool. There has to be transfer regulation restrictions. There has to be some limits on the agent involvement to these young guys.”
And I guess that’s where the issue of a salary cap came to mind for me.
Is Bennett’s situation going to be the case in college hockey? Will we see a turnover of coaches as things evolve?
Jim: I think it’s difficult to tell how something like House v NCAA will work. I still have never seen any official draft of the proposal. But programs like Union, the Ivies and any other school that may remain that doesn’t technically award scholarships could see a negative impact.
As it has been explained to me by coaches at these non-scholarship school, coaches at those institutions typically have to resort to providing grant-in-aid to the student athletes. The negative to that is that the student-athlete has to qualify for such aid. The positive, as it has been explained to me, is that you can have players on financial aid and there is no limit to how much aid you can distribute. Whereas coaches at schools with scholarship are capped at 18 scholarships and any financial aid awarded to student-athletes counts against those 18 scholarships.
When we arrive at 26 scholarships and possibly the associated roster limits, how will the Ivies and others treat financial aid? Also – and again, I haven’t seen the final House v NCAA proposal – coaches have told me that there may be some required revenue sharing associated with the settlement that may or may not apply to each and every program.
It’s messy. It’s difficult to negotiate and I don’t blame coaches like Bennett at Virginia. I won’t got into specifics, but current NCAA Division I coaches have certainly expressed to me that the current NCAA isn’t what they signed up for. Some are older in age and close to retirement, which is a different situation than Bennett at Virginia. But we 100 percent to not want to see good, younger coaching talent leaving the NCAA for, say, the NHL or some sort of junior level would be just tragic.
You have your ear to the ground as much as I do, though in a different league (Atlantic Hockey vs. Hockey East). Are there rumblings around AHA that concern you?
Ed: What I hear is a lot of wait and see. There’s a lot of uncertainty and many differences of opinion about what will be good for smaller schools.
Why? There are just too many moving parts right now.
Coaches are still figuring out the transfer portal, which itself will change with the end of the COVID fifth year. Canadian major juniors haven’t been settled, and academic eligibility may be a sticky issue for players who haven’t planned for the NCAA. Twenty-six scholarships would be a significant impact for a small school. Smaller programs don’t have revenue to share (and athletes are not going to share in the deficits). NIL is still in its infancy for many institutions.
And all of this requires the involvement of university presidents, boards of trustees, athletic directors, and major donors.
How about in Hockey East? I’d imagine there are haves and have nots even there?
Jim: I think you just nailed it. Most people I speak with in Hockey East don’t know how to react because so much of what could, may and, in most cases, will happen still hasn’t been well communicated at the institution level. Even not every conference commissioner seems to have a grasp on what will happen at the NCAA level.
To me, there seems to be a disconnect somewhere.
I have been around this game for a long time – 33 years. And the one thing I have learned is that communication is key. If there will be massive changes that occur at a level higher than the conference level (i.e. NCAA legislation, settlements, etc.), you can’t just spring it on coaches and administrators and not expect some sort of backlash.
It could be losing great coaches. It could be losing programs with incredible histories.
Moreso, though, for fans you don’t want to blame a lack of organization and communication at the top level as a reason we lose some of the best hockey talent in the world. Everything has been headed in such a good direction for the last 20 years. Now doesn’t seem like a good time to take a step back.
Hosts Jim Connelly, Derek Schooley, and Ed Trefzger review games of the weekend and news of the week.
We recap No. 9 Maine’s dramatic sweep of No. 7 Quinnipiac and Augustana’s surprising victories over No. 12 Omaha. The discussion includes North Dakota’s struggles, Michigan’s split series with St. Cloud, and Alaska’s surprising win against Notre Dame. Highlights also feature Denver Pioneers’ banner-raising ceremony and consecutive wins over Northeastern, Ohio State’s strong defensive start, and Western Michigan’s offensive prowess. Robert Morris’ sweep over Miami and the comparative performance of conferences like Atlantic Hockey and Big Ten are also analyzed, underscoring the competitive and unpredictable nature of the season.
Times are approximate:
00:00 Introduction and hosts
00:32 Maine vs. Quinnipiac recap
04:00 Augustana’s impressive start
06:08 Minnesota State vs. North Dakota
09:24 Michigan vs. St. Cloud Series
11:42 Alaska’s upset over Notre Dame
13:45 Challenges for Alaska and independent teams
17:05 Challenges of Alaska trips
18:40 Denver Pioneers’ banner raising
20:31 The difficulty of sweeping series
24:57 Ohio State’s impressive start
28:02 Western Michigan’s strong performance
30:27 Robert Morris’ successful weekend
34:15 Conference performance and wrap-up
Denver players celebrate a goal Friday night in the Pioneers’ 5-2 win on home ice over Northeastern (photo: Tyler Schank/Clarkson Creative).
Denver is again the top team in the USCHO.com Division I Men’s Hockey Poll, picking up 48 of 50 first-place votes in this week’s poll.
Boston College, Boston University and Michigan State are again all ranked two through four, respectively, while Minnesota, with a first-place vote, is up one to No. 5.
USCHO.com Division I Men’s Hockey Poll – Oct. 21, 2024
Maine leaps up three to sit sixth, North Dakota drops two places to No. 7, Cornell is again eighth and has the last first-place vote, Colorado College moves up two to No. 9, and Michigan holds steady at No. 10 in this week’s poll.
Quinnipiac falls out of the top 10, down four spots to No. 11, and Ohio State is the lone previously unranked team in the poll this week, coming in at No. 19.
In addition to the top 20 teams, 22 other teams received votes this week.
The USCHO.com Division I Men’s Hockey Poll is compiled weekly and consists of 50 voters, including coaches and media professionals from across the country. Media outlets may republish this poll as long as USCHO.com is credited.
Maine’s David Breazeale celebrates his OT winner that lifted the Black Bears past Quinnipiac for the series sweep on Saturday night (photo: Anthony DelMonaco).
Each week, USCHO.com will pick the top 10 moments from the past weekend in our Monday 10 feature.
1. No. 1 Denver sweeps Northeastern on banner raising weekend
There was a celebration fitting of a 10-time national champion in Denver this weekend, and on the ice, the Pioneers delivered, sweeping Northeastern by identical 5-2 scores. This Denver team is now 4-0-0 on the season. That extends Denver’s winning streak to 13 games over two seasons, including its impressive run to the national title with four wins in which the Pioneers allowed one goal or less in the NCAA tournament.
2. No. 9 Maine earns a two-game home sweep of No. 7 Quinnipiac
It was the only series of two teams in the top 10 of the USCHO.com poll, and Maine provided plenty of fireworks for its fans in a two-game sweep of Quinnipiac. After holding on for a 2-1 win on Friday, the Black Bears took a 4-1 lead on Saturday before allowing the Bobcats to score four straight to take a 5-4 lead. Brandon Holt scored an extra-attacker goal with 28 seconds remaining to force overtime before David Breazeale notched the game-winner on the power play with 36 seconds left in OT.
3. Augustana sweeps No. 12 Omaha
In just year two of its program, Augustana continues to impress. After a weekend split with LIU last weekend, Augustana opened plenty of eyes this weekend with a pair of wins, 2-1 and 4-0, over Omaha. Goaltender Josh Kotai made 67 saves in the two-game series, allowing just a single goal. Augustana won exhibition game against North Dakota two weekends ago that made some people take a little notice. This weekend’s sweep should make college hockey fans take a much larger look at the Vikings.
4. Minnesota State shuts out No. 5 North Dakota on Saturday to earn weekend split
The back-and-forth start to Minnesota State’s season took a nice step forward on Saturday as the Mavericks shut out North Dakota at home to earn a weekend split with the Fighting Hawks. North Dakota won Friday, 3-2. Alex Tracy made 27 saves to earn the shutout on Saturday, which combined with 19 stops on Friday gave him 46 on the weekend. The Mavericks are now 3-3-0 on the season having split all of their first three weekends.
5. Shutouts abound between No. 10 Michigan, No. 13 St. Cloud State
Michigan’s Logan Stein made 21 saves on Friday for 3-0 shutout while counterpart Isac Posch stopped all 24 shots he faced on Saturday for St. Cloud as both the Wolverines and the Huskies each posted a shutout in the weekend split between the two top 20 programs.
6. Minnesota crushes in-state rival Minnesota Duluth, 7-5 and 5-1, to improve to 4-1-0
The Golden Gophers, coming off a loss to Omaha in last weekend’s IceBreaker title game, got back on stride as their offense exploded for 12 goals over in-state rival Minnesota Duluth. Friday’s 7-5 game seemed closer than it was as UMD scored twice late, while Saturday was a rout from the beginning. The Gophers have scored 25 goals in five games, and that includes just a single goal in the team’s only loss, a 2-1 overtime decision against Omaha.
7. Robert Morris sweeps Miami in home-and-home series
The Colonials put forth likely its best weekend since returning to Division I hockey a year ago, posting a two-game home-and-home sweep of Miami, 4-1 and 5-1. Robert Morris, which played three exhibition games a week ago, Croix Kochendorfer finished the weekend with 48 saves on 50 shots as the Colonials helped boost the AHA’s non-conference record with the two victories.
8. Alaska earns first win of season with 1-0 upset of No. 18 Notre Dame
Shutouts were rampant this weekend and Alaska joined the party on Saturday in South Bend as they whitewashed Notre Dame 1-0. Transfer Nicholas Grabko stopped all 37 shots he faced and Broten Sabo scored the game’s only goal at 11:50 of the second as the Nanooks earned their first win of the season, a night after the Fighting Irish earned a 4-1 victory.
9. Providence rebounds from loss at North Dakota with two-game home sweep of Arizona State
The Friars returned home to Schneider Arena in style, with a two-game sweep of Arizona State, 4-1 and 2-1. Goaltenders Philip Svedback and Merrimack transfer Zachary Borgeil split the duties in net, each allowing a single goal in a two-game series that the Friars never trailed.
10. Western Michigan stays perfect with 6-2 win over Bowling Green
It is early in the season, but there aren’t a ton of teams that have played games (Ivies excluded) that remain perfect – unbeaten and untied. Western Michigan is one, as they knocked off Bowling Green 6-2 at home on Thursday. After a home-and-home sweep of Ferris State to begin the season, the Broncos will now face their stiffest test this weekend, traveling to No. 2 Boston College for a single non-conference game next Saturday.
College Hockey Inc. Director of Women’s Hockey Sadie Lundquist joins USCHO.com’s Nicole Haase and Todd Milewski to talk about the 2024 Ice Breaker Tournament in Columbus, Ohio, on Friday and Saturday. Ohio State, Stonehill, Penn State and Cornell are the four teams in the fourth edition of the event.
