Columns, excluding “This Week” columns
Don’t look now but Dubuque has made program history in college hockey. The first-year Spartans came through with their first series sweep, beating Lake Forest 3-2 and 3-1. In Saturday’s game, Max Messier gave the Spartans the lead with his fourth goal of the year at the 15:37 mark of the second period. A few … Read more
Most remember that last year’s D-III Frozen Four was hosted by the CCC’s Endicott and also included the University of New England among the finalists. What people may not remember is that Curry, also out of the CCC, was also an NCAA tournament team that defeated Bowdoin in the first round before losing to eventual … Read more
We’re creeping in on conference tournament time and play has never been better in terms of parity and overall competitive skill level within the top teams. We had a busy weekend as usual out east, here’s your notable events from the eastern front! The UCHC runs through Rochester, New York Nazareth, the 3rd-youngest team in … Read more
Kyler Grundy battled through injuries last season, preventing him from maximizing his potential. Its a different story this year for the UW-Eau Claire standout as he has played an instrumental role in the nationally ranked Blugolds’ success. After tallying two goals and four assists a season ago, Grundy is the points leader for the Blugolds, … Read more
As we creep closer and closer to the NCAA Tournament, we begin to see some enticing matchups that seem to mean more during this time of year. This past weekend we didn’t experience any upsets out west as we typically have seen on a weekly basis, but we saw one individual make history. Here’s your … Read more
On the road against one of the nation’s best teams Friday, UW-Stout was unfazed by facing No. 6 UW-Stevens Point. Winning wasn’t easy, but the Blue Devils found a way to get the job done, grinding out a 3-2 win thanks to a game-winning goal from Boyd Stahlbaum and 30 saves out of Dawson Green. … Read more
There are statement wins of which we saw a few this weekend from Plattsburgh, Norwich, and Plymouth State and then there are the bigger statement sweeps as executed by Hobart, Curry, Utica, and Trinity. The upset bug continued with a big win from Nichols and a milestone win for coach Dean Fuller at Fitchburg State … Read more
While Plymouth State has a secure handle on first place in the MASCAC standings so far this season, there is a lot of battling amongst familiar opponents for playoff positions including coach Dean Fuller’s Fitchburg State Falcons who currently hold down third place on the leaderboard just two points behind Massachusetts-Dartmouth. Fuller has been a … Read more
It’s the last weekend of hockey in January and we have a full slate of conference games in the MIAC, WIAC and NCHA. The Auggies and Johnnies face off in a MIAC rivalry game while UW-Stout faces one of its biggest tests as it takes on the nationally ranked Pointers. Here’s a look at the … Read more
Another week out west, another week closer to a potential final four out west. Like the east, we’ve seen upset-after-upset out west, which just shows us the parity being at an all-time high as mentioned in this week’s east article. Let’s get into your week 13 west review, recapping the notable events! Augsburg gets the … Read more
Boston Mayor Michelle Wu and Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey hold the Women’s Beanpot trophy at TD Garden before the Championship Game. 10,633 fans witnessed the first-ever NCAA women’s hockey games played at TD Garden (Photo: Brian Babineau/Hockey East)
I’ve not been around the sport as long as some, but I believe I’ve been involved with it enough to say once again that we’re at the best point the sport [D-III Hockey] has ever been in terms of parity from what we’ve seen. Week-after-week, we continue to see upset-after-upset, something that wasn’t as common … Read more
Aurora has been one of the better teams in the NCHA this season. And the Spartans made a statement Friday with a 4-3 win in overtime over then No. 12 Trine. The Spartans led 3-1 going into the third before the Thunder rallied to force overtime. It was there that Chayce Schmidt delivered the game … Read more
Another great weekend of hockey that continued to produce some big upsets where four ranked teams (Geneseo, Norwich, Trinity, and Salve Regina) in the east lost, playoff caliber hockey in several conferences where the races continue to tighten and a host of overtime games that produced a few sudden victory moments. Here is this week’s … Read more
(7) Minnesota Duluth at (1) Ohio State Nadine Muzerall became the winningest head coach in Ohio State program history with the Buckeyes’ 3-0 win on Friday. OSU outshot UMD 38-14 as they scored once per period to earn the win with goals from Kelsey King, Joy Dunne and Kenzie Hauswirth. The Bulldogs pushed back at … Read more
Carsen Richels wasn’t sure what he was going to do from a hockey standpoint after leaving New Hampshire, where he had played the first two seasons of his collegiate hockey career. Returning to his home state of Minnesota made sense. “I definitely wanted to be close to home and in a more comfortable setting,” Richels … Read more
A look at the national rankings finds a number of New York-based teams among the very best in the nation and logjammed in the top 10. While a lot of focus and discussion has included teams like Hobart, Elmira, Plattsburgh, Utica and even Skidmore, a very strong Geneseo has sort of flown under the radar … Read more
Conference playoffs are almost here, approaching faster than you may think, but also, this thing called Pairwise, it’s now becoming more accurate. By accurate, I mean accurate in terms of showing us the projected field for potential at-large bids or auto-bid seedings and so forth, by no means do I mean it’s an accurate representation … Read more
We’re quickly approaching conference playoff time in D-III hockey and we had many good conference-play matchups this past week. We had some games moved back a day or two, mostly out west due to the winter storms wandering their way through, but here’s your east recap highlighting the main events from each league! CCC Western … Read more
And we are back to chaos following a weekend where multiple ranked teams fell, 15 overtime games were played and things tightened up across several conference races as the second half action across the east heated up as expected. While bonus hockey was in abundance, not all the games were decisive with overtime played. Elmira, … Read more