WIAC Preview: Blugolds enter year as favorite to win league title

It should be another competitive year in the WIAC.  Wisconsin-Eau Claire is the favorite going into the season and is seeking its fourth conference title in program history. The Blugolds have also won three league tournament titles. Wisconsin-Stevens Point and Wisconsin-River Falls will also be in the hunt. The Pointers enter the year as the … Read more

NCHC 2021-22 Season Preview: With ‘hopefully a normal season to come,’ conference seeing balance throughout teams

October is basically hockey’s spring. Hope abounds for each new season, and this time around, that extends to what’s going on amid a pandemic that has affected all of us for a year and a half. NCHC commissioner Josh Fenton knows all about that. Lucky guy. When the conference began play eight years ago, he … Read more

CCHA 2021-22 Season Preview: New-look conference looking to make impact with eye on NCAA tournament

For the casual fan watching on a Friday or Saturday, chances are high that the inaugural season of the new CCHA won’t look much different than the final season of the WCHA. Seven of the eight teams were together in the WCHA, so the matchups, coaches and arenas are largely the same. And the league’s … Read more

ECAC Hockey 2021-22 Season Preview: After many teams miss ’20-21 season, conference ‘starting over and building from the ground up again’

While change is inevitable in college hockey, there’s never been an offseason quite as tumultuous or long for many of the teams in ECAC Hockey. Eight of the 12 conference teams didn’t play last season due to the COVID-19 pandemic, leaving Quinnipiac, Clarkson, Colgate, and St. Lawrence to string together a makeshift season that ended … Read more

Hockey East 2021-22 Season Preview: UMass seeks to repeat as conference, national champs, but road back won’t be easy

The only thing that will keep Hockey East fans on the edge of their seats this season will be the action on the ice. At least that’s the hope of commissioner Steve Metcalf and the league’s 11 coaches. That fans will even be in the building after a year playing in empty arenas has generated … Read more

Big Ten 2021-22 Season Preview: Michigan has the talent, but are the Wolverines the conference favorite?

As the sudden cancelation of the 2019-20 season and the general, let’s say, quirkiness of last year gets put in the rearview, everyone is hoping for a more normal Big Ten season this year. Saying more normal instead of 100 percent normal is already necessary as during the process of writing this piece a nonconference … Read more

Atlantic Hockey 2021-22 Season Preview: Conference parity a strong suit as teams look to get back to normal in ’21-22

At the Atlantic Hockey media day last week, the word “normal” kept coming up in conversations with the league’s coaches. We’re not there yet, but hopefully moving in the right direction as the 2021-22 season gets underway. Teams are back to most of their pre-pandemic routines, but this offseason, while not as bizarre as the … Read more

Women’s Division I College Hockey: 2021-22 Hockey East season preview

It sure feels like this is Northeastern’s conference to lose and everyone else is just going to try and keep up. The Huskies had control from start to finish last season and they return all but one player from that squad. They have more experience, more confidence and more drive to win that final game … Read more

Women’s Division I College Hockey: 2021-22 NEWHA season preview

It’s very difficult to try and parse the small bits of info gathered through fits and starts last season to prognosticate what might shake down in this conference this season. Most of the rosters have had significant turnover since the abrupt end of the 2019-20 season and no one knows how the time off will … Read more

Women’s Division I College Hockey: 2021-22 CHA season preview

Robert Morris cut their men’s and women’s hockey programs with little notice and many of the women’s team players have signed elsewhere. The Colonials won the CHA conference tournament and advanced to the NCAA Tournament where they lost to Northeastern in the opening round. There is an ongoing fight to reinstate the teams, but I’m … Read more

ECAC Hockey 2020-21 Season Preview: Conference quartet drops puck on new season New Year’s Eve

After the last game of the 2019-2020 ECAC Hockey season took two overtimes to decide, the start of this season took a little extra time to finalize as well. Yale beat Union 2-1 in double overtime on March in the deciding game of the opening round of the league playoffs. That ended up being the … Read more