St. Thomas head coach Jeff Boeser wanted his top assistant, Parker Burgess, to do the inteview about the season ahead. As far as the Tommies are concerned, it really doesn’t matter who does the talking. The resutls speak for themselves. St. Thomas enters the year as the favorite to win the MIAC. The Tommies have … Read more
St. Mary’s assistant coach Ryan Egan has left the school to take a job with the La Crosse Freeze Tier III Junior A team as its first coach and general manager. The Freeze play in the North American 3 Hockey League and recently relocated to Wisconsin from Flint, Mich. Egan spent the past five seasons … Read more
It’s time for another season in the MIAC and don’t be surprised if the league race is as tight as it was a season ago. A total of three points was all that separated co-champions St. Thomas and St. John’s (21 points) from fifth-place St. Olaf (18 points). Gustavus and Concordia were just one point … Read more
It wasn’t as if the 2-1 win amounted to a major upset, though, as the Gusties were ranked No. 5 in the country. The thing coach Brett Petersen wants people to remember however, is that although his team got the win, it wasn’t the better team on the ice that night. “We got outplayed and … Read more
It was a tale of two seasons in the Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference last year. St. Thomas was the most dominant team in the league during the regular season, winning the title, but it fell short in its bid to win the conference tournament. The Tommies lost, 4-3, to St. Olaf in the semifinal round, … Read more
Columnist Neal Jensen goes against the grain and picks Concordia to win the MIAC.
After a dreadful season with only one win to its name, Saint Mary’s Cardinals are imbued with a new sense of optimism. “It’s awesome,” said coach Bill Moore, who enters his third season at the helm. “We have fun going to practice every day. The kids are working their butts off. “It’s a totally different … Read more
Cammi Granato, three-time ECAC Player of the Year, two-time Olympian and 15-year member of the U.S. Women’s National Team, was today announced as one of the first two female members in the 65-year history of the Hockey Hall of Fame. Granato will be formally inducted into the Hall on Nov. 8 as part of the … Read more
The NCAA men’s and women’s ice hockey rules committee gets this chance only once every two years, so there’s a little more emphasis to get it right. In the next month, leading up to and through the committee’s meeting June 8-11 in Indianapolis, the dialogue about potential rules changes will lead to debate and then … Read more
Madeline Loftus, who played two seasons at both Buffalo State and St. Mary’s (Minn.), was killed on Thursday evening while aboard Continental Airlines flight 3407 en route to Buffalo from Newark (N.J.), which crashed just prior to landing in Clarence Center, N.Y., a residential neighborhood just outside of Buffalo. She was 24. Loftus was one … Read more
Last season, St. Mary’s showed signs of promise in the final weeks of the season, going 7-1-0 in the final eight games of the season. That run included a pair of wins over St. Olaf and one over Bethel. If the Cardinals are going to be the “dark horse” St. Thomas coach Terry Skrypek predicts … Read more
First Round, First Times It’s been three years since Wisconsin-Superior has played in the NCAA Tournament. It’s the first time St. Olaf has ever played in the NCAA Tournament. Fittingly, those two teams will square off in the first round of the 2006 NCAA Tournament. The Yellowjackets stunned St. Norbert in the NCHA Playoffs to … Read more
NCAA Tournament Bids on the Line March Madness is upon us. No, not the men’s basketball NCAA Tournament, but the MIAC and NCHA championship games. If anyone from the MIAC wants to be playing in the NCAA Tournament, they will have to win the conference tournament. It doesn’t look as if any team has played … Read more
Coming Down to the Wire After one round of the NCHA playoffs, three teams made it through as expected, but one did not. I’ll give you a preview of the semifinals and what you can expect from the four teams vying for the Peters Cup. The MIAC has one weekend of play remaining and while … Read more
Changing of the Guard It’s no surprise that St. Norbert is leading the NCHA with one weekend to play, but it may be a surprise to see the Green Knights in the top spot in the recent USCHO.com poll. St. Norbert stole the number one ranking away from defending champ Middlebury after the Panthers lost … Read more
Big Weekends in the West The next two weekends feature some of the most exciting match-ups and biggest rivalries in the West that will have serious playoff implications. The MIAC and NCHA races look like they will come to down to the wire, while MSOE is getting closer and closer to locking up the MCHA. … Read more
Holiday Happenings While most teams had a lengthy layover for the holiday break, there were a couple of teams in the West that played some rather important games-games that could be pivotal in determining where they wind up at season’s end. Surprising Results in Vermont Expectations were high for St. Thomas when they began the … Read more
Midway Madness It’s the holiday season once again and the teams in the West have wrapped up an exciting first half of hockey. After a bumpy start to the season, things have started to smooth out and the perennial powers are sitting on their lofty perch atop the NCHA, MIAC and MCHA. But none of … Read more
The Western Jinx Only one thing is relatively certain in Division III West Region hockey; if I write about a team in one of my columns, odds are they are going to have a terrible weekend. This theory does not apply to the conference previews, but to my first two columns. In the first column, … Read more
Unrest in the West It can arguably be called the most exciting region in Division III college hockey. For the past few weeks, the teams in the West have proven the old adage true-anybody can beat anybody on any given night. In the annual NCHA/MIAC battle, Wisconsin-Superior was upset by Bethel, St. Norbert lost to … Read more