Last year’s champion Wis.-River Falls and Wis.-Eau Claire shared the regular-season league championship. It was the 18th time in program history the Falcons have won a title. The Blugolds won their second league crown. Wis.-Stevens Point won the WIAC tourney, though, and enjoyed a memorable postseason run, winning its fifth NCAA championship with a 5-1 … Read more
Last Year’s Champion: Wisconsin-Stevens Point. The Pointers won the championship for the 10th time in program history and for the first time since 2000. Favorites: Stevens Point, Wisconsin-Eau Claire and Wisconsin-River Falls are the top three favorites in the five-team conference. Dark Horse: Wisconsin-Superior could end up being the surprise team in the conference as … Read more
The WIAC men’s conference announced its year-end awards recently, in addition to the All-WIAC Team and Honorable Mentions. Wisconsin-Stevens Point defenseman Kevin Gibson picked up Player of the Year honors after leading the WIAC in defensemen scoring with 29 points. He recorded at least one point in 19 of 27 games, including eight multi-point games. … Read more
Wisconsin-River Falls coach Steve Freeman talked about how strong the WIAC really is from top to bottom. He noted that a year ago his River Falls team won the regular-season title, but Wisconsin-Eau Claire and Wisconsin-Superior played for the conference title, with the Blugolds prevailing in the championship game. Yet, it was Wisconsin-Stevens Point that … Read more
The WIAC men’s conference announced its year-end awards on Thursday and Wisconsin-Stevens Point forward Garrett Ladd earned top honors as player of the year, while Wisconsin-River Falls’ Steve Freeman was named coach of the year. The WIAC also named a 14-player All-WIAC Team, a nine-member Honorable Mention squad and five players to the All-Sportsmanship Team. … Read more
Wisconsin-Eau Claire enters the season with the biggest target on its back. The Blugolds are the defending national champions and not surprisingly, the favorite to win the WIAC title in the first season where the teams will play only under the WIAC banner. The teams had previously competed in the NCHA as well. The top … Read more
Wisconsin-Eau Claire, the defending NCAA Division III champion, has been selected to win the WIAC championship, according to a preseason poll conducted with the league’s head coaches and sports information directors on Wednesday. This season is the first that conference teams will compete solely under the banner of the WIAC after previously being members of … Read more
The Wisconsin-River Falls Falcons moved up three spots in the latest USCHO.com Division III poll on the strength of an impressive 4-0 start. In the latest poll, released Monday, Wis.-River Falls climbed to No. 9, and is the second-highest ranked team in the Northern Collegiate Hockey Association, behind No. 3 St. Norbert. Okay, you could … Read more
For six out of the seven teams in the Northern Collegiate Hockey Association, the goal is clear: try to somehow weaken St. Norbert’s grip on the NCHA title. The Green Knights have won the last three regular season and playoff championships, along with at least a share of the regular season title 10 of the … Read more
St. Norbert will probably once again claim the NCHA title.
Despite four of five leading scorers returning and three veteran defensemen back, the No. 8 Falcons remain a work in progress, coach Steve Freeman said. The formula for success appears rooted in how a crop of underclassmen blend in with proven scorers like senior Josh Calleja (8 goals, 29 assists last season) and junior Justin … 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
NCAA Tournament First Round Preview And then there were seven. Nineteen weeks of hard work and preparation paid off for seven teams this past Monday when they were selected to the 2010 NCAA Division III Women’s Ice Hockey Tournament. This year we have one new face in the crowd as Trinity makes its first NCAA … Read more
Making Strides The 2009-2010 Division III women’s hockey season is well underway and we have already had a couple of major surprises to start off the season. Adrian, a team picked to make some major noise in their first season as an official member of the NCHA, is off to a 0-4 start; dropping two … Read more
Once again it will be the MIAC and NCHA squaring off in the opening round of the NCAA Tournament as MIAC champion Bethel (17-9-1) will travel to at-large bid recipient UW-River Falls (21-5-2) for a 7:05 p.m. CT Wednesday faceoff. The winner will advance to play at St. Norbert (24-3-2) in Saturday’s Quarterfinals. The Royals … Read more
The Falcons’ new logo is about the only new thing they will be sporting this season. Returning a starting goaltender and fourteen of their top fifteen scorers, the Falcons are in prime position to improve on last season’s NCHA runner-up finish. Head coach Steve Freeman shares in the optimism. “We’re pretty excited about our hockey … 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