Season previews for teams
For the first time in the past few seasons, the same team took the regular season and tournament titles. Franklin Pierce won their second championship but earned their first bid to the NCAA Tournament. Five different schools have won the NEWHA Tournament in the eight years of its existence – Assumption will be pushing to … Read more
Wisconsin repeated as national champions, earning their third title in the last four years. For the fourth straight year, they faced off against WCHA rival Ohio State. Polls differ early on about which team is currently #1, but the consensus seems to be that they are the top two teams in the country. The WCHA … Read more
Northeastern returned to the top of the conference, winning the regular season title after a two year absence. But Connecticut eked out a 2-1 win in overtime of the conference championship game. Both teams advanced to the NCAA Tournament. UConn earned their first-ever tournament win in their second berth, defeating Princeton 4-1. Northeastern took down … Read more
Just seven points separated first-place Yale and Princeton from seventh place Brown at the end of last season and I expect it will be an equally tight fight for the championship this season. Honestly, it doesn’t seem like any place in this conference is secure.
This feels like the most wide-open this conference has been in several seasons. While I’m really high on the returning rosters of Sacred Heart and Stonehill, I know better than to count out LIU, and Franklin Pierce has shown themselves to be incredibly resilient and pesky the past few seasons. And while LIU has dominated … Read more
The inevitable chaos of this season seems like it will have the most impact in the WCHA, where several teams will be missing more than one or two players as part of the Olympics and pre-Olympic prep. The altered rosters also leave room for teams not in the top half of the standings to score … Read more
Last season was a fun one in Hockey East, at least for fans of unpredictability and chaos. It might not have been fun for the teams, but it truly felt like any team could win on any given weekend and the winner wasn’t decided until the final game. It seems unlikely that too much of … Read more
The top four finishers in the ECAC made the NCAA tournament last season, with Cornell advancing to the Frozen Four. I’d expect at least that many this year, with an outside chance for a fifth to also break through. Cornell comes in as the coaches’ preseason pick for the top spot. There was a decent … Read more
As this is the first preview of the season, let’s take a moment to look at the bigger picture of the sport as a whole. One topic is going to dominate conversations this season – with USA and Canada no longer centralizing their players prior to the Olympics in February in Italy, collegiate players from … Read more
Wisconsin and Ohio State have faced off for the past two national titles with each team winning one. The two teams seem destined for a crash course of a rematch, but several ECAC teams as well as Minnesota right here in their own conference hope to have a say in the matter. The Buckeyes had … Read more
Connecticut won their first conference title last season and I see no reason to think they won’t repeat this year, particularly as they return their stellar goaltending tandem. If they can add some consistent scoring, they’ll be in the driver’s seat. That being said, this is probably one of the most wide open years for … Read more
Thanks to the pandemic, this is a particularly interesting year in the ECAC thanks to the presence of the Ivies, who basically have a double senior class. A number of schools graduated players who rewrote their program’s record books. Maybe more than any other conference, ECAC teams took to the portal to round out their … Read more
While there was always crossover and shared staff among the men’s Atlantic Hockey Conference and the women’s CHA, things were made much more official this year and the two have combined to be called Atlantic Hockey Association and thus the CHA is now the AHA. The conference will expand to seven teams next year as … Read more
While new coach Ben Guite takes over the helm at Bowdoin College this season, he and the rest of the coaches in the conference are all wondering how to beat Trinity for the conference title. The Bantams have appeared in the last six contested title games, winning four including last season. Nothing can be taken … Read more
Anything can happen on any given night in the world of MIAC hockey. Take last year for example. The Auggies went into the conference tournament ranked fourth nationally and riding a 16-game home winning streak only to see seventh-seeded St. Olaf play spoiler and win the MIAC crown for the second time in program history. … Read more
D-III Women’s Hockey is finally back as we await the first puck drops of the opening season this Friday, October 28, 2022. We saw a huge leap in the overall competition within the top teams last season, closing the skill-gap further between the bottom-half and the top-half ranked teams. While the common group of top … Read more
The best team in the nation resides in the NCHA as Adrian is coming off a national championship season. Repeating as champs is never easy, but the focus first for the Bulldogs is on navigating the always competitive NCHA. As expected, the Bulldogs are the favorite in the conference, but rival St. Norbert is always … Read more
Northeastern were the coaches preseason pick to win their fifth straight Hockey East regular season title, but the path there isn’t as assured as it has been for the Huskies the past few seasons. The gap between them and other teams is smaller than normal and there’s a chance for someone to really step up, … Read more
The history books continue to be written in NEWHA as the conference starts its season with a new defending champion in Franklin Pierce and a new member institution in Stonehill. This will be the first season that the winner of the conference tournament will receive an autobid into the NCAA tournament. The preseason coaches poll … Read more
