Post #1 — 10/1/20
In This Post
- Welcome to Women’s College Hockey.org
- NCAA COVID Update
Welcome to Women’s College Hockey.org
We appreciate your time checking in and taking an interest in our new blog The Women’s College Hockey Pipeline! These are times unlike any of us have ever experienced and we hope you and your families are doing well. Women’s College Hockey.org provides news, notes and insight from around NCAA women’s hockey as well as scores, schedules and video highlights to help prospective female players, their families and coaches stay informed, understand how the recruiting process works and on a path to playing NCAA college hockey. Have a question? Be sure to get in touch and send us a note in the ‘CONTACT US’ section above in the menu bar. So sit back, relax, and enjoy!
NCAA COVID Update…
–On September 16th, the NCAA DI Council voted to extend the recruiting dead period through January 1, 2021. You can find the DI Council’s official report PDF HERE. Certainly, this has a major impact on recruiting not only for coaches to evaluate players live, but for players and families not being able to visit campuses. NCAA programs have resorted to watching games online or streamed live. We would encourage any club/team with the capability to stream live or tape and upload video of games to the web with NCAA coach access to please do so.
-On September 10th the five NCAA Division I Women’s Ice Hockey conferences, along with six men’s hockey conferences, made a joint statement represented by the Hockey Commissioners Association, that the hockey season will be delayed. A link to the announcement can be found HERE.
-Yale University Assistant Coach Grant Kimball has been on the front lines of the COVID discussions with the women’s DI coaching body as a member of the Women’s Ice Hockey Executive Committee and as a Governor within the American Hockey Coaches Association.
-With a delayed season comes challenges:
1) Will each conference play the same amount of games?
2) Will there be an opportunity to play out of conference games? If so, how many and vs. whom?
3) If players opt out, what does that do to their NCAA eligibility?
4) With a shortened season, how will the NCAA tourney field be determined? All of these questions are being evaluated. Individual conferences will make announcements as to their season starting on a case by case basis. The impact is hardest hit on the Ivy League as no hockey will be played until Jan. 1 at the earliest women or men. Within the ECAC, Union, St. Lawrence, and RPI are following the Ivy lead and not allowing winter sports to resume until Jan. 1. That leaves, Clarkson, Colgate, and Quinnipiac to potentially play games earlier than Jan. 1 should a ECAC decision allow them to.
We’ll certainly be keeping you up to date on any additional program and NCAA news as it relates to the start of the 20-21 season.
Until next time…