Post #4 — 11/15/20
IN THIS POST…
- NCAA/COVID Update
NCAA/COVID Update…
It looks like NCAA DI and DIII teams are going to give it ‘the ‘old college try’ and start playing games. Some already have. DI women’s and men’s conferences have been announcing schedules over the last few weeks, and the puck finally dropped Friday night in South Bend on the men’s side as Wisconsin traveled and took on Notre Dame. I have to imagine a charter flight was involved for Wisco.
As it stands now (Sunday, Nov. 15) there are 8 DI women’s teams and 2 DI men’s programs who will not be playing hockey this year. Here is what we know.
Women
- Ivy League–Brown, Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, Princeton, and Yale
- College Hockey America (CHA)–Rochester Institute of Technology
- New England Women’s Hockey Alliance (NEWHA)–Post University
The WCHA and Hockey East have announced their intended schedules. Hockey East came out with a full season schedule while the WCHA announced a schedule through December. You can click the links below to find them. The ECAC and CHA have yet to announce anything official. The NEWHA hasn’t appeared to announce anything official but their official website does list games for Sacred Heart.
WCHA-Announcement Schedule | Hockey East-Announcement Schedule | NEWHA
Men
- Ivy League–Brown, Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, Princeton, and Yale
- Atlantic Hockey Conference (AHC)–Rochester Institute of Technology
- Western Collegiate Hockey Association (WCHA)–Alaska Anchorage
The Ivy League announced Thursday evening it would cancel all winter sports. I doubt there were many who thought the Ivy League would have decided anything different. It was only a matter of time before they pulled the trigger. On both the women’s and men’s side the ECAC now drops to 6 teams from 12. Additionally on the women’s side, Post University made its announcement to cancel Winter and Spring sports back in October sighting safety concerns due to the pandemic. With Posts’ women’s team out, the NEWHA drops to 5 teams from 6. Post also decided to move to all-virtual classes and a hope to return to competition in 2021. The leadership at RIT made a similar announcement just a week ago on Nov. 9. to cancel all winter sports for the 2020-2021 season. You can read that HERE. The CHA now drops from 6 teams to 5. On the men’s side, Atlantic Hockey where the RIT men play will drop to 10 from 11. The University at Alaska-Anchorage in the WCHA cancelled its indoor winter sports season, details can be found HERE. And in doing so, likely cancelled the men’s hockey program altogether. 20-21 was supposed to be the men’s hockey teams’ last season. UAA announced an athletic restructuring in August that would cancel four sport programs, men’s hockey being one of them.
As we’ve seen with the college football season, I think college hockey can expect some of the same with game cancellations/postponements, etc. There are already a few games on the men’s side involving Army that were/will be postponed. Unlike football, hockey is an indoor sport and thus the chance for infection rises. But don’t expect any fans at any games this year, I haven’t heard of a conference allowing them. Interestingly, men’s teams in the NCHC will try an NHL-like bubble with all 8 teams heading to the University of Nebraska-Omaha to play games until late December. You can read more about that HERE.
The first games on the DI women’s side will happen Friday Nov. 20 as UNH hosts Boston College at 4:30PM. If you need your college hockey viewing fix, you can catch the game live on NESN – the New England Sports Network. And speaking of TV, with the NHL not having games until who knows when, I wonder if sports networks will add more women’s hockey to it’s scheduling line-up to fill the hockey void. Let’s hope so.
Until next time… stay safe and be well.