Women’s College Hockey.org

In This Post…

• Welcome to Women’s College Hockey.org …
• NCAA Weekly Polls…
• Sifters — lots of them…

Welcome to Women’s College Hockey.org

Hello everyone, Grant Kimball here, assistant women’s hockey coach at Yale University and welcome to Women’s College Hockey.org! Many of you started following my Bulldog Pipeline blog back in early October where we kept you updated with news, notes, and insight about our program at Yale as well as across the world of NCAA women’s college hockey. Since then, we’ve heard from many of you saying how much you enjoy our content, especially on the recruiting side with all the changes happening in the NCAA due to COVID.

So, in an effort to better serve and educate prospective players, coaches and fans about NCAA women’s college hockey welcome to your new home – Women’s College Hockey.org. Our new site is more robust which allows for additional content and special features like dedicated pages for advice to help you understand the recruiting process, view video clips of game highlights and coaches post-game reaction, league standings, and so much more. There may even be a podcast in our future!

The Bulldog Pipeline IS NOT GOING AWAY but it will get a new home as well on the official Yale Athletics Women’s Hockey website which can be found HERE–be sure to bookmark it! All previous content specific to our program from bulldogpipeline.com will migrate over.

Now you have two great online sources to keep you up to date with what’s going on in NCAA women’s college hockey AND with your Yale Bulldogs. We’ll continue to send emails of new posts once they go live. If you already signed up to follow the Bulldog Pipeline there is no need to do so again. And if you want to keep up to date with all that is going on in the world of Women’s College Hockey – sign up now and give us a follow so you never miss a post! Just go to the Home Page and enter your email address in the ‘Follow Us‘ box located in the right-hand margin of the page.

Okay… on to some women’s college hockey news! Happy reading everyone!

NCAA Weekly Polls…

Weekly polls are out as of Feb. 8 with no change at all between them except for the #8 and #9 spots.

RANK	TEAM
1	Wisconsin
2	Minnesota
3	Northeastern
4	Ohio State
5	Colgate
6-T	Minnesota-Duluth
6-T	Boston College
8	Penn State
9	Clarkson
10	Providence

RANK	TEAM
1	Wisconsin
2	Minnesota
3	Northeastern
4	Ohio State
5	Colgate
6	Minnesota-Duluth
7	Boston College
8	Clarkson
9	Penn State
10	Providence

Sifters…

New National Goaltending Award Announced… The Women’s Hockey Commissioners Association announced a new D-I women’s national goaltender of the year award given annually to the top female goaltender. The winner will be announced at this years Frozen Four in March held in Erie, PA. On the men’s side they’ve had the exact same award named after former Wisconsin goalie Mike Richter since the 2013-2014 season. The Hockey Commissioners Association assumed the responsibility for the Richter Award this Fall and felt a women’s equivalent was long overdue. A ‘watch list’ of 21 names was announced last week. You can see who’d on that list HERE.

The Hockey Commissioners Association is made up of the commissioners of each women’s and men’s D-I conferences. They are heavily involved in the administration of NCAA D-I women’s and men’s college hockey as well as serving as a partner with the NCAA and the institutions their conferences represent.

D-III Winter National Championships Cancelled… All NCAA Division-III 2020-2021 Winter National Championships have been cancelled as per the NCAA last week. You can read the official story HERE. The NCAA said the reason for the cancellations were due to low sport participation, meaning there weren’t enough teams in their respective sports to have a bona-fide true National Championship. The NCAA set strict limits on how many teams in each sport must play this season in order to play and national tournament. No word yet on what will happen with Spring championships yet.

NCAA Contingencies for Winter Sports Announced… With the NCAA cancelling D-III Winter championships last week, they came out with a statement on contingencies for D-I Winter and Spring sport national championships. You can read the announcement HERE. Based on the number of teams competing in D-I hockey, a full 8-team field is expected to be selected.

One Site Location for Women’s D-I Championship… The NCAA announced it will hold the entire NCAA Women’s National Collegiate Championship at its Frozen Four site in Erie, PA March 15-21. All 7 games of the tournament, 4 qtr. final, 2 semi-final, and 1 championship game will be played at one site. Normally the 4 highest seeds would host a quarter-final game with the winners moving on to a single-site for the Frozen Four. Of course, this is all done to protect the health and safety of all participants in an environment where the NCAA can control what it wants – namely COVID testing. You can read the official statement HERE.

SAT Testing News… A big change from from The College Board, the company that administers the SAT Test… SAT Subject tests will no longer be offered and the optional Essay on the SAT will no longer be offered after the June SAT dates. You can read the official announcement HERE. Some additional SAT test dates were announced as well.

SAT/ACT Test Optional to Continue? A number of high profile institutions, Cornell and Harvard to name a few, have recently announced its extending test-optional policies beyond the ’20-’21 admissions cycle and into ’21-’22. No word if other institutions will follow suit, but you have to think with all the trouble students across the US and Canada have had to even register for a test date, more schools will go test optional.

Dartmouth and Brown announce Athletic Director changes… The Ivy League athletic director landscape has been upended with the announcements of Brown University Athletic Director Jack Hayes and Dartmouth AD Harry Sheehy will step down from their respective posts. Hayes has been at the Brown helm since 2012 and will move on to explore other opportunities, one of which starts March 1 in a new role with Bruin Sports Capital a private sports, entertainment and media company. Sheehy will depart Dartmouth after 45 years in competitive athletics, the last ten of which he spent with the Big Green. The news comes on the heels of both departments deciding to ‘restructure’ and cut various sport programs last Spring and Summer as the COVID-19 pandemic put a choke hold on college athletics. There has been an alumni groundswell of support as well as lawsuits to bring some of those sports back and some with success.

Until Next Time… Have a great weekend everyone!