In This Post…

• We’ll take a look at the upcoming weekly D-I schedule|
• See who’s ranked in the USCHO.com, USA Today/USA Hockey Magazine, and the ‘Power 10’ national polls|
• The Pairwise & NCAA Tourney|
• Sifters… Little tidbits of news and info from around women’s hockey|

D-I Weekly Schedule

We are going to try a new format for displaying the weekly schedule as well as games played with links to box scores. Formatting from USCHO.com is not kind to mobile users. So to help, we will be using the links CHN – College Hockey News.

It’s ‘Final-Four’ Weekend for NEWHA, ECAC, Hockey East, and WCHA… The CHA completed its post-season playoff championship last weekend with Syracuse beating Mercyhurst in the final 3-2 in OT. The NEWHA, ECAC, Hockey East, and WCHA are all down to its ‘Final-Four’ championship weekend. The NEWHA held quarterfinal games Tuesday. Hockey East played its Semifinal games last night. The NEWHA and ECAC championship weekends have semifinals Friday and championships Saturday. The WCHA final-four championship weekend is Saturday/Sunday. All schedules are below:

Make sure to scroll down

Tuesday, March 1

NEWHA Quarterfinals #6 St. Michael’s 1 @ #3 St. Anselm 2

NEWHA Quarterfinals #5 Post 2 @ #4 Sacred Heart 5

Wednesday, March 2

Hockey East Semifinal #3 UCONN 3 @ #2 Vermont 1, HIGHLIGHTS

Hockey East Semifinal #5 Maine 1 @ #1 Northeastern 3, HIGHLIGHTS are ⬇️

Friday, March 4

NEWHA Semifinal #4 Sacred Heart vs. #1 Franklin Pierce 3PM Hosted By Franklin Pierce, Watch/Stream

NEWHA Semifinal #3 St. Anselm vs. #2 Long Island Univ. 7PM Hosted by Franklin Pierce, Watch/Stream

ECAC Semifinal #8 Princeton vs. # 2 Yale 3PM, @ Yale Univ. Ingalls Rink, ESPN+ Stream

ECAC Semifinal #4 Quinnipiac vs. #3 Colgate, @ Yale Univ. Ingalls Rink, ESPN+ Stream

Saturday, March 5

NEWHA Championship TBD, 7PM Hosted By Franklin Pierce, Watch/Stream

ECAC Championship TBD, 3PM EST, @ Yale Univ. Ingalls Rink, ESPN+ Stream in USA, Outside USA

Hockey East Championship TBD, 7PM, @ TBD Campus site of highest remaining seed, TV-NESN+

WCHA Semifinal #4 MN-Duluth vs. #1 Minnesota, 1:07PM CST, @ Univ. of MN Ridder Arena, TV/Stream INFO

WCHA Semifinal #3 Wisconsin vs. #2 Ohio State, 4:07PM CST, @ Univ. of MN Ridder Arena, TV/Stream INFO

Sunday, March 6

WCHA Championship TBD, 1Pm CST, @ Univ. of MN Ridder Arena, TV/Stream INFO

NCAA Tournament Selection Show, 9PM EST, TV-ESPN NEWS Channel, Stream Info Coming Soon

Game results, box scores, and statistics come directly from CHN – College Hockey News, USCHO.com or the NCAA’s official stats site HERE.

Video highlight links are to individual program produced media, some of which may be found on team twitter or other social media accounts – so scroll the feed to see the game highlights.

Postgame links are any postgame video produced by individual programs and found on either team websites or social media accounts.

Don’t See a link… for video highlights or postgame? Assume there was none available at the time of our post.

D-I Top 10 Polls

Evan’s last look at his Top 10 in D-I women’s college hockey came in last week’s Pipeline Post #65. You can find it HERE.

The Pairwise & NCAA Tourney

The Pairwise

In a Jan. 8th post of the Pipeline we introduced what is known as the Pairwise rankings. ‘The PWR’ or ‘The Pairwise’ as it’s known in NCAA hockey circles, is a way to rank teams that play an unbalanced schedule based on a specific mathematical formula. We use the USCHO.com iteration of the Pairwise rankings which can be found online HERE.

Why are the Pairwise Rankings important? It is what the NCAA D-I Women’s Ice Hockey Committee will use will determine the 11-team field for the NCAA Tournament. And this year, the committee is strictly going by the math and not subjectivity. The Committee will conviene Sunday March 6th and crunch the numbers to announce the 11-teams going to the NCAA Tournament.

Contrary to what many may think, the USCHO.com top 10 poll that comes out each week or any other media poll that exists, has no bearing on who makes the NCAA tournament. Those polls are for media purposes only and not used by the D-I NCAA Women’s Ice Hockey Committee.

Making The NCAA Tournament, Auto & At-Large Bids

There are two ways to make the NCAA Tournament’s 11-team field. Receive your conference’s automatic bid by winning the conference post-season playoff championship – or – have a high enough Pairwise Ranking to fall within the top 11 teams and receive an ‘At-Large’ bid.

There are 5 D-I conferences. 4 of the 11 bids come from conference post season playoff tournament championship Auto Bids. The other 7 are ‘At-Large Bids. The NEWHA does not have an automatic bid until the 22-23 season by virtue of an NCAA rule which stipulates conferences must compete with 6 teams for two full seasons before getting an automatic bid. The NCAA determined the 20-21 COVID season did not count as a full season for the NEWHA while only 2 NEWHA teams played games.

The CHA, which was a 6 team conference until it lost member Robert Morris University when the school shut-down the program in May of 2021, is allowed to retain its auto bid for a period of two years. The CHA would lose its auto bid if it were unable to get a 6th team beginning with the 23-24 season.

After the 11-team tournament field has been selected, then the fun begins in putting together 4 regional sites. To learn more about how the selection process works and how regional sites will be determined – click here for the 2022 NCAA Pre-Championship Manual.

Below is the USCHO.com Pairwise rankings as of Wednesday March 2, 2022.

Sifters…

#8 Outlasts #1 In ECAC… For the first time in the 20-year history of the ECAC Playoff Championship Tournament, the #8 seed Princeton Tigers knocked off the #1 seed Harvard Crimson. The Tigers won game one 3-2, lost game two 2-1 in overtime, but won the third and deciding game, 3-2. #8 Princeton will play #2 Yale in the first ECAC Semifinal set for 3Pm Friday. #2 seed Yale also went the distance in its first-round quarterfinal series with #7 seed St. Lawrence.

Top 10 Patty Kaz Announced… The 10 Patty Kaz finalists were announced today by USA Hockey.

The WCHA leads the way with 6 finalists while Hockey East landed 4. No one from the ECAC, CHA, or NEWHA made the cut. Northeastern leads the way with 3 players themselves,Minnesota and Wisconsin with 2 each. Ohio St., MN-Duluth, and Vermont each have 1. Northeastern’s Aerin Frankel, last year’s Patty Kaz winner, is a finalist this year.

The Patty will be awarded on the NHL Network March 27 in a special on-air television presentation. The top-3 finalists will be announced March 17th during the Women’s Frozen Four National Championship.

Possible NCAA Recruiting Rule Changes… As the NCAA often does each year, proposals for various rule changes in a variety of areas like recruiting, financial aid, eligibility etc., are announced and then voted on in April to become legislated. The following rule proposals were just announced and will be voted on in April.

• Amend the trigger for student-athlete status to align with the approach authorized by waivers the past two academic years in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
• An individual would remain a prospective student-athlete until the individual signs a National Letter of Intent or the school’s written offer of admission and/or financial aid or the school receives the individual’s financial deposit in response to its offer of admission and completes all high school graduation requirements or all transfer academic eligibility requirements.
• An individual would revert to prospective student-athlete status if the individual does not attend classes at the beginning of the first full-time regular academic term after the individual completes all high school graduation requirements or all transfer academic eligibility requirements.
• Specify a school shall not provide more than two consecutive nights of lodging to a prospective student-athlete in conjunction with an official visit.
• Eliminate the limitation on the number of official visits a prospective student-athlete may take.
• Specify that in sports other than basketball, contact may not be made with a prospective student-athlete during the time of day when classes are in session at their school.

WCH Spring Recruiting Event List… Coming shortly will be our WCH Spring/Summer Recruiting Event List. We’ll keep track of all showcases, camps/clinics, and recruiting events from March until the end of August across North America & beyond we’re aware of. We’ll post a link with event names, dates, and locations along with links to info if provided. For any coaches who want their event listed, please fill out our online form and we’ll be sure to list it. You can find it HERE.

Changes to Camps & Clinics for D-I Schools… In an effort to curb early recruiting tactics by college coaches in sports other than women’s basketball, the NCAA has legislated new ‘Institutional’ camp/clinic rules which took effect in January of 2022. ‘Institutional Camps/Clinics’ are now only allowed to be conducted during the months of June, July, August and December to Feb. 1. Institutional camps/clinics are not allowed outside of that time period.

Institutional camps and clinics are defined as those 1) owned/operated by a D-I coach or the institution institution itself and 2) where participants are classified as prospective student-athletes and have entered grade 9.

This new legislation does not impact Institutional Camps/Clinics where the participants are in grade 8 & below or the ability of college coaches to work for privately owned camps/clinics.

What’s Next For Women’s Hockey… It seems like the sport has this conversation after every Olympics. One would think with over 6 million viewers world-wide for the Gold Medal game, there is a way to harness a sustainable viewing audience for our sports best during the regular hockey season. Word came this week of something in the works. Yahoo Sports’ Justin Cuthbert & Co. bat around whats needed for a viable pro league:

Until Next Time…

21-22 Streaming Info

-Streams for games in the ECAC can be found HERE. Subscriptions will be necessary to watch games.

-Streams in the WCHA can be found HERE. Subscriptions will be necessary to watch games.

-Streams in Hockey East this year can be found HERE. Hockey East once again is streaming all game live and for FREE.

-Streams for CHA games with the exception of Penn St. can be found HERE. Subscriptions will be necessary to watch games.

-Streams for NEWHA games can be found at each teams’ website. Subscriptions may be necessary to watch games.

NCAA Coaching Changes… Keep up with all the coaching changes across D-I and D-III HERE.

Give Someone a Stick Tap… Know someone in women’s college hockey who’s work needs some recognition? Nominate them for WCH.org’s monthly ‘Stick Tap’ HERE or Email us at: womenscollegehockey@gmail.com

Recruiting Events/League Online Directory… Find all the recruiting events on WCH.org right HERE. Want to add your event? Click HERE to fill out our WCH.org event form.

Grant Kimball is founder and contributing writer at Women’s College Hockey.org and beginning his 3rd season as an Assistant Coach with the Yale University women’s hockey program. Grant has developed an experienced perspective in the world of women’s ice hockey, having coached and recruited players from across the globe during his 25+ year amatuer and NCAA coaching career. He has coached at 6 NCAA DIII and DI programs in the NCHA (D3), the CHA, WCHA, Hockey East, ECAC, and the Ivy League (DI). Beyond coaching, Grant served as a site representative for the 2019 NCAA quarterfinal of the D-I NCAA Tournament. He also currently serves as an Officer with the American Hockey Coaches Association as Vice President of Membership and sits on the AHCA’s Women’s Hockey Executive Committee.