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The Women’s College Hockey Pipeline…

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Your leading online resource for NCAA Women’s College Hockey

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Latest From… The Women’s College Hockey Podcast – Episode #3B…

• Episode #3A Part I – Is Now LIVE|The Recap

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Click any of the links below to jump to that section. At the bottom of each section, click the ‘ (Back to Top) ‘ link to return to the top of the post.

Polls & WKND Sched

Attendance

Problem Solving

Sifters

ICYMI

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Polls & WKND Sched

DCU/USCHO Division I Poll – November 7, 2022

Rnk	Team	Record	Last Poll
1	Minnesota (20)	9-0-1	1
2	Ohio State	10-1-1	2
3	Wisconsin	10-2-0	3
4	Colgate	11-1-0	6
5	Quinnipiac	10-1-0	4
6	Yale	4-0-0	8
7	Minnesota Duluth	7-5-0	5
8	Northeastern	10-1-1	7
9	Cornell	5-1-0	9
10	Providence	9-2-1	12
11	Clarkson	10-3-1	10
12	Penn State	8-5-1	11
13	Vermont	7-4-1	13
14	Connecticut	8-4-2	NR
15	Princeton	1-3-0	14

Others receiving votes: St. Lawrence 14, Boston College 6, Mercyhurst 3, St. Cloud State 3, Harvard 1

USA Today/USA Hockey Magazine College Hockey Poll

(Week Nine Poll)

First-place votes in parentheses

RANK	SCHOOL	LAST WEEK’S RANKING	2022-23 RECORD	WEEKS IN TOP 15
1.	University of Minnesota, 282 (18)	1	9-1-1	9
2.	Ohio State University, 263 (1)	2	10-1-1	9
3.	University of Wisconsin, 233	3	10-2-0	9
4.	Quinnipiac University, 207	4	10-1-0	9
5.	Colgate University, 203	6	11-1-0	9
6.	Yale University, 191	8	4-0-0	9
7.	Northeastern University, 180	7	10-1-1	9
8.	University of Minnesota Duluth, 166	5	7-5-0	9
9.	Cornell University, 143	9	5-1-0	9
10.	Providence College, 100	12	9-2-1	4
11.	Clarkson University, 90	10	10-3-1	9
12.	Penn State University, 75	11	8-5-1	8
13.	University of Vermont, 68	14	7-4-1	9
14.	University of Connecticut, 30	NR	9-1-1	4
15.	Princeton University, 22	13	1-3-0	9

Others Receiving Votes: St. Lawrence University, 14; Boston College, 7; St. Cloud State University, 3; Mercyhurst University, 2; University of Maine, 1.

Notes: The ECAC leads with seven teams in the ranking, while the WCHA has four, the HEA has three and the CHA has one… Team records are listed as W-L-T.

About the Poll: The 26th annual USA Today/USA Hockey Magazine Women’s College Hockey Poll is conducted each week in conjunction with the American Hockey Coaches Association. The poll includes input from coaches and journalists representing each of the six NCAA Division I ice hockey conferences, as well as composite votes from officers of the AHCA and USA Hockey.

Division I WKND Schedule

Thursday November 10, 2022

St. Thomas vs. Lindenwood

St. Lawrence vs. Clarkson

Friday November 11, 2022

St. Thomas vs. Lindenwood (NC)

Boston College vs. Northeastern

Boston University vs. Vermont

Minnesota-Duluth vs. St. Cloud State

RIT vs. Union (NC)

Saint Anselm vs. Franklin Pierce

Stonehill vs. Sacred Heart

Merrimack vs. New Hampshire

Colgate vs. Harvard

Cornell vs. Dartmouth

Holy Cross vs. Maine

Syracuse vs. Princeton (NC)

Providence vs. Connecticut

Long Island vs. Saint Michael’s

Saturday November 12, 2022

Cornell vs. Harvard

Colgate vs. Dartmouth

Northeastern vs. Boston College

UNH vs. Merrimack

Holy Cross vs. Maine

Boston Univ. vs. Vermont

Connecticut vs. Providence

MN-Duluth vs. St. Cloud

Franklin Pierce vs. Saint Anselm

Stonehill vs. Sacred Heart

Long Island vs. Saint Michael’s

Clarkson vs. St. Lawrence (NC)

Syracuse vs. Princeton (NC)

RIT vs. Union (NC)

Sunday November 13, 2022

Brown vs. Penn State

Monday November 14, 2022

Brown vs. Penn State

Conference Standings as of 11/9/22

ECAC

RNK	Team	Points
1	Yale	12
2	Quinnipiac	12
3	Cornell	9
4	Harvard	7
5	Clarkson	6
6	St. Lawrence	6
7	Colgate	6
8	Brown	5
9	Dartmouth	4
10	Union	3.5
11	Princeton	3
12	Rensselaer	1.5

Hockey East

RNK	Team	Points
1	Northeastern	26
2	Providence	18
3	Vermont	18
4	Connecticut	15
5	Boston College	14
6	Maine	12
7	Merrimack	10
8	Boston University	8
9	New Hampshire	8
10	Holy Cross	3

NEWHA

RNK	Team	Points
1	Saint Anselm	18
2	Stonehill	16
3	Long Island	12
4	Sacred Heart	10
5	Franklin Pierce	6
6	Saint Michael’s	4
7	Post	4

CHA

RNK	Team	Points
1	Syracuse	12
2	Penn State	9
3	Mercyhurst	3
4	Lindenwood	0
4	RIT	0

WCHA

RNK	Team	Points
1	Ohio State	31
2	Minnesota	27
3	Wisconsin	21
4	St. Cloud State	16
5	Minnesota State	10
6	Minnesota-Duluth	9
7	Bemidji State	3
8	St. Thomas	0

DCU/USCHO Division III Poll November 7, 2022

Rnk	Team	(First Place Votes)	Record	Points	Last Poll
1	Middlebury	(19)	0-0-0	299	1
2	Gustavus	(1)	3-0-0	274	2
3	Plattsburgh		2-0-0	262	3
4	Elmira		3-0-0	235	4
5	Nazareth		2-0-0	206	6
6	UW-River Falls		1-1-0	170	7
7	Adrian		4-0-0	163	10
8	UW-Eau Claire		3-1-0	161	5
9	Norwich		2-0-0	151	11
10	Colby		0-0-0	140	8
11	Endicott		3-1-0	90	9
12	Amherst		0-0-0	77	12
13	Cortland		2-0-0	63	14
14	Augsburg		1-3-0	32	13
15	Aurora		3-1-0	22	15
15	Hamilton		0-0-0	22	NR

Others receiving votes: Williams 11, St. Norbert 7, Hamline 6, Utica 4, Lake Forest 3, UW-Superior 2

D-III WKND Schedule

Friday November 11, 2022

SUNY-Potsdam vs. Plattsburgh

Oswego St. vs. SUNY-Morrisville

Nazareth vs. Wilkes

New England College vs. Plymouth St.

William Smith vs. Elmira

Nichols vs. Suffolk

Salem St. vs. UMASS-Boston

Norwich vs. Castleton

SUNY-Cortland vs. Buffalo St.

Concordia-Wisconsin vs. Trine

Neumann vs.. Stevenson

Utica vs. Kings

Hilbert vs. SUNY-Canton

So. Maine vs. Johnson & Wales

Anna Maria vs. Alvernia

Manhattanville vs. Lebanon Valley

Curry vs. Univ. of New England

Salve Regina vs. Worcester St.

Aurora vs. Finlandia

Chatham vs. Arcadia

Lawrence vs. St. Norbert

Wis. Eau-Claire vs. Northland

Saint Benedict vs. Concordia-Morehead (MN)

Endicott vs. Western New England

Augsburg vs. St. Catherine

Bethel vs. St. Olaf

Hamiline vs. St. Mary’s

Wisconsin Stevens-Point vs. River Falls

Saturday November 12, 2022

Stevenson vs. Nuemann

Concordia vs. Trine

Plattsburgh vs. SUNY-Potsdam

Hilbert vs. SUNY-Canton

Anna Maria vs. Alvernia

Manhattanville vs. Lebanon Valley

St. Catherine vs. Augsburg

UW River-Falls vs. Northland

New England College vs. Castleton

SUNY-Morrisville vs. Oswego St.

St. Olaf vs. Bethel

Utica vs. King’s (PA)

University of New England vs. Curry

SUNY-Cortland vs. Buffalo St.

Saint Mary’s vs. Hamline

Southern Maine vs. UMASS-Boston

Nazareth vs. Wilkes

Chatham vs. Arcadia

Norwich vs. Plymouth

St. Norbert vs. Lawrence

Salem State vs. Johnson & Wales

Aurora vs. Finlandia

Elmira vs. William Smith

Western New England vs. Endicott

Suffolk vs.. Nichols

Marian vs. Adrian

Gustavus vs. St. Scholastica

Concordia-Morehead vs. Saint Benedict

Wisconsin Eau-Claire vs. Wisconsin Superior

Sunday November 13, 2022

Rivier (NH) vs. Assumption

Marian vs. Adrian

Worcester St. vs. Salve Regina

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Attendance

Below you will find comprehensive D-I attendance figures for all teams, found on USCHO. It is in order of average attendance per game. You can download these numbers below and sort how you want. Interesting to see. As of today there will have been 40 Friday games with a start time of 5pm or earlier, most around the the 2pm time frame.

How can you build an interest or a fan base when games start at 2, 3, 4, or 5pm on a Friday?

Some takeaways:

• Maine has had the most home dates thus far with 10
• Wisconsin leads the way with an ave per game attendance at 2,223 and a 97.8% capacity figure. Next is Minnesota at 40.9%
• Only 2 teams have averages per game over 1,000 and only one team (Wisco) is averaging more than 2k per game
• As for a breakdown…
  • 1 team in the 2k’s
  • 1 team in the 1K’s
  • 1 team in the 800’s
  • 1 team in the 700’s
  • 2 teams in the 600’s
  • 4 teams in the 500’s
  • 6 teams in the 400’s
  • 8 teams in the 300’s
  • 8 teams in the 200’s
  • 8 teams in the 100’s
  • 2 teams below 100
    • Unfortunately – only 23.8% of D-I programs are drawing more than 500 fans per game.
• Total attendance across D-I to date in the season is 94,590
• Most Saturday games are play in the early to mid-afternoons. In fact, only 10 Saturday games to date out of 102 have had a start time of 6pm local time or later.

Women’s Division I Hockey Attendance: 2022-2023

Rank	Team	Dates	Total Attendance	Average Attendance	Capacity	Cap. %
1	Wisconsin	6	13,338	2,223	2,273	97.8
2	Minnesota	6	8,349	1,392	3,400	40.9
3	Minnesota Duluth	4	3,495	874	6,756	12.9
4	Yale	2	1,586	793	3,486	22.7
5	Colgate	6	4,105	684	2,222	30.8
6	Princeton	2	1,237	618	2,100	29.5
7	Mercyhurst	6	3,551	592	1,300	45.5
8	Penn State	8	4,675	584	5,782	10.1
9	Clarkson	5	2,822	564	3,000	18.8
10	Ohio State	6	3,180	530	1,200	44.2
11	Boston University	6	2,947	491	3,684	13.3
11	New Hampshire	6	2,947	491	6,501	7.6
13	St. Lawrence	6	2,729	455	3,000	15.2
14	Quinnipiac	5	2,241	448	3,086	14.5
15	Harvard	4	1,770	442	3,095	14.3
16	Dartmouth	2	810	405	4,500	9
17	Connecticut	8	3,174	397	2,000	19.8
18	Northeastern	6	2,324	387	4,747	8.2
19	RIT	3	1,126	375	4,300	8.7
20	Vermont	6	2,207	368	4,007	9.2
21	St. Thomas	6	2,169	362	1,400	25.8
22	Cornell	4	1,412	353	4,267	8.3
23	Bemidji State	8	2,737	342	4,373	7.8
24	Boston College	6	1,883	314	7,884	4
25	Union	2	585	292	2,225	13.1
26	St. Cloud State	6	1,641	274	5,159	5.3
27	Minnesota State	6	1,491	248	4,832	5.1
28	Maine	10	2,273	227	5,124	4.4
28	St. Anselm	7	1,589	227	2,700	8.4
30	Brown	3	642	214	2,495	8.6
31	Syracuse	5	1,065	213	350	60.9
32	Sacred Heart	5	1,059	212	—	—
33	Holy Cross	7	1,384	198	1,400	14.1
34	St. Michael’s	2	359	180	600	29.9
35	LIU	3	529	176	—	—
36	Merrimack	7	1,221	174	2,549	6.8
37	Rensselaer	6	1,030	172	5,217	3.3
38	Lindenwood	2	323	162	—	—
39	Providence	8	1,290	161	3,030	5.3
40	Stonehill	8	1,135	142	1,000	14.2
41	Franklin Pierce	3	219	73	—	—
42	Post	4	264	66	—	—

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Problem Solving – More Officials

Officiating doesn’t have a numbers problem. It has a system problem and it is broken. The numbers have always been there – in fact they are right in front of our eyes. Hundreds of thousands of them. They’re called players. It’s who every person in charge of getting more officials into the game talks about… “hey, we want officials who have played the game”. Problem is, in the officiating world, the system of becoming one, winds up being one of choice rather than having the opportunity to begin with.

We have been told since mid-last year that officiating numbers across the US and Canada are dwindling and there are major problems. So much so, that a state like MN is contemplating a rule that forbids teams to schedule multiple games in a day. There’s just not enough officials to work the amount of games. Youth hockey has this problem and so too does NCAA men’s & women’s hockey. Leagues are losing numbers and quality people with experience.

So how do you increase the pool of officials without deteriorating the quality? Age old questions for sure.

You could pay officials more, right? But then, everyone would have to pay more.

The model of attracting new officials is old, outdated, and frankly, difficult. You offer learn-to-ref clinics, put up some posters in the local rink, take and pass a test, get certified, get scheduled to work games, etc. But in these post pandemic days – it’s hard. Who wants to get screamed at by some loose-cannon hockey parent for an hour + on a Saturday afternoon for $20-$40. No thanks. You ever try and ask someone to sign up for something? It’s hard, it takes work, follow up, phone calls, emails, texts, etc. and worst of all, you have no control over who signs up – totally out of your hands.

Now, I don’t know what the percentages would be, but I’d bet most hockey officials played the game at even a bare bones organized house league level. I mean they have to learn to skate somewhere right?

The model has always been – have people who are interested in officiating sign up. At the higher levels, it’s a bit more of a recruitment process. But basically, at the local levels, offer a certification program, charge a fee, take a test and bam – you’re an official. It’s a model based on filtering or bringing people in. It’s a choice for people to do or not.

Well, what if you flipped the model? Instead of filtering new officials in, what if you filtered officials out?

What if the system was… you’re a young child and you want to play organized hockey, awesome. Guess what, as part of a players trajectory from age level – to age level, you are going to be introduced to officiating at the appropriate age, (holy-smokes you’ll even learn the rules of the game–which when you’re starting out as a player is kind of important!). You’ll have a chance to become an official because it’s part of the program of becoming a registered player. It’s what you do.

On the elite side of things, imagine if every player, male and female who attended a player development program/camp for USA Hockey or Hockey Canada walked away with being certified to be an official? You have an elite pool of players at your finger tips who probably have the one skill necessary to be an elite official – skating.

A few things would happen… 1) You would grow the pool of officials exponentially from a younger age. And when the pool grows – the numbers of talented officials would grow too. 2) Instead of trying to rope new officials in – officials rope themselves in because they want to learn to play the game. 3) The culture around officiating would change drastically. If just about every registered player knew what officiating was like – AND ALSO KNEW THE RULES OF HOCKEY, the abuse would drop drastically. There’s no doubt coaches and players would respect one another more. 4) Financially, the coffers would grow. Sure there would be a cost to do something like this, but that can be off-set w/ increased participation registration fees. You always have thousands more players register to play than those who choose to sign up to get certified to become an official. 5) As players go through this type of program from a younger age – some will filter themselves out of officiating – while many, many more will stay in it because they’ve done it for so long, enjoy doing it, and perhaps may see a career path with it.

Outside the box idea for sure. But with all the issues, something drastic has to be done.

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Sifters

Upcoming Events… There usually aren’t a lot of in-season tournaments or special events during the course of the D-I or D-III season, but with Thanksgiving and the holidays approaching, there will be some. Here’s a partial list:

• Las Vegas Showcase, Boston University, Penn State, Minnesota, Yale, Nov. 25-26
• Nutmeg Classic, Bemidji, UCONN, Sacred Heart, Quinnipiac, Nov. 25-26
• Smashville Showcase, Cornell, Northeastern, Princeton,
• Mayor’s Cup, Providence vs Brown, Nov. 26
• East/West Showcase, St. Cloud, Minnesota, UNH, Merrimack, Jan. 6-7
• Capital District Mayors Cup, Union & RPI, Jan. 28
• The Beanpot, Boston College, Boston University, Harvard, Northeastern, Feb 7 & 14

History Made… It is believed to be a first in D-I as two black female assistant coaches faced off vs. one another when Union College’s Olivia Soares faced Dartmouth College’s Nina Rogers last weekend. The story made NHL.com which you can read HERE.

New Poll… For those who don’t know about The Ice Garden, you should. It’s a SB Nation blow/website that covers the PHF and all things professional women’s hockey. They also do their own NCAA D-I Women’s Poll each week. You can catch that right HERE.

NLI Signings… The National Letter of Intent signing period was last week which allowed players a chance to sign their scholarship paperwork. Programs usually will announce recent signings after this period on their websites – so stay tuned!

ECAC News… Big news out of the ECAC this week as we learned the ECAC Women’s and Men’s playoffs will feature all 12 teams. While no specific playoff structure was announced for the women, it’s believed the they will follow the men’s side. Teams 1-4 will get a bye in the first round while teams 5-8 will host seeds 9-12 in a one game single elimination format. Winners would move on to play in a quarter-final best-of-three series hosted by seeds 1-4 the following weekend. Those winners would move on to the championship semi-finals and finals each. being one game. You can read the official story HERE. The change for the women takes effect in 2024 while the men’s side will see the new format this season.

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ICYMI… Post #77

We’re starting a new section to our blog called… In Case You Missed It or ICYMI. If you didn’t get the chance to read out last post, now you can. Will will begin putting out previous Pipeline posts at the bottom of our current one. Check it out below.

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Until Next Time… Enjoy and Happy Reading!

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-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.

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

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.

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