Little lobs of news and info from around the world of Women’s College Hockey & beyond
The Women’s College Hockey Pipeline…
Stay informed. Get educated. Become ‘HOCKEY-WISE’!
Your leading online resource for NCAA Women’s College Hockey
Latest From… The Women’s College Hockey Podcast – Episode #3B…
Episode #3A Part I – Is Now LIVE|The Recap
Sifters
US to Host 2024 World Championships… The next 2 World Championship host sites were recently announced. In 2024 they will be held in Utica, NY and in 2025, in Czechia. You can read more on the Utica announcement HERE.
IIHF Hall Calls Ouellette… Former Minnesota Duluth Bulldog Caroline Ouellette was inducted into the IIHF Hall of Fame last week. She is one of the most decorated women’s hockey players ever. Ouellette now spends her time as the Associate Head Coach for the Usport Concordia University Stingers program in Montreal.
IIHF 2023 Congress Video… As it does every year at the men’s World Championships, the IIHF Congress takes place to recap they year, talk new initiatives, and vote on matters of importance like rule changes, World Championship locations and bid processes. You can view the entire 7 hour (!) congress HERE if you like.
Of note, here are some interesting numbers from the recent Women’s World Championships held in Brampton, Ontario back in April.
85 credentialed media members from 8 countries covered the event
77,306 tickets were sold
Total Attendance: 59,402 (wondering if that means a lot of no-shows with 77K+ tix sold??)
Canada’s games had an ave. attendance of 4,073 (capacity of 5,000)
Over $248,000 in 50/50 revenue generated with six 50/50 draws
All games broadcast on TSN
15.7 % of Canada’s population watched some of the tournament… or 6.23 million viewers
Gold Medal Game had a 1.1 million average minute audience with a peak of 2,830,000 on TSN
Unfortunately I don’t have any US figures to share at this time.
IIHF Women’s World Jrs. being discussed… As has been discussed amongst NCAA coaching circles for years as wishful thinking, the time may be coming for a Women’s World Junior Championship type event. Currently, the IIHF does not offer a category championship between the U18 and top senior championship. And a World Jr. event would fill that void. As Ian Kennedy, writer on women’s hockey for The Hockey News uncovers, it’s probably not far off from becoming reality. See his interview with the IIHF HERE.
Harvey is 2023 Bob Allen Women’s Player of the Year… USA Hockey announced that Wisconsin Freshman Defender and 2022 US Olympian, Caroline Harvey is the 2023 Bob Allen Women’s Hockey Player of the Year recipient. You can read the announcement HERE.
JWHL Expands… The Rothesay Netherwood School, New Brunswick will be joining the Junior Women’s Hockey League for the 23-24 season, You can read about the announcement below:
We are excited to share the addition of @RNS1877 to the #JWHL for the 2023-24 Season.
New Jr. League in Sask… Looks Saskatchewan is following in Ontario’s footstep by offering a U-22 Junior league to begin play next season. Which makes sense given the effect of COVID. You can watch the news clip here.
Friendship Ireland Series is back… Hockey is going overseas again. Providence is set to face-off vs. Princeton for a two-game series Jan. 6 & 7. You can read the official announcement HERE.
Until Next Time Everyone… Be Well and take Care,
-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. Paid 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.
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 4th 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 amateur 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.
Learn how to gain back your summers, save time, money, and your mental health.
The Women’s College Hockey Pipeline…
Stay informed. Get educated. Become ‘HOCKEY-WISE’!
Your leading online resource for NCAA Women’s College Hockey
Latest From… The Women’s College Hockey Podcast – Episode #3B…
Episode #3A Part I – Is Now LIVE|The Recap
Save Your Sanity
A follow up to ‘The Silly Season’
First, we have an omission to clarify. Earlier in the week I mentioned D-III would have 3 new institutions start programs for in the fall. I was incorrect… there will actually be 4. Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts (MCLA) will also be adding a program. This gives D-III 71 varsity teams for next season.
Okay… onto today’s post.
Parents… this post is primarily for you. But players, this is really important for you to read as well.
I said I would try and explain how families can get back some sanity to their summers while potentially saving some serious $, and put some control back in your daughter(s) quest to play college hockey. I also think in addition, if you can do a few things outlined below, you’ll be giving your mental health big boost too.
Families can spend an inordinate amount of time and money – THOUSANDS of dollars, easily in the 4 and 5 figures, on tournament teams, showcases, and camps.
So how can you recoup some of your summer and actually have one? First, It’s important to understand there are couple of forces in play, which you have little to no control over.
One, there is an overabundance of Summer ‘recruiting’ options. Everyone seems to run a showcase or camp touting how it will help you in the recruiting process. I just updated my list for June alone (link at the end of the post) and I’m at 23 and counting. Uh, email just came in. Make that 24.
Two, Chances are, college coaches have already watched your daughter(s) play, especially if you’er a player beyond grade 9. College coaches have to make the best use of their recruiting time in the summer. That means talent depth of an event is important.
Three, Recruiting is a numbers game. A typical D-I recruiting class is about 250 players at D-III it’s about 450. The size of the actual recruiting pool is closer to probably 1,500 to 2,000 grade 12 & Post-Grad players globally. Add 80-90+ D-I graduate transfers and that 250 just went to 160. At D-III we’re not completely sure what the 5th Year grad transfer numbers are. Bottom line – you have to be excellent to play at the highest level.
For the recruiting class of 2025, we’re basically back to pre-covid numbers on recruiting – no more COVID 5th year grad transfer recruits.
Four, The college hockey recruiting culture and environment is largely driven by the recruiting rules that govern D-I.
Five, There is a huge difference between exposure and development. A good way to think of it – exposure is a great way to show how much development in your game has taken place. Having a good balance between development and exposure is a great way to go about planning your summer’s hockey activites.
Like most things in life, a healthy balance between a few things is a pretty good recipe for success. So, if you’re sick of running around the globe with your family in toe, hoping your credit card doesn’t decline at the next hotel stop, there are ways in which to approach a change in your summer hockey schedule that can really have a positive impact.
1) Buy into the concept of less = more and don’t fear FOMO. Reallocate your financial resources and commit to attending less events and have your daughter focus on training and the process of getting better. It takes work.
2) Pay for some type of regularly scheduled ON and OFF-ice training be it a gym membership or personal trainer, on-ice skill development and or a power skating coach for at least 6-8 weeks, 2-4 times per week. 4 on-ice session per week over 8 weeks = 32 sessions of training. You can get 50% of a seasons’ worth of on-ice training in 8 weeks. Off-ice training, in my opinion is the single biggest driver of on-ice performance.
3) Create a summer development plan. Figure out what type of training you’ll commit to doing, pull out the calendar and schedule what your summer will look like so you can not only attend a few events based on what you want to get out of them but continue to train.
4) Take the rest of your saved money and put 1/2 toward a nice vacation for all her hard work and the other 1/2 into the college fund.
If she won’t commit to trying something like that, you may want to rethink spending all that money in the future.
So what’s the payoff?
#1, you’ll give your daughter a chance to prove she’s committed enough to play college hockey – because no matter D-I or D-III, there is a lot more practicing and training than playing games. You’ll save money in the long run and give your daughter a chance to actually improve her game. So, when she does get in front of college coaches, she’ll hopefully make a positive impression.
#2, college coaches don’t need to see you play 9 different times between June and August. Remember, chances are – they’ve already watched you play multiple times and have an opinion. What coaches do like seeing – is a player improve.
#3, I mentioned a boost to your mental health. And this may be the single biggest benefit of all. This time in your daughter’s life, this path she’s on to play college hockey, can be extremely stressful. Not only for her, but for you as her parent. This is where you really need to be cognizant of your mindset. Are you and your daughter controlling the path or are you on the hamster-wheel? Because if you are on the wheel, then the process will control you. Usually, we feel stress when things are out of our control or we can’t quite see how an outcome is derived. FOMO is real. But if you’re FOMO is because you’re missing the next 3 showcases, that’s like fake FOMO. If you’re going to have FOMO, at least let it be for her missing out on the 3 weeks of off-ice training while you hit the showcase circuit.
Your mental health is extremely important. Make a plan and you’ll feel less anxious about the future.
It does seem a little ‘silly’… this type of environment that exists. The NCAA could make some future changes to recruiting but for now, it is business as usual. Exposure to college coaches is good – when you are a good competent player. Exposure is bad… when you can’t really play the game. Signing up for 9 different events when your shot can’t reach the net or you can’t break the puck out, isn’t a good plan.
In closing, of course not everyone is on the hamster-wheel. There are quite a few families who subscribe to the ‘focus on development first’ theory. Honestly, most players don’t need a ton of extra exposure in the summer. They get enough during the regular hockey season. What most do need, is to map out a plan, put in the work and train so they can improve.
Oh… if you want to see my event list – as I mentioned it above – just click HERE.
Until Next Time Everyone… Be Well and take Care,
-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. Paid 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.
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 4th 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 amateur 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.
Stay informed. Get educated. Become ‘HOCKEY-WISE’!
Your leading online resource for NCAA Women’s College Hockey
Latest From… The Women’s College Hockey Podcast – Episode #3B…
Episode #3A Part I – Is Now LIVE|The Recap
The Silly Season Begins
For our readers in the US, hopefully you are enjoying your Memorial Day with friends and family and making something great on the grill.
As Memorial Day is the unofficial start to Summer, in just a few short days the official start of the women’s college hockey recruiting season will begin – on June 1st. ‘The Silly Season’ as I would call it – is here.
I can’t lay claim to coining the phrase… For those who are regular listeners of NHL Sirius XM station like I am, you have surly heard the term – The Silly Season. A reference to all the crazy Tom-Foolery nonsense that surrounds NHL Free-Agency which begins July 1. Such a great term I had to use it.
So, for NCAA Coaches and youth hockey families, the summer can be a ‘Silly’ time of year. It can even seem more busy that the regular season. Is there really ever really a break?
For players and families ‘The Silly Season’ means traveling around and attending recruiting events from coast to coast, all across the globe for much of the summer. Your focus is primarily on getting as much exposure to college coaches as you can… and giving up the chance to play another sport, have a job, do some volunteer work, and really – just be a kid in the summer.
For College Coaches, ‘The Silly Season’ means a lot of recruiting: Phone calls to recruits at all hours of the day, lots of time in the car, airport and hotels, hours spent in rinks either working hockey camps or evaluating potential recruits. And lots of hours away from family and friends.
It’s like players and coaches are on the same hamster-wheel. Coaches chase players because we go where the players are, and players are chasing their college hockey dreams based on where coaches say they’ll be at.
Does it need to be this way?
No, it doesn’t.
And in tomorrow’s post, I’ll explain how you can control the silliness, get more out the recruiting process, while buying time and saving money.
Until Next Time Everyone… Be Well and take Care,
-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. Paid 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.
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 4th 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 amateur 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.
Stay informed. Get educated. Become ‘HOCKEY-WISE’!
Your leading online resource for NCAA Women’s College Hockey
Latest From… The Women’s College Hockey Podcast – Episode #3B…
Episode #3A Part I – Is Now LIVE|The Recap
New teams start up… old ones comeback to life
College hockey is expanding. D-III will add 3 new programs for the 23-24 season. The Milwaukee School of Engineering will begin play in the NCHA as will The University of Dubuque (Iowa). The untimely closing of Finlandia University paved the way for U of D to begin its women’s and men’s programs for next season. Connecticut and New Haven based Albertus Magnus College, will begin play as an independent this coming season before joining the NEHC for 24-25.
The State University of New York Athletic Conference (SUNYAC) announced plans to add women’s hockey to its conference portfolio by absorbing the NEWHL, the North East Women’s Hockey League, effective July 1. The new conference will include Buffalo State, Cortland, Oswego, Plattsburgh and Potsdam while Canton and Morrisville will become associate members of the SUNYAC.
On the D-I side, one new program begins and old familiar program gets resurrected. The New England Women’s Hockey Alliance welcomes its 8th member, Assumption College in Worcester, Massachusetts. Robert Morris University in Pittsburgh re-joins College Hockey America after the program was cancelled (as well as the men’s program) just after its NCAA Tournament appearance in 2021. That is an important add because the CHA gets back to 6 teams – the NCAA requirement for any conference to receive an auto-bid to the NCAA Tournament. Congrats to Coach Bittle & staff on getting things back-up and running.
At the AHCA Coaches Convention in Naples, FL reliable sources indicated to our coaching body there is a school in Michigan (we don’t know which one) that is rumored to be very close to announcing they are starting a D-I program. That is exciting and I’ll be sure to keep you updated.
Utica University (New York), SUNY-Binghamton (New York), Le Moyne College (New York) and Bentley University in Boston have all intimated about starting programs, but no one has pulled the trigger yet.
Until Next Time Everyone… Be Well and take Care.
Until Next Time Everyone… Be Well and take Care,
-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. Paid 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.
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 4th 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 amateur 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.
Stay informed. Get educated. Become ‘HOCKEY-WISE’!
Your leading online resource for NCAA Women’s College Hockey
Latest From… The Women’s College Hockey Podcast – Episode #3B…
Episode #3A Part I – Is Now LIVE|The Recap
Transfer Season
For players graduating in the Spring of 2024 and 2025, they’ll be faced with two choices: graduate and move on from playing college hockey, or decide to finish out their eligibility as a graduate student.
D-I and D-III College Hockey will begin its 3rd year this fall dealing with graduate players & transfers this fall. In September, the NCAA legislated new transfer rules that players and coaches now have to follow.
The cliff-notes version is players now have a 60-day window to declare their intentions to transfer in writing to their existing school and enter the transfer portal. That 60-day window begins on the day after of the D-I NCAA Tournament Selection Show. This years transfer period window was March 6th and ended May 4th. Players who have had cuts to their financial aid or if their scholarships have been reduced/cancelled, or where their program has a head coaching change after the window has closed, may enter the portal after the 60-day window and be eligible immediately provided they meet all other transfer criteria.
Since the COVID 5th year was granted, the number of 5th year players available created a new market for coaches to recruit from and thus the number of transfers has exploded compared to what the number normally is. To my best efforts, I counted 80 D-I 5th year graduate players on rosters in 2021-2022 season while there were 95 in 2022-2023.
The most comprehensive list of D-I transfers heading into next season I can find – is HERE. This list is updated by The Rink Live, a hockey media company which covers Minnesota and North Dakota. Programs still have 2 more seasons to manage the 5th year of COVID eligibility before it goes away–thankfully.
Until Next Time Everyone… Be Well and take Care,
-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. Paid 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.
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 4th 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 amateur 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.
Stay informed. Get educated. Become ‘HOCKEY-WISE’!
Your leading online resource for NCAA Women’s College Hockey
Latest From… The Women’s College Hockey Podcast – Episode #3B…
Episode #3A Part I – Is Now LIVE|The Recap
First, A Few Words…
It has been quite a while since my last post and apologies are in order. It’s been WAY too long of an absence. In the twists and turns of the college hockey season, the time required to post as often as I hoped and in the manner I wanted, became a true challenge.
As the title of today’s post would indicate, it’s now the ‘Off-Season’ and I have a bit more free time (I think) to update the Pipeline about what’s going on in the world of Women’s College Hockey. There is certainly lots to discuss.
So, in the interest of brevity, I’ll be trying a new approach: 1) shorter length posts for a quicker read and 2) an increased frequency in the # of posts published. That means more updates, more information, more often. That’s the goal.
To all of you who stopped me at the rink with a comment or to suggest a topic to discuss, thank you for paying attention.
Now let’s get to it.
Next Year Is Here
‘Next Year’ in the college hockey world is here.
Most institutions have already had or are about to have graduation ceremonies. It’s an exciting time for coaches and players, but also a bit scary at the same time.
Seniors depart to do real-world things be it grad school, a job, time off to travel, or even perhaps extend their playing careers in North America or overseas. It also means next years crop of freshmen and transfers are just a few short months, weeks in some D-I cases, away from matriculating to campus to start new beginnings.
With May comes a chance for coaches to get a bit of downtime, a chance to re-charge their batteries before the summer recruiting and camp season kicks in. Players are able to do the same before hitting the gym or ice to make some gains and keep up with their training. Honestly, I find it’s nice to get away from the game for a bit. I always gain a new perspective as I inevitably mull over the past season. I also get the chance to reconnect with some of my passions outside of hockey–namely golf, travel, and cooking to name a few.
With the end of any season comes change, and changes in coaching staffs are all part of the coaching gig. Coaches depart, while new ones get hired. Here’s a quick look at some changes behind the bench for this upcoming season.
23-24 Coaching Changes Tracker
I’ve kept track of every D-I and D-III coaching/support staff change I could find over the past 3 seasons. Last Spring saw an unprecedented number of opportunities open-up. In what could have been anticipated, there is much less movement this Spring. As has been the case since 2002, there will be yet again be at least 3 D-I head coaching changes to start the coming season. Boston University, Stonehill, and Lindenwood will all see new faces behind the bench. Currently there are 7 head coaching changes that will take place on the D-III side of things.
One coaching change that warrants attention is actually not on the women’s side of college hockey, but on the men’s. Damian DiGiulian, head coach of the St. Michael’s College men’s D-III program will hire his first female full-time lead assistant coach–Lilly Holmes. Holmes who just last week completed her D-I playing career at Vermont, will step into her assistant coaching role for the upcoming 23-24 season. She served as a volunteer coach on DiGuilian’s staff this past season.
I can’t think of any female full-time asst. coaches with any men’s NCAA teams off the top of my head. Perhaps this is something you will see more of in the future. You can read the full story HERE via WCAX.
To see our Coaching Changes Tracker Google Sheet, just click HERE.
-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. Paid 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.
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 4th 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 amateur 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.
Stay informed. Get educated. Become ‘HOCKEY-WISE’!
Your leading online resource for NCAA Women’s College Hockey
Latest From… The Women’s College Hockey Podcast – Episode #3B…
Episode #3A Part I – Is Now LIVE|The Recap
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.
I hope you had a great holiday and start to the new year. The college hockey holiday break usually means the D-I season is at or a little more than half-way complete. D-III teams a little less so since their season starts a bit later. But for some D-I teams (which is hard to fathom) are inching their way to 70 % of the regular season being complete.
D-I teams can play a regular season max of 34 games (29 for the Ivies & 25 for D-III) and Penn State leads the country in games played to date with 24. Cornell, Harvard, Princeton, and Yale have played the least, with 14. Usually teams schedule a non-conference opponent to start the 2nd half, and there have been plenty.
In fact every D-I game played since the holiday break has been non-conference as well as many D-III games.
Upon their return to campus, teams usually have the luxury of a little more of a relaxed game schedule vs. trying to pack games in. Classes usually don’t pick back up until the 2nd or 3rd week of Jan. for most schools – and that extra time means a lot of practice and potentially, a lot of games can be played. To give you an example, here is how heavy a schedule some teams are playing within each conference as they return from the holiday break. Keep in mind the normal number of games played in a week is 2, with 4 practice days. Anyone not on the list below has a more ‘normal’ schedule of games to practices leading into the 3rd week of Jan.
Since we’re going to be talking numbers and recruiting… Here’s my disclaimer… when speaking of a teams’ roster size, or a total number of recruits in a given class, or numbers of transfers – these are all best guesses – but educated guesses nonetheless. There is always room for error + or – and unfortunately, there is no website that is the absolute truth in keeping all the commitments… say for the college rosters themselves when they posted after a particular season begins. So, please keep in mind the below are educated best guesses. That said… here we go.
The recruiting process for the 2023 class is largely in its final stages. However, for the 2024 class – those who are now in grade 11 – there is still a ways to go.
With two new D-I teams set to begin next season, you can probably expect roster sizes of each in the low 20’s. Having built a program from the ground up myself, I know what the challenge is like and how difficult a task it is. Not only are you tasked with finding players to fill out a team for your first year, but you have to keep recruiting players to improve your program.
Not all players heading to a first-year program will be freshman. The NCAA transfer portal could certainly be a factor for both programs. As we’ve said an average incoming class is in the 250-260.
2023 Class
Based some of the websites that list commitments, we find about 160 D-I commits. Of course there are some errors in those numbers with de-commits, wrong info etc. and a host of commits that have not been announced yet but that’s a pretty realistic number when you do the math. When you add 160 commits, plus a possible grad transfers # of 95 (using this years number) and an additional 30+ commits left to be announced to fill out 2 entirely new rosters… you get a number around 300 or so. And of those, 200 are going to be first year players strait from the amateur ranks – not transfers.
Interestingly, based on the info we can find, around 80 of the commitments made for the class were announced in the 2022 calendar year. Now that doesn’t mean commitments didn’t happen earlier, it just means when they were announced. Of the announcements made, 5 came in the calendar year 2018, 11 in 2019, one in 2020 (covid), and 58 in 2021. What we don’t have data on is how of these commits took a gap or PG year.
2024 Class
So far we can tell there have been about 60 announced commitments – with 75% of those coming before Nov. 1 in this calendar year 2022. The total number of commits should drop because there are not 2 new teams that need to be recruited for. When accounting for say – 95 grad transfers in the class, there should be a total freshman/first year class commitment number around 170… given 60 announced commitments, there should be another 100 or so left in the class. Said another way, the 2024 class is roughly 35-45% committed.
In our next recruiting update, we’ll take a look at the available space in 2023 & 2024 and see how the numbers might play out.
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.
Others receiving votes: Connecticut College 11, Augsburg 8, Williams 8, Cortland 7, Wesleyan 7, St. Norbert 6, Endicott 4, Bowdoin 2, Suffolk 2
D-I & D-III Weekly Schedules
As you will see, it’s an extremely light week of games. Most programs are done for the semester as exams are now the priority for players. There is one Top-15 match-up as #1 Ohio State travels to take on #10 Cornell in Ithaca, NY Saturday and Sunday.
D-I teams are more or less at the mid-way point of the year in terms of # of conference games played. Northeastern, Quinnipiac, Long Island Univ., Penn State, and Minnesota are atop their respective conferences as we head into the holiday break.
The 2nd half of the year is more of a full on sprint as teams jockey for playoff positioning. Rarely if ever does a team have a weekend off and just about every game in a conference game with plenty of meaning. It can be a grind, but it truly is the best part of the season.
NCAA D-I National Stats
*From the Official NCAA Stats site as of 12-15-22. Top 54 players appear w/ ave of 1.00 pts per game.
In our last post, we had a section on Freshman production, and how hard it is to produce points on a consistent basis. This year seems to be proving no different. There are a total of just 6 Freshman in the top 54 of point producers thus far and only 1 in the top 25. See the full list of point producers this year with a minimum average of 1.00 points per game.
New NCAA Leadership… The NCAA has its new leader. Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker will take over as President of the NCAA in March of 2023. A former college basketball player at Harvard himself, Governor Baker has both public and private sector leadership experience. He comes in a time where the NCAA needs a rudder more than ever to help navigate through unchartered waters. You can read the full story HERE.
Worlds Coming Back to North America… The IIHF announced yesterday that the World Championships are headed to Brampton, Ontario Canada April 5-16, 2023. It’s the first time the Greater Toronto area has had the games since 2000.
World University Schedule & Roster Set… The World University Games schedule and roster is set. Team USA, lead by Brendon Knight will take on Japan Thursday Jan. 12 at 1pm. You can get the full Team USA roster and schedule HERE. Knight’s team will be comprised of NCAA D-I and D-III players who are currently playing college hockey this season and who have their undergrad degree and are enrolled in grad school.
Patty Kaz Watch… NCAA.com came out with their Patty Kaz Watch List of players to keep eyes on. Of the top 10, 5 comes from the WCHA, 3 from Hockey East, and 2 from the ECAC.
-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.
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 4th 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 amateur 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.
Stay informed. Get educated. Become ‘HOCKEY-WISE’!
Your leading online resource for NCAA Women’s College Hockey
Latest From… The Women’s College Hockey Podcast – Episode #3B…
Episode #3A Part I – Is Now LIVE|The Recap
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.
Others receiving votes: Connecticut College 11, Augsburg 8, Williams 8, Cortland 7, Wesleyan 7, St. Norbert 6, Endicott 4, Bowdoin 2, Suffolk 2
D-I & D-III Weekly Schedules
As you will see, it’s an extremely light week of games. Most programs are done for the semester as exams are now the priority for players. There is one Top-15 match-up as #1 Ohio State travels to take on #10 Cornell in Ithaca, NY Saturday and Sunday.
D-I teams are more or less at the mid-way point of the year in terms of # of conference games played. Northeastern, Quinnipiac, Long Island Univ., Penn State, and Minnesota are atop their respective conferences as we head into the holiday break.
The 2nd half of the year is more of a full on sprint as teams jockey for playoff positioning. Rarely if ever does a team have a weekend off and just about every game in a conference game with plenty of meaning. It can be a grind, but it truly is the best part of the season.
*From the Official NCAA Stats site as of 12-15-22. Top 54 players appear w/ ave of 1.00 pts per game.
In our last post, we had a section on Freshman production, and how hard it is to produce points on a consistent basis. This year seems to be proving no different. There are a total of just 6 Freshman in the top 54 of point producers thus far and only 1 in the top 25. See the full list of point producers this year with a minimum average of 1.00 points per game.
New NCAA Leadership… The NCAA has its new leader. Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker will take over as President of the NCAA in March of 2023. A former college basketball player at Harvard himself, Governor Baker has both public and private sector leadership experience. He comes in a time where the NCAA needs a rudder more than ever to help navigate through unchartered waters. You can read the full story HERE.
Worlds Coming Back to North America… The IIHF announced yesterday that the World Championships are headed to Brampton, Ontario Canada April 5-16, 2023. It’s the first time the Greater Toronto area has had the games since 2000.
World University Schedule & Roster Set… The World University Games schedule and roster is set. Team USA, lead by Brendon Knight will take on Japan Thursday Jan. 12 at 1pm. You can get the full Team USA roster and schedule HERE. Knight’s team will be comprised of NCAA D-I and D-III players who are currently playing college hockey this season and who have their undergrad degree and are enrolled in grad school.
Patty Kaz Watch… NCAA.com came out with their Patty Kaz Watch List of players to keep eyes on. Of the top 10, 5 comes from the WCHA, 3 from Hockey East, and 2 from the ECAC.
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.
The Women’s College Hockey Pipeline…
Stay informed. Get educated. Become ‘HOCKEY-WISE’ !
Your leading online resource for NCAA Women’s College Hockey
Others receiving votes: Boston College 11, Princeton 10, Maine 6, Mercyhurst 5
USA Today/USA Hockey Magazine Women’s College Hockey Poll
December 6, 2022
Rank
Team
Points
(First Place Votes)
Last Poll
Record
Weeks in Poll
1
Ohio State University
265
(5)
1
14-2-2
13
2
University of Wisconsin
264
(10)
2
13-2-1
13
3
Quinnipiac University
251
4
16-1-0
13
4
University of Minnesota
213
5
12-3-1
13
5
Yale University
207
3
8-1-1
13
6
Colgate University
203
6
15-2-1
13
7
Northeastern University
174
(1)
7
18-2-1
13
8
University of Minnesota Duluth
169
8
12-6-0
13
9
Providence College
116
9
15-4-1
8
10
Cornell University
110
10
7-3-2
13
11
Clarkson University
99
11
16-5-1
13
12
Penn State University
82
12
13-8-1
12
13
University of Vermont
48
13
11-7-1
13
14
St. Cloud State University
29
NR
11-8-0
1
15
University of Connecticut
20
14
12-8-2
8
Others receiving votes: Boston College 10, University of Maine 7, Mercyhurst University 4, Princeton University 3, Minnesota State University 2, St. Lawrence University 2, Long Island University 1, Union College 1.
DCU/USCHO Division III Women’s Poll – December 5, 2022
Being a point producer at the NCAA level is not easy. D-I or D-III, the level doesn’t matter. Scoring goals is even harder and getting points is more difficult than players usually think. How much production a freshman may produce is a common question many NCAA coaches ask their freshman before their first year begins.
Hey Sally, question for you… So, how many points do you think you’ll have this season?
Usually asked to spark some thinking about realistic expectations or goal setting, its always interesting to hear where a player sees themselves and what level of point production they may think they can achieve.
This is a topic I have always been curious about. So, I dove into the numbers. Special thanks to collegehockeystats.net.
To illustrate how difficult point production is, here is an example from the ’19-’20 season in D-I and D-III.
At D-I
During the 2019-202 season there were a total of 282 freshman on NCAA D-I rosters. Of those, there were 163 forwards, 86 defenders, and 33 goalies. Of the Forwards and Defenders, only 88 had 10 or more points the entire season. Said another way, 164 players or 65.8 % of the entire freshman class scored less than 10 points for the year. The highest point total by a freshman was 39. The highest number of goals scored was 19 and highest number of assists was 24.
Of 88 D-I Freshman with 10 points or more, the average number of goals scored was 7.2 — 65 players had 5 goals or more but only 24 players had 10 goals or more.
Of that group of 88, the average number of assists was 10.6 — 81 had 5 assists or more with 46 having 10 or more.
Of those 88, the average number of total points was 17.8
The ave. number of games played was 33.5.
To put further into context, we looked at the Freshman year production of Forwards and Defenders who were on the 2022 US & Canadian Olympic teams. You can see their numbers below. Granted we’re talking about Olympians, but from a pure point production standpoint, there were only 5 players – ON EACH TEAM – who had 40 or more points as freshman. And the distribution of point totals from each team are very similar.
Of the top 53 D-III Freshman point producers, the average number of goals scored was 8.8.
Of the same top 53 Freshman point producers, the average number of assists was 10.9.
Of the same top 53 Freshman point producers, the average number of total points was 19.75.
The ave. number of games played was 25.3
In the future, we’ll do a deeper dive into the numbers and come up with breakdowns by league, division, and ultimately where freshman point producers are coming from prior to entering the NCAA.
It would appear the NCAA transformation committee is in a holding pattern relative to making any additional changes to recruiting rules within women’s ice hockey. The feedback has been that the NCAA needs to figure out what it wants for a governance and infractions structure first, before deciding on new recruiting rules – which does make sense.
So for now anyway, as D-I women’s hockey moves into the Spring/Summer months, we should expect the same rules to be in place for coaches and prospects as we have had previously.
D-I coaches can begin regular communication with recruits starting June 15 after the prospects grade 10 year
Verbal offers may be made by coaches to prospects beginning June 15 after a prospects grade 10 year
On or off campus in-person face-to-face contacts may not begin until August 1 after the prospects grade 10 year
Unofficial and Official visits may happen at any time beginning August 1st for prospects after their grade 10 year
D-I coaches are not allowed to evaluate prospects in-person off of their campus from the Monday prior to the American Hockey Coaches Association convention (April 24, 2023) until June 1
D-I coaches will have an unlimited number of prospect evaluations from June 1 until September 1, 2023. After September 1, D-I coaches are limited to 7 total recruiting opportunities (evaluations or face-to-face contacts with prospects), of which there may be no more than 3 face-to-face off-campus contacts.
The Hall Calls… One of the greatest female players to ever play, Finnish Forward Riikka Sallinen was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame last month. Sallinen played in over 1550 games scoring over 600 goals and amassing 1300 points. She retired from the game at the end of the 2018-2019 season after a career that started back during the ’88-’89. She played in 4 Olympic games and 8 IIHF World Championships. You can read more on her amazing career HERE.
US Names U18 Worlds Roster… USA Hockey announced its U18 roster that will compete in the IIHF U18 World Championships In Sweden January 8-15 in Östersund, Sweden. You can see Team USA’s Roster HEREand its schedule HERE. Minnesota leads the way in having 9 players named to the roster. Canada has not named its roster yet.
New Program Hood College Coaching Position… New NCAA Division III program at Hood College has officially posted its head coaching position, You can find it HERE.
Getting Serious… The International University Sports Federation (FISU) Games is coming to Lake Placid in January – and women’s hockey plans on being a big part. As the 2nd largest multi-sportitng event in the world, the U.S. Women’s hockey entry will be comprised of players who are college/university students at the NCAA D-III and D-I levels. Although the event falls during the NCAA hockey season, former Syracuse Associate Head Women’s Coach Brendon Knight, has been charged with putting together the strongest roster he can. You can learn more about the event HERE.
Until Next Time… Enjoy and Happy Reading!
-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.
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 4th 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 amateur 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.
Stay informed. Get educated. Become ‘HOCKEY-WISE’!
Your leading online resource for NCAA Women’s College Hockey
Latest From… The Women’s College Hockey Podcast – Episode #3B…
Episode #3A Part I – Is Now LIVE|The Recap
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.
Others receiving votes: Boston College 11, Princeton 10, Maine 6, Mercyhurst 5
USA Today/USA Hockey Magazine Women’s College Hockey Poll
December 6, 2022
Rank
Team
Points
(First Place Votes)
Last Poll
Record
Weeks in Poll
1
Ohio State University
265
(5)
1
14-2-2
13
2
University of Wisconsin
264
(10)
2
13-2-1
13
3
Quinnipiac University
251
4
16-1-0
13
4
University of Minnesota
213
5
12-3-1
13
5
Yale University
207
3
8-1-1
13
6
Colgate University
203
6
15-2-1
13
7
Northeastern University
174
(1)
7
18-2-1
13
8
University of Minnesota Duluth
169
8
12-6-0
13
9
Providence College
116
9
15-4-1
8
10
Cornell University
110
10
7-3-2
13
11
Clarkson University
99
11
16-5-1
13
12
Penn State University
82
12
13-8-1
12
13
University of Vermont
48
13
11-7-1
13
14
St. Cloud State University
29
NR
11-8-0
1
15
University of Connecticut
20
14
12-8-2
8
Others receiving votes: Boston College 10, University of Maine 7, Mercyhurst University 4, Princeton University 3, Minnesota State University 2, St. Lawrence University 2, Long Island University 1, Union College 1.
DCU/USCHO Division III Women’s Poll – December 5, 2022
Being a point producer at the NCAA level is not easy. D-I or D-III, the level doesn’t matter. Scoring goals is even harder and getting points is more difficult than players usually think. How much production a freshman may produce is a common question many NCAA coaches ask their freshman before their first year begins.
Hey Sally, question for you… So, how many points do you think you’ll have this season?
Usually asked to spark some thinking about realistic expectations or goal setting, its always interesting to hear where a player sees themselves and what level of point production they may think they can achieve.
This is a topic I have always been curious about. So, I dove into the numbers. Special thanks to collegehockeystats.net.
To illustrate how difficult point production is, here is an example from the ’19-’20 season in D-I and D-III.
At D-I
During the 2019-202 season there were a total of 282 freshman on NCAA D-I rosters. Of those, there were 163 forwards, 86 defenders, and 33 goalies. Of the Forwards and Defenders, only 88 had 10 or more points the entire season. Said another way, 164 players or 65.8 % of the entire freshman class scored less than 10 points for the year. The highest point total by a freshman was 39. The highest number of goals scored was 19 and highest number of assists was 24.
Of 88 D-I Freshman with 10 points or more, the average number of goals scored was 7.2 — 65 players had 5 goals or more but only 24 players had 10 goals or more.
Of that group of 88, the average number of assists was 10.6 — 81 had 5 assists or more with 46 having 10 or more.
Of those 88, the average number of total points was 17.8
The ave. number of games played was 33.5.
To put further into context, we looked at the Freshman year production of Forwards and Defenders who were on the 2022 US & Canadian Olympic teams. You can see their numbers below. Granted we’re talking about Olympians, but from a pure point production standpoint, there were only 5 players – ON EACH TEAM – who had 40 or more points as freshman. And the distribution of point totals from each team are very similar.
Of the top 53 D-III Freshman point producers, the average number of goals scored was 8.8.
Of the same top 53 Freshman point producers, the average number of assists was 10.9.
Of the same top 53 Freshman point producers, the average number of total points was 19.75.
The ave. number of games played was 25.3
In the future, we’ll do a deeper dive into the numbers and come up with breakdowns by league, division, and ultimately where freshman point producers are coming from prior to entering the NCAA.
It would appear the NCAA transformation committee is in a holding pattern relative to making any additional changes to recruiting rules within women’s ice hockey. The feedback has been that the NCAA needs to figure out what it wants for a governance and infractions structure first, before deciding on new recruiting rules – which does make sense.
So for now anyway, as D-I women’s hockey moves into the Spring/Summer months, we should expect the same rules to be in place for coaches and prospects as we have had previously.
D-I coaches can begin regular communication with recruits starting June 15 after the prospects grade 10 year
Verbal offers may be made by coaches to prospects beginning June 15 after a prospects grade 10 year
On or off campus in-person face-to-face contacts may not begin until August 1 after the prospects grade 10 year
Unofficial and Official visits may happen at any time beginning August 1st for prospects after their grade 10 year
D-I coaches are not allowed to evaluate prospects in-person off of their campus from the Monday prior to the American Hockey Coaches Association convention (April 24, 2023) until June 1
D-I coaches will have an unlimited number of prospect evaluations from June 1 until September 1, 2023. After September 1, D-I coaches are limited to 7 total recruiting opportunities (evaluations or face-to-face contacts with prospects), of which there may be no more than 3 face-to-face off-campus contacts.
The Hall Calls… One of the greatest female players to ever play, Finnish Forward Riikka Sallinen was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame last month. Sallinen played in over 1550 games scoring over 600 goals and amassing 1300 points. She retired from the game at the end of the 2018-2019 season after a career that started back during the ’88-’89. She played in 4 Olympic games and 8 IIHF World Championships. You can read more on her amazing career HERE.
US Names U18 Worlds Roster… USA Hockey announced its U18 roster that will compete in the IIHF U18 World Championships In Sweden January 8-15 in Östersund, Sweden. You can see Team USA’s Roster HEREand its schedule HERE. Minnesota leads the way in having 9 players named to the roster. Canada has not named its roster yet.
New Program Hood College Coaching Position… New NCAA Division III program at Hood College has officially posted its head coaching position, You can find it HERE.
Getting Serious… The International University Sports Federation (FISU) Games is coming to Lake Placid in January – and women’s hockey plans on being a big part. As the 2nd largest multi-sportitng event in the world, the U.S. Women’s hockey entry will be comprised of players who are college/university students at the NCAA D-III and D-I levels. Although the event falls during the NCAA hockey season, former Syracuse Associate Head Women’s Coach Brendon Knight, has been charged with putting together the strongest roster he can. You can learn more about the event HERE.
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.
The Women’s College Hockey Pipeline…
Stay informed. Get educated. Become ‘HOCKEY-WISE’ !
Your leading online resource for NCAA Women’s College Hockey
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.
*NCAA Tourney Auto-bid is retained until the end of 22-23. Robert Morris Univ. will re-join the CHA for the 23-24 season as its 6th member meeting the NCAA Tourney Auto-bid requirement.
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?
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.
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.
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
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.
-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.
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 4th 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 amateur 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.
Stay informed. Get educated. Become ‘HOCKEY-WISE’!
Your leading online resource for NCAA Women’s College Hockey
Latest From… The Women’s College Hockey Podcast – Episode #3B…
Episode #3A Part I – Is Now LIVE|The Recap
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.
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.
*NCAA Tourney Auto-bid is retained until the end of 22-23. Robert Morris Univ. will re-join the CHA for the 23-24 season as its 6th member meeting the NCAA Tourney Auto-bid requirement.
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?
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
The Women’s College Hockey Pipeline…
Stay informed. Get educated. Become ‘HOCKEY-WISE’ !
Your leading online resource for NCAA Women’s College Hockey
Lots of New
There’s a whole lot of new coming into the 22-23 NCAA hockey season. New teams, new coaches, old players on new teams, new rules, new polls, and a new auto-bid to the NCAA tourney. You get the picture – Let’s dive in!
NEW TEAMS DROP THE PUCK
Stonehill College in Easton, Massachusetts just outside Boston becomes the NEWHA’s 7th member as they begin play as a first-year NCAA D-I program under first-year Head Coach Tara Watchorn. Thus far, the Skyhawks are 4-3-1 with 4 strait wins in NEWHA play sweeping Post and St. Mike’s after dropping their first two NCAA contests to UCONN 7-1 and 3-2. The Skyhawks have since tied and lost to Brown 2-2 and 3-1 last week.
At Division III, the Hilbert College Hawks out of Hamburg, NY south of Buffalo, get underway this year as an D-III Independent. Their first NCAA games are set for October 28 & 29 when the travel to face Alvernia and Lebanon Valley. The Milwaukee School of Engineering hit the re-set button on starting their program and will begin lay in ’23-’24. Albertus Magnus College in New Haven, CT has made its hire in Steve Novodor and will put a team on the ice next season in 23-24.
NEW COACHES
This was the most active year for coaching/support staff changes in recent memory. 71 changes in total have been made to date. There are a few D-III positions still to be announced, so we’ll eclipse the 70+ mark. That is a lot of turnover.
6 new head coaches get behind the bench this year for D-I programs and 2 more begin the program building process. You have new bench. bosses in Hockey East-Maine, NEWHA-Long Island Univ., Post Univ., and Stonehill College, CHA-Syracuse, WCHA-St. Cloud. 2 more Head Coaches are building programs virtually from the ground up in Robert Morris University (back in the CHA after being cut in 2021) and Assumption College who is making the transition from ACHA Club status to NCAA D-I and the 8th member of the NEWHA.
An astounding 13 new head coaches have been hired in D-III to start the 22-23 season, 10 of which are changes to existing programs.
OLD PLAYERS, NEW TEAMS
In Division I for the 21-22 season, we saw 85 graduate transfers on D-I rosters. Glancing at each schools’ rosters this season in 22-23, we find a total of 95 graduate transfers at the D-I level, an increase of 10 players. That’s right around a third of all players usually taken in a typical recruiting class. We’ll use 6 players as the average number of recruits a program takes per year.
This trend won’t go away until all players who were granted a 5th year due to COVID by the NCAA, exhaust their eligibility. Which, barring any unforeseen circumstances, should be in the Spring of 2025 and means the 25-26 season should have very few if any grad. transfers.
Year 1 = 20-21 (initial COVID year), Year 2 = 21-22, Year 3 = 22-23, Year 4 = 23-24, Year 5 = 24-25
NEW RULES
The 22-23 season begins a new 2-year cycle for the NCAA men’s & women’s ice hockey rules committee to introduce new rules and legislation into the game. New changes with significance this year:
Offsides: A player shall be considered onside if the skate is over the blue line when the puck enters the attacking zone, which is the rule used in the National Hockey League. Previously, the skate was required to be in contact with the blue line.
Video Review: Coaches Challenges – coaches may challenge a reviewable play. If the play is not reversed, a timeout will be charged for the unsuccessful challenge. Any subsequent unsuccessful challenges would result in a minor penalty for delay of game.
Overtime/Shootouts – will remain 3v3 with conference rules to determine if a shootout will be used after a 5-min 3v3 OT period is played.
Major Penalty Option… officials [have] an option of a major (five-minute) penalty without an ejection. An educational video will be developed to illustrate the differences between a major penalty by itself and a major penalty with an ejection.
High sticking in defensive zone: To be consistent with a hand pass infraction in the defensive zone, when the defensive team high sticks the puck in the defensive zone, the team will not be able to change its players.
Covering puck in crease: The committee added covering the puck in the crease by a skater as a reviewable play through a coach’s challenge.
BODY CONTACT
The NCAA Ice Hockey Women’s Rules Committee members as well as the body of coaches and school administrators, feel legal body contact has been penalized far too often. So in an attempt to have greater consistency across all NCAA divisions and conferences, the women’s rules committee requested language around the rules of body contact be clarified and a supplemental video produced and distributed.
The end result – 11 minutes and 18 seconds of video clips and voice-over clarifications and explanations of what legal and illegal body contact is as defined by the NCAA Ice Hockey Women’s Rules Committee. Here are the takeaways:
Legal body contact may consist of:
Use of Angling
Use of Size, Strength and Balance to play the puck
Use of Body Position to control or gain possession of puck
incidental collision may occur and should not be penalized
There is no distinct hip, shoulder, arm or stick contact to physically force the opponent off the puck
Illegal Body Contact–Principles of the continued enforcement standard
The use of the stick will be limited to only playing the puck
The stick will not be allowed to in any way impede a players progress
The use of a free hand/arm will not be allowed to grab or impede a player’s progress
Players who use their physical skills and/or anticipation and have a positional advantage shall not lose that advantage as a result of illegal acts by the opponent
Players will be held accountable for acts of an intimidating or dangerous nature
Through the first few weeks of the season, it’s been an adjustment for everyone – officials and players. But the early comments from most coaches seem to indicate they really like the direction. It does seem like less penalties are being called, judging from a quick scan of box scores as compared with memory from early last season. It will be interesting to see the number of body contact/illegal checking penalties called this season vs. last.
NEW NATIONAL POLLS
Good bye top 10, hello top 15. The two leading major media outlets that publicize national polls for D-I and D-III women’s hockey, USCHO.com and USA Today/USA Hockey Magazine (just D-I), will now have a weekly Top 15 National Poll to accommodate the increase of teams selected to the NCAA Tournament – which is now at 11 teams. For years, national polls have always listed 10 teams. Below are the weekly polls as of this week.
It’s been a long Summer and Fall tracking all of the coaching and support staff changes across D-I and D-III. In all, 71 staff changes have taken place to date. And we still have a few more on the D-III side to go before the season gets underway in the next 3 weeks. Why so many changes? Hard to put a finger on one ‘thing’. Professional playing opportunities are paying better and attracting younger female coaches who still want to play. But, that’s a minor trend. Lot’s of head coach turnover, which can mean assistant coach turnover as new head coaches look to bring in their own people. Are coaches throwing in the towel and leaving the profession at the NCAA level, yes to some degree. Based on our data, of the coaches who have been hired as a head or assistant at D-I or D-III, a little less than 40% have no NCAA coaching experience. The coaches who leave programs (let go or otherwise) aren’t necessarily being rehired by other programs, which is a much more common occurrence on the men’s side.
For a complete D-I and D-III list of coaching and professional staff changes to date, click HERE for our google sheet Coaching Changes Tracker.
As October has come and gone, the 2023 D-I recruiting process is on the mind of many players, parents, and coaches alike, D-III as well. Those graduating high school in 2022 or 2023 has been engaged in the process since June 15 of the respective year they were allowed to begin communication. The graduate transfer player pool is usually the last to make their commitments given the timing of when transfers typically make commitments – late Feb/March. So while teams may have ‘space’ or scholarship money left, you can bet many programs are saving it for graduate transfer options.
The first wave of D-I commitments for the class of 2024 usually ends around this time of year. And let’s be honest, making a decision where to spend your college years is not that easy. It takes some time and many factors are involved. For players in grade 11 who have been engaged in the process since June 15 – we’re about the 4.5 month-mark right now. More players will make decisions in the coming weeks and months. Others still will wait to find the right school, hockey program and best fit for them.
On the evaluation side of things… there are still plenty of competitive opportunities between now and when the D-I Women’s Hockey Quiet Period begins, usually in the latter half of April. In December, the USA-Canada Cup in Kitchener always attracts competitive teams from across North America. January 8-15, the IIHF U18 World Championships will be held in Sweden. The Canada Winter Games, which is Canada’s version of the Winter Olympics held every 4 years takes place on Prince Edward Island Feb. 18 to March 5. The USA Hockey National Championships and MN Girls National Development Camp Tryout phase events usually round out the last major events. Bottom line, there are plenty of hockey for coaches to watch and evaluate players.
What’s really interesting to watch will be two things: 1) The changing dynamic of recruiting 5th year grad transfer players and 2) How the new standard of allowable body contact impacts recruiting decisions. Will size and physicality be more of a priority?
Some notables:
There are two more D-I teams coming online next fall – Robert Morris University (CHA) and Assumption College (NEWHA). Both are basically looking to build their rosters from the ground up. And grad transfers could be a big part of the recruiting equation for both schools. So there could be more grad transfers taken next year than in years passed.
If the past two seasons are any indication, more than a third of a typical recruiting class is likely to come from graduate transfers. 85 grad transfers were on rosters during 21-22. In 22-23 there are 95. Perhaps more in the next 2 years?
A typical recruiting class is around 6 players, that equates to 264 spots across D-I. (44 teams x 6 players). next season with RMU and Assumption, that number will increase by 2 full teams’ worth of players – let’s assume 24 players per team–add 48 more players and you’re around the 310 mark. 95 grad transfers would be 30% of the class. That leaves 215 spots to be split up between players graduating high school in ’23 and ’24. That’s at least 215 non-grad transfer players. Roughly 30 U18 national team players from various countries take up spots, and now you’re down to 185 spots left. MN as a state has over 100 varsity High School teams… needless to say, you have to be darn good to get an offer at the D-I level. The environment is as competitive as ever.
Player height/size is always something coaches consider when recruiting and it could become more of a factor in future recruiting decisions. Why? There is a coordinated effort from conference director of officials to standardize play across each conference with respect to body contact. Gone will be the days of the WCHA being ‘the most physical conference’.
-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.
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 4th 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 amateur 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.
