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
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
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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.
Stay informed. Get educated. Become ‘HOCKEY-WISE’!
The Women’s College Hockey Pipeline…
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.
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.
DCU/USCHO Division I Women’s Poll – October 31, 2022
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’.
NCAA D-I Quiet Period Next Week… The National Letter of Intent Fall signing period begins next week. Wednesday November 9 is the actual date players can sign their NLI scholarship paperwork. D-I women’s Ice Hockey has a ‘NCAA Quiet Period’ which begins Monday Nov. 7 and ends at midnight Friday 12:01am. During that time, no on or off campus contact or evaluations may take place. Communication may continue to take place.
Everyone In D-I Is NowPlaying… It may have taken a little longer than in years prior, but every D-I team has now started their season. The last 2 D-I teams to not play a regular season game, Princeton and Yale, finally played their first two games last wknd. At the other end of the spectrum, 6 D-I programs Clarkson, UCONN, Wisconsin, Bemidji, Penn State, and RIT have played more than a 1/3 of their regular season with 12 games played heading into the weekend.
22-23 NCAA Legislative Items Announced… The NCAA Modernization of Rules Subcommittee has recommended significant changes to coaching limits, official and unofficial visits. Announced Oct. 27th of last week were the following recommendations:
Changes to Official / Unofficial Visits
Removal of the 5 official visit limitation. No cap on the total number of officials visits a recruit could take. Only one visit per school would be allowed unless there was a head coaching change after the first official visit. a 2nd visit could be made
Schools would be allowed to pay for transportation, hotel, food, and reasonable entertainment costs for up to 4 individuals accompanying a prospect’s official visit. Guests could include family members, high school or club coaches or anyone helping in the recruits’ decision making process.
Schools could provide complimentary admissions to a home athletics event to prospects and up to four guests.
Coaching Limits
A proposal would increase the number of permissible countable coaches in baseball, softball and ice hockey to five. It is currently at three.
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.
Stay informed. Get educated. Become ‘HOCKEY-WISE’!
The Women’s College Hockey Pipeline…
Your leading online resource for NCAA Women’s College Hockey
Do The Math – Part 2
In our last post we talked about families being able to hep themselves by doing a bit of work on the financial end of things as their daughters’ college/recruiting process begins. That help is in the form of doing self guided family financial evaluation. Doing so will allow families to come up with estimated college expenses and… THE ALL IMPORTANT ‘out-of-pocket dollar amount’ that can be used to pay for these various college and hockey related expenses.
In today’s post, we give families an explanation of how to evaluate this process and the tools – a Google Doc set of financial worksheets to do the math, estimate what expenses they need to account for to come up with that out-of-pocket dollar amount so you can evaluate every opportunity that comes along know what your financial situation is.
You won’t get exact amounts of each expense or amounts related to institutional financial aid. These will be different for everybody based on your own financial situation and the schools / hockey programs you deal with.
So click HERE and we’ll take you to our ‘Paying For College’ portion of our website. You can also find out Family Financial Aid Worksheets HERE to download and work through yourself.
For a lot of reasons, D3 women’s college hockey (heck, women’s hockey in general) doesn’t get much national media attention. Middlebury’s perfect season last year not withstanding, there just aren’t a lot of journalists or members of the media who cover the sport. But, times are changing. And it’s about time.
Last month it was announced that Chris Sugar, the senior MBA and Political Science major at Oswego State University who is the owner/editor and the man behind D3 Hockey News, will be THE ONLY contributing writer for USCHO.com exclusively covering D3 women’s hockey beginning this season.
Chris certainly has a passion for covering D3 hockey. His twitter account @D3HockeyNews has over 6,100 followers and in March of 2022, he started a podcast where he interviews players and coaches and members of the media.
I recently spoke to Chris about his new gig with USCHO.com and he is excited to get to work. Congrats Chris. We look forward to seeing your work!
In addition to Chris’ post with USCHO, another media announcement in the world of women’s hockey caught our eye last week. Stephanie Wood will become the new voice of the New England Hockey Journal’s ‘RinkWise’ Podcast. Stephanie is currently the Head Girls Coach at Austin Prep and Women’s Director at the Islanders Hockey Club in Massachusetts. Her first episode is now live and you can read more about her podcast appointment HERE.
Congrats Stephanie… would love to have you on The Women’s College Hockey Podcast sometime soon!
In media, it’s about eyeballs. How many views, how many followers, how many paid subscriptions? How many people are consuming a particular type of content. The more people consume, the more media coverage there will be… because there will be the dollars coming in to pay people to do the media work that is SO needed in our sport. In this sense, it’s not such a bad idea to be a follower!
We hope to announce more girls/women’s college hockey media coverage in the future.
The 2022 IIHF World Championships began last week. This marks the first time a World Championship was held in the same year after the Olympics. They are being held in Denmark. The Gold Medal game is scheduled for this Sunday Sept. 4 at 1:30 EST.
Lots of connections to NCAA college programs in this event and not just for Team USA or Canada either. Current rostered NCAA players include Sweden with 7, Swiss with 5 players, as well as 1 Canadian uSport player. Czechia with 5, Germany with 5, Finland with 4, Hungary 2, Denmark 2. The US with 9 and Canada has 3.
You can catch up on all the action with the IIHF Video Hub for recaps of each game. Hats off to what I am pretty sure is a Canadian broadcast crew in Denmark providing the production quality.
And speaking of media coverage… thanks to the NHL Network and TSN in Canada for broadcasting all of the US and Canada’s games. You get get a the full tournament schedule HERE.
D1 Season about to begin… We are literally days away from some programs hitting the ice for the first time in 2022-2023. NCAA D-1 rules allow coaches on the ice to practice with their teams a certain number of hours per week prior to the D1 official start date. I know, sounds odd right… allowed to practice before your official start date? It’s true. This years’ official start date for all programs outside of the Ivy League will be September 17. This is when programs can use their ‘regular season’ allotted weekly time limit of athletic activity – 20-hours per week. The first official practice date for Ivy league institutions will be Sept. 23, a full week earlier than normal. NCAA games will begin on Sept. 17 with several exhibition games and the following weekend Sept. 23-24-25, game count for real.
Busy Recruiting Month Ahead…The Dawg Daze Of Summer Showcase hosted by the National Girls Hockey League and the 2023 CPC National Preview Showcase hosted by the Collegiate Prospect Combine got underway last weekend kicking off a busy stretch of recruiting for college coaches. In addition, Manitoba hosted its top 40 U16 & U18 summer development camps in Winnipeg. September alone has something going on pretty much every single weekend. To see where college coaches may be recruiting, click HERE for our 2022-2023 Recruiting Event Calendar. We’ll be provide events for October soon. If you don’t see an event not listed, please send us an email to add it.
New Coaching Hires… It has been the busiest off-season in terms of coaching hires & departures across D-1 and D-3 ever. Here’s a list of new Head Coaches behind the bench at D1 and D3 this year. We’ll preview new assistant coach hires in our next post. The Head Coach turnover rate for D1 coaches was 14.6 %. For D3 it was 15.5%. I’m not sure why I started doing this, but ever since I became a college coach in 2001-2002, I have tracked D1 head coaching changes and there has never been fewer than 3 head coaching changes ever season since ’01-’02.
D-I Head Coaches
Kelly Nash, Long Island University, NEWHA
Gretchen Silverman, Post University, NEWHA
Tara Watchorn, Stonehill College, NEWHA–New Program 22-23
Molly Engstrom, University of Maine, Hockey East
Britni Smith, Syracuse University, College Hockey America
Brian Idalski, St. Cloud State Univ, WCHA
New D-I Head Coach hires who will compete in the 23-24 season
Jack Sweeney, Assumption College, NEWHA
Logan Bittle, Robert Morris University, College Hockey America
D-III Head Coaches
Maddy Santore, Johnson & Wales, NEHC
Zach Perkins, Anna Maria College, Independent
Mollie Fitzpatrick, Plymouth State University, NEHC
Dave LaBaff, Wilkes University, MAC
Kalie Grant, SUNY-Canton, NEWHL
Kevin Dessart, Lawrence University, WIAC
Rachel Grampp, Buffalo State Univ., NEWHL
Finlandia University, Mike Kurug, NCHA
Elmira College, UCHC
Lindsay Macy, St. Benedict College, MIAC
Cole Klubek, Hilbert College, TBD
New D-III Head Coaches who were hired to start new programs(or new teams starting up)
Heath Issacson, Mass College of Liberal Arts, 23-24
TBD, Albertus Magnus College, 23-24
TBD, Hood College, 23-24
Transformation Committee To Meet… Tomorrow August 31 the NCAA Transformation Committee will meet to discuss adoption of a revised package of transfer rules and changes to the ‘Infractions’ process. In an announcement made August 17, there were some concerns over purposed changes. You can read more on the proposed changes HERE.
Canada Stays With Ryan… Hockey Canada announced this week that it has signed Troy Ryan to continue as its Women’s National Team Head Coach over the next 4-year Olympic cycle. Canada will try to win its 6th Olympic gold medal in 2026 with the winter games being help in Italy. You can read more about Ryan’s announcement HERE.
Be sure to scroll down after the Ryan article as there is an interesting story about the Living Sisu Hockey League out of Montreal.
SAT & ACT National Test Dates, Etc… As the amateur hockey season across the globe begins, so too does ‘ACT and SAT Test Taking Season’. Invariably, these tests are mostly offered on Saturdays. And when does everyone play hockey – on the weekends, so conflicts can arise. But they don’t have too. Some coaches over the years have had issues with their players missing a game/practice to take a test.
Coaches… do the right thing and let your players take a test – when the player wants to.
And we would also suggest if you have not registered for a specific test yet – do it now! Here are links to the National Testing Dates in the USA for the SAT and ACT exams — SAT HERE and ACT HERE (scroll toward the bottom of the page). For international students – click the link for the test you want info on: SAT – Int’l — ACT – Int’l (left side of page).
It looks like there is a digital version of the SAT being offered for International students in 2023.
Find Your ‘Why’… Although this twitter thread is about a men’s hockey player who made it to the NHL, a lot of what he preaches is true for any player wanting to play at the most competitive level. Some GREAT stuff, 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. 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.
In our last post we talked about families being able to hep themselves by doing a bit of work on the financial end of things as their daughters’ college/recruiting process begins. That help is in the form of doing self guided family financial evaluation. Doing so will allow families to come up with estimated college expenses and… THE ALL IMPORTANT ‘out-of-pocket dollar amount’ that can be used to pay for these various college and hockey related expenses.
In today’s post, we give families an explanation of how to evaluate this process and the tools – a Google Doc set of financial worksheets to do the math, estimate what expenses they need to account for to come up with that out-of-pocket dollar amount so you can evaluate every opportunity that comes along know what your financial situation is.
You won’t get exact amounts of each expense or amounts related to institutional financial aid. These will be different for everybody based on your own financial situation and the schools / hockey programs you deal with.
So click HERE and we’ll take you to our ‘Paying For College’ portion of our website. You can also find out Family Financial Aid Worksheets HERE to download and work through yourself.
For a lot of reasons, D3 women’s college hockey (heck, women’s hockey in general) doesn’t get much national media attention. Middlebury’s perfect season last year not withstanding, there just aren’t a lot of journalists or members of the media who cover the sport. But, times are changing. And it’s about time.
Last month it was announced that Chris Sugar, the senior MBA and Political Science major at Oswego State University who is the owner/editor and the man behind D3 Hockey News, will be THE ONLY contributing writer for USCHO.com exclusively covering D3 women’s hockey beginning this season.
Chris certainly has a passion for covering D3 hockey. His twitter account @D3HockeyNews has over 6,100 followers and in March of 2022, he started a podcast where he interviews players and coaches and members of the media.
I recently spoke to Chris about his new gig with USCHO.com and he is excited to get to work. Congrats Chris. We look forward to seeing your work!
In addition to Chris’ post with USCHO, another media announcement in the world of women’s hockey caught our eye last week. Stephanie Wood will become the new voice of the New England Hockey Journal’s ‘RinkWise’ Podcast. Stephanie is currently the Head Girls Coach at Austin Prep and Women’s Director at the Islanders Hockey Club in Massachusetts. Her first episode is now live and you can read more about her podcast appointment HERE.
Congrats Stephanie… would love to have you on The Women’s College Hockey Podcast sometime soon!
In media, it’s about eyeballs. How many views, how many followers, how many paid subscriptions? How many people are consuming a particular type of content. The more people consume, the more media coverage there will be… because there will be the dollars coming in to pay people to do the media work that is SO needed in our sport. In this sense, it’s not such a bad idea to be a follower!
We hope to announce more girls/women’s college hockey media coverage in the future.
The 2022 IIHF World Championships began last week. This marks the first time a World Championship was held in the same year after the Olympics. They are being held in Denmark. The Gold Medal game is scheduled for this Sunday Sept. 4 at 1:30 EST.
Lots of connections to NCAA college programs in this event and not just for Team USA or Canada either. Current rostered NCAA players include Sweden with 7, Swiss with 5 players, as well as 1 Canadian uSport player. Czechia with 5, Germany with 5, Finland with 4, Hungary 2, Denmark 2. The US with 9 and Canada has 3.
You can catch up on all the action with the IIHF Video Hub for recaps of each game. Hats off to what I am pretty sure is a Canadian broadcast crew in Denmark providing the production quality.
And speaking of media coverage… thanks to the NHL Network and TSN in Canada for broadcasting all of the US and Canada’s games. You get get a the full tournament schedule HERE.
D1 Season about to begin… We are literally days away from some programs hitting the ice for the first time in 2022-2023. NCAA D-1 rules allow coaches on the ice to practice with their teams a certain number of hours per week prior to the D1 official start date. I know, sounds odd right… allowed to practice before your official start date? It’s true. This years’ official start date for all programs outside of the Ivy League will be September 17. This is when programs can use their ‘regular season’ allotted weekly time limit of athletic activity – 20-hours per week. The first official practice date for Ivy league institutions will be Sept. 23, a full week earlier than normal. NCAA games will begin on Sept. 17 with several exhibition games and the following weekend Sept. 23-24-25, game count for real.
Busy Recruiting Month Ahead…The Dawg Daze Of Summer Showcase hosted by the National Girls Hockey League and the 2023 CPC National Preview Showcase hosted by the Collegiate Prospect Combine got underway last weekend kicking off a busy stretch of recruiting for college coaches. In addition, Manitoba hosted its top 40 U16 & U18 summer development camps in Winnipeg. September alone has something going on pretty much every single weekend. To see where college coaches may be recruiting, click HERE for our 2022-2023 Recruiting Event Calendar. We’ll be provide events for October soon. If you don’t see an event not listed, please send us an email to add it.
New Coaching Hires… It has been the busiest off-season in terms of coaching hires & departures across D-1 and D-3 ever. Here’s a list of new Head Coaches behind the bench at D1 and D3 this year. We’ll preview new assistant coach hires in our next post. The Head Coach turnover rate for D1 coaches was 14.6 %. For D3 it was 15.5%. I’m not sure why I started doing this, but ever since I became a college coach in 2001-2002, I have tracked D1 head coaching changes and there has never been fewer than 3 head coaching changes ever season since ’01-’02.
D-I Head Coaches
Kelly Nash, Long Island University, NEWHA
Gretchen Silverman, Post University, NEWHA
Tara Watchorn, Stonehill College, NEWHA–New Program 22-23
Molly Engstrom, University of Maine, Hockey East
Britni Smith, Syracuse University, College Hockey America
Brian Idalski, St. Cloud State Univ, WCHA
New D-I Head Coach hires who will compete in the 23-24 season
Jack Sweeney, Assumption College, NEWHA
Logan Bittle, Robert Morris University, College Hockey America
D-III Head Coaches
Maddy Santore, Johnson & Wales, NEHC
Zach Perkins, Anna Maria College, Independent
Mollie Fitzpatrick, Plymouth State University, NEHC
Dave LaBaff, Wilkes University, MAC
Kalie Grant, SUNY-Canton, NEWHL
Kevin Dessart, Lawrence University, WIAC
Rachel Grampp, Buffalo State Univ., NEWHL
Finlandia University, Mike Kurug, NCHA
Elmira College, UCHC
Lindsay Macy, St. Benedict College, MIAC
Cole Klubek, Hilbert College, TBD
New D-III Head Coaches who were hired to start new programs(or new teams starting up)
Heath Issacson, Mass College of Liberal Arts, 23-24
TBD, Albertus Magnus College, 23-24
TBD, Hood College, 23-24
Transformation Committee To Meet… Tomorrow August 31 the NCAA Transformation Committee will meet to discuss adoption of a revised package of transfer rules and changes to the ‘Infractions’ process. In an announcement made August 17, there were some concerns over purposed changes. You can read more on the proposed changes HERE.
Canada Stays With Ryan… Hockey Canada announced this week that it has signed Troy Ryan to continue as its Women’s National Team Head Coach over the next 4-year Olympic cycle. Canada will try to win its 6th Olympic gold medal in 2026 with the winter games being help in Italy. You can read more about Ryan’s announcement HERE.
Be sure to scroll down after the Ryan article as there is an interesting story about the Living Sisu Hockey League out of Montreal.
SAT & ACT National Test Dates, Etc… As the amateur hockey season across the globe begins, so too does ‘ACT and SAT Test Taking Season’. Invariably, these tests are mostly offered on Saturdays. And when does everyone play hockey – on the weekends, so conflicts can arise. But they don’t have too. Some coaches over the years have had issues with their players missing a game/practice to take a test.
Coaches… do the right thing and let your players take a test – when the player wants to.
And we would also suggest if you have not registered for a specific test yet – do it now! Here are links to the National Testing Dates in the USA for the SAT and ACT exams — SAT HERE and ACT HERE (scroll toward the bottom of the page). For international students – click the link for the test you want info on: SAT – Int’l — ACT – Int’l (left side of page).
It looks like there is a digital version of the SAT being offered for International students in 2023.
Find Your ‘Why’… Although this twitter thread is about a men’s hockey player who made it to the NHL, a lot of what he preaches is true for any player wanting to play at the most competitive level. Some GREAT stuff, just click HERE.
We’re starting a new section to our blog called… In Case You Missed It. If you didn’t get the chance to read out last have no fear. Will will begin putting out previous Pipeline posts at the bottom of our current one. Check it out below.
On August 3rd the NCAA Division I Board of Directors acted on recommendations made by the Transformation Committee. Some items made it through are were put into action immediately, like more benefits to support athletes. One item did not. The package of recommendations on Transfers was sent back and not voted on.
The NCAA’s D-I Board of Directors took action earlier last week on recommendations made by the Transformation Committee. Schools are now be allowed – immediately – to offer enhanced benefits for student-athletes. The D-I Board of Directors took no action on the TC’s proposed new set of transfer rules.
Institutions are now able to provide enhanced benefits to better their support athletes in a variety of areas such as personal well being & safety, insurance products for major injury and loss of value, and funding participation in elite-level training, tryouts, and competition. It used to be schools were very limited in what they spend $ on to support their athletes in these areas. Starting August 3, schools will no longer need to submit waivers to get approval to pay for these types of benefits.
Let’s say you are a part of your country’s national team program and they want you to participate in a team camp or tournament event. It appears schools will now be able – if they are willing – to pay for their athletes to attend. Or if you’re a potential high draft-pick in your sport and had the potential to get lucrative playing and endorsement contracts, an insurance policy could be purchased by your school to protect against a catastrophic injury and loss of value in your potential earnings.
The D-I Board agreed to not act on the transfer rules package recommended at this time. It seems there was a bit of pushback from the D-I membership as well as SAAC – The Student Athlete Advisory Committee in that some of the transfer rules seemed too restrictive. The original recommendations by the NCAA TC would have allowed for an academic eligibility exception where students would not only be academically eligible from the school they were transferring from, but also have enough credits to be eligible at the school they were transferring to. Additionally, several ‘transfer windows’ would be available where athletes would have a certain amount of time to give written notice to their school with intentions to transfer. However those windows would close after a certain number of days. The SAAC Committee commented that the overall transfer package was deemed too restricting and limited a players’ freedom of movement.
The NCAA’s D-I Board will next meet and vote on additional recommendations from the Transformation Committee on August 31. You can read the full NCAA announcement on its approval of enhanced student-athlete benefits HERE.
U-18 USA & Canada Selection Camps
Hockey Canada’s U18 selection Camp… is already underway in Calgary Alberta. Goaltenders had the first few days of camp Aug. 2nd & 3rd. Forwards and defenders had a series of position specific practices Aug. 4th and 5th prior to the 45-player group is split into 2 teams, Red & White, where team practices will commenced on Aug. 6th. Interestingly, Finland has brought it’s U-18 team over to participate along with Canada. Finland’s participation began with its own team practices Aug. 5 and begin play vs. Team Red Aug. 10.
Speaking of games, it looks like Hockey Canada will be streaming quite a bit of hockey over the next little while.
Canada U-18 Selection Camp Game Streams can be found HERE and then by clicking on the ‘Watch’ link in the right-hand side of the page, see example below.
USA Hockey’s U18 and O18 selection Camp… get’s underway today with games beginning today at the LECOM Harborcenter in Buffalo, NY. Players are split into 2 age groups, Under-18 and Over-18. The U18 group will practice and scrimmage together with 4 total games vs. one another. The Over-18 group will be split into 4 teams for practices and games with each team playing 3 games.
You can find the U18 and O18 team rosters HERE. We haven’t been able to find any info on links to watch live streams. We will keep you posted if we do find some.
Do The Math
Wondering how much you’ll have to pay for college? Best to ‘Do The Math’ now, so you know how much you have to work with down the road – when you’ll need to know…
Unless you plan on your daughter getting a full scholarship, (there aren’t many of that get offered), families are going to wind up paying some amount of money out-of-pocket to put your daughter through college. How much exactly, that’s a lot harder to determine when the college hockey recruiting process is involved.
But even if a final dollar amount is unattainable right now and college could be years away, families SHOULD do something in the meantime to help make things a lot easier in the future.
What families should be doing is a ‘Family Financial Evaluation’.
Simply stated, this is a process where families crunch the numbers and find out a worst-case / this-is-what-we-can-afford at the top end of our budget amount – in order to make paying for college, work. Consider it like an internal family audit and a way of determining what your family finances will be over the next 6 to 7 years. And that’s how many years ahead families should be evaluating their finances for.
Why 6-7 years?
For those players who are heading into grade 11 this coming Fall, you are either in the midst of the recruiting process already or it’s going to probably happen before the grade 11 year is over and that’s the time frame you’ll need to evaluate. 2 more years of high school + 4 years of college. Add in a post-grad year perhaps, and that is how you get to 7.
So why is it important to do this now if we’re talking about something that may not happen for another 7 years!!??
3 reasons. 1) As they say, knowledge is power. The more you know how much you can afford, the better off you will be when it comes time to evaluate college costs. You can focus your time and efforts where legit opportunities are. 2) For someone who is going through the recruiting process right now or soon will, you could be faced with having to make some decisions – and soon. In order to do so, those opportunities have to be affordable in order to work out. 3) Some schools may be real aggressive with making offers, and it’s not just on the D-I side any longer,. Plenty of offers come in the grade 11 year for players at the D-3 level. And at D-I – it’s all about financial aid and knowing costs as there are no athletic scholarships.
In next week’s post, we’ll breakdown what to evaluate when looking at your finances.
Sifters
As David Bowie sang, Cha, Cha, Cha, Changes… The coaching changes keep coming. This time if year is somewhat late for departures, especially of head coaches – but that’s exactly what has happened. Tim Crowley, head coach at Elmira College, has stepped down. We have a suspicion it’s for another coaching position, but that hasn’t been made public yet, and don’t want to speculate. Elmira’s assistant coach, Mandy Montgomery stepped down earlier this summer and that leaved Elmira with two very important positions to fill.
The more unexpected departure came when it was reported last week University of Maine’s Head and Assistant Coach, who are husband and wife, Richard Reichenbach and his wife Sara, resigned for undisclosed reasons. In an article posted by a local TV station WGME, it appears the school has commenced its search process already. You can read that story HERE and see our updated 2022-2023 Coaching Changes Tracker HERE.
Season Almost Here… You know the season is getting closer when conferences start to announce their schedules. The CHA 22-23 schedule can be found HERE. The WCHA conference schedule can be found HERE.
Regional Representation… Ontario and Minnesota Lead The Way… Canada’s U18 Selection camp has players from 7 different provinces, here is a breakdown:
Province
# of Players
British Columbia
6
Alberta
4
Saskatchewan
2
Manitoba
3
Ontario
21
Quebec
5
Nova Scotia
3
Team USA’s U18 National Festival Camp Roster has players from 13 different states, here is a breakdown:
State
# of Players
California
2
Montana
1
Missouri
1
Minnesota
13
Illinois
1
Michigan
2
Pennsylvania
2
Florida
1
New York
1
Vermont
1
Connecticut
1
Massachusetts
4
Wisconsin
1
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.
Give Someone a Stick Tap… Know someone in women’s college hockey who’s work needs some recognition? Nominate them for WCH.org’s monthly ‘Stick Tap’HERE or Email us at: womenscollegehockey@gmail.com
Recruiting Events/League Online Directory… Find all the recruiting events on WCH.org right HERE. Want to add your event? Click HERE to fill out our WCH.org event form.
Grant Kimball is founder and contributing writer at Women’s College Hockey.org and beginning his 3rd season as an Assistant Coach with the Yale University women’s hockey program. Grant has developed an experienced perspective in the world of women’s ice hockey, having coached and recruited players from across the globe during his 25+ year amatuer and NCAA coaching career. He has coached at 6 NCAA DIII and DI programs in the NCHA (D3), the CHA, WCHA, Hockey East, ECAC, and the Ivy League (DI). Beyond coaching, Grant served as a site representative for the 2019 NCAA quarterfinal of the D-I NCAA Tournament. He also currently serves as an Officer with the American Hockey Coaches Association as Vice President of Membership and sits on the AHCA’s Women’s Hockey Executive Committee.
On August 3rd the NCAA Division I Board of Directors acted on recommendations made by the Transformation Committee. Some items made it through are were put into action immediately, like more benefits to support athletes. One item did not. The package of recommendations on Transfers was sent back and not voted on.
The NCAA’s D-I Board of Directors took action earlier last week on recommendations made by the Transformation Committee. Schools are now be allowed – immediately – to offer enhanced benefits for student-athletes. The D-I Board of Directors took no action on the TC’s proposed new set of transfer rules.
Institutions are now able to provide enhanced benefits to better their support athletes in a variety of areas such as personal well being & safety, insurance products for major injury and loss of value, and funding participation in elite-level training, tryouts, and competition. It used to be schools were very limited in what they spend $ on to support their athletes in these areas. Starting August 3, schools will no longer need to submit waivers to get approval to pay for these types of benefits.
Let’s say you are a part of your country’s national team program and they want you to participate in a team camp or tournament event. It appears schools will now be able – if they are willing – to pay for their athletes to attend. Or if you’re a potential high draft-pick in your sport and had the potential to get lucrative playing and endorsement contracts, an insurance policy could be purchased by your school to protect against a catastrophic injury and loss of value in your potential earnings.
The D-I Board agreed to not act on the transfer rules package recommended at this time. It seems there was a bit of pushback from the D-I membership as well as SAAC – The Student Athlete Advisory Committee in that some of the transfer rules seemed too restrictive. The original recommendations by the NCAA TC would have allowed for an academic eligibility exception where students would not only be academically eligible from the school they were transferring from, but also have enough credits to be eligible at the school they were transferring to. Additionally, several ‘transfer windows’ would be available where athletes would have a certain amount of time to give written notice to their school with intentions to transfer. However those windows would close after a certain number of days. The SAAC Committee commented that the overall transfer package was deemed too restricting and limited a players’ freedom of movement.
The NCAA’s D-I Board will next meet and vote on additional recommendations from the Transformation Committee on August 31. You can read the full NCAA announcement on its approval of enhanced student-athlete benefits HERE.
Hockey Canada’s U18 selection Camp… is already underway in Calgary Alberta. Goaltenders had the first few days of camp Aug. 2nd & 3rd. Forwards and defenders had a series of position specific practices Aug. 4th and 5th prior to the 45-player group is split into 2 teams, Red & White, where team practices will commenced on Aug. 6th. Interestingly, Finland has brought it’s U-18 team over to participate along with Canada. Finland’s participation began with its own team practices Aug. 5 and begin play vs. Team Red Aug. 10.
Speaking of games, it looks like Hockey Canada will be streaming quite a bit of hockey over the next little while.
Canada U-18 Selection Camp Game Streams can be found HERE and then by clicking on the ‘Watch’ link in the right-hand side of the page, see example below.
USA Hockey’s U18 and O18 selection Camp… get’s underway today with games beginning today at the LECOM Harborcenter in Buffalo, NY. Players are split into 2 age groups, Under-18 and Over-18. The U18 group will practice and scrimmage together with 4 total games vs. one another. The Over-18 group will be split into 4 teams for practices and games with each team playing 3 games.
You can find the U18 and O18 team rosters HERE. We haven’t been able to find any info on links to watch live streams. We will keep you posted if we do find some.
Wondering how much you’ll have to pay for college? Best to ‘Do The Math’ now, so you know how much you have to work with down the road – when you’ll need to know…
Unless you plan on your daughter getting a full scholarship, (there aren’t many of that get offered), families are going to wind up paying some amount of money out-of-pocket to put your daughter through college. How much exactly, that’s a lot harder to determine when the college hockey recruiting process is involved.
But even if a final dollar amount is unattainable right now and college could be years away, families SHOULD do something in the meantime to help make things a lot easier in the future.
What families should be doing is a ‘Family Financial Evaluation’.
Simply stated, this is a process where families crunch the numbers and find out a worst-case / this-is-what-we-can-afford at the top end of our budget amount – in order to make paying for college, work. Consider it like an internal family audit and a way of determining what your family finances will be over the next 6 to 7 years. And that’s how many years ahead families should be evaluating their finances for.
Why 6-7 years?
For those players who are heading into grade 11 this coming Fall, you are either in the midst of the recruiting process already or it’s going to probably happen before the grade 11 year is over and that’s the time frame you’ll need to evaluate. 2 more years of high school + 4 years of college. Add in a post-grad year perhaps, and that is how you get to 7.
So why is it important to do this now if we’re talking about something that may not happen for another 7 years!!??
3 reasons. 1) As they say, knowledge is power. The more you know how much you can afford, the better off you will be when it comes time to evaluate college costs. You can focus your time and efforts where legit opportunities are. 2) For someone who is going through the recruiting process right now or soon will, you could be faced with having to make some decisions – and soon. In order to do so, those opportunities have to be affordable in order to work out. 3) Some schools may be real aggressive with making offers, and it’s not just on the D-I side any longer,. Plenty of offers come in the grade 11 year for players at the D-3 level. And at D-I – it’s all about financial aid and knowing costs as there are no athletic scholarships.
In next week’s post, we’ll breakdown what to evaluate when looking at your finances.
As David Bowie sang, Cha, Cha, Cha, Changes… The coaching changes keep coming. This time if year is somewhat late for departures, especially of head coaches – but that’s exactly what has happened. Tim Crowley, head coach at Elmira College, has stepped down. We have a suspicion it’s for another coaching position, but that hasn’t been made public yet, and don’t want to speculate. Elmira’s assistant coach, Mandy Montgomery stepped down earlier this summer and that leaved Elmira with two very important positions to fill.
The more unexpected departure came when it was reported last week University of Maine’s Head and Assistant Coach, who are husband and wife, Richard Reichenbach and his wife Sara, resigned for undisclosed reasons. In an article posted by a local TV station WGME, it appears the school has commenced its search process already. You can read that story HERE and see our updated 2022-2023 Coaching Changes Tracker HERE.
Season Almost Here… You know the season is getting closer when conferences start to announce their schedules. The CHA 22-23 schedule can be found HERE. The WCHA conference schedule can be found HERE.
Regional Representation… Ontario and Minnesota Lead The Way… Canada’s U18 Selection camp has players from 7 different provinces, here is a breakdown:
Province
# of Players
British Columbia
6
Alberta
4
Saskatchewan
2
Manitoba
3
Ontario
21
Quebec
5
Nova Scotia
3
Team USA’s U18 National Festival Camp Roster has players from 13 different states, here is a breakdown:
-Streams for games in the ECAC can be found HERE. Subscriptions will be necessary to watch games.
-Streams in the WCHA can be found HERE. Subscriptions will be necessary to watch games.
-Streams in Hockey East this year can be found HERE. Hockey East once again is streaming all game live and for FREE.
-Streams for CHA games with the exception of Penn St. can be found HERE. Subscriptions will be necessary to watch games.
-Streams for NEWHA games can be found at each teams’ website. Subscriptions may be necessary to watch games.
NCAA Coaching Changes… Keep up with all the coaching changes across D-I and D-III HERE.
Give Someone a Stick Tap… Know someone in women’s college hockey who’s work needs some recognition? Nominate them for WCH.org’s monthly ‘Stick Tap’HERE or Email us at: womenscollegehockey@gmail.com
Recruiting Events/League Online Directory… Find all the recruiting events on WCH.org right HERE. Want to add your event? Click HERE to fill out our WCH.org event form.
Grant Kimball is founder and contributing writer at Women’s College Hockey.org and beginning his 3rd season as an Assistant Coach with the Yale University women’s hockey program. Grant has developed an experienced perspective in the world of women’s ice hockey, having coached and recruited players from across the globe during his 25+ year amatuer and NCAA coaching career. He has coached at 6 NCAA DIII and DI programs in the NCHA (D3), the CHA, WCHA, Hockey East, ECAC, and the Ivy League (DI). Beyond coaching, Grant served as a site representative for the 2019 NCAA quarterfinal of the D-I NCAA Tournament. He also currently serves as an Officer with the American Hockey Coaches Association as Vice President of Membership and sits on the AHCA’s Women’s Hockey Executive Committee.
Today we analyze what appears to be a changing landscape around college recruiting and the showcase/tournament style events coaches attend. Showcase, tournament, and camp/clinic event owner / operators could be facing big hurdles in the future as conditions within D-I recruiting, travel, and the NCAA – change.
Recruiting Event Landscape Changing…
There has been quite a bit of talk this summer amongst D-I coaches regarding the lack of real high-end talent and just even a good concentration of talent at events compared to prior years. One reason, there are more showcases, tournaments, and camps than ever. There are way more event operators in the showcase/tournament/camp/clinic space than ever before. Second, beyond what USA Hockey and Hockey Canada offer as part of their Nat’l Dev. Camps or High Performance initiatives, there is only so much talent to go around and only so many weeks to schedule events. We can think of weekend in June but prior to the June 15th call date where there were 4 and 5 major events goin on in the same weekend. Only a few showcase event operators continually attract potential D-I quality talent. We don’t track event rosters and where those participants end up playing college hockey D-I or D-III, but it sure would be interesting to see. For D-III coaches, its a much different story. The environment is great for D-III programs from a talent prospective. D-III staffs do have the same problem D-I coaches have – not enough staff and or $ in the recruiting budget to get to everything they’d like to. The number of players within the competitive player pool, as we call it, has increased. Travel costs have also increased significantly.
We’re probably seeing the D-I recruiting summer landscape change right before our eyes. Coaches want to go where the talent is, especially in the summer months as recruiting is far more targeted now than it used to be. Rosters for showcase/camp style events are extremely hard to come by. Tournaments, not so much. And yes, we know it’s a chicken and egg type of situation. Event/showcase operators need to promote coaches in their marketing materials so players will sign up. But, recruiting dollars aren’t unlimited. With as expensive as travel has become, programs will probably be very careful where they put their dollars to work. Coaches usually go to events for two reason either A) Identify new prospects or B) Evaluate prospects on their recruiting list–hopefully vs. excellent talent.
The takeaway is this, with an overall talent pool spread thin having to choose between multiple events, travels costs not expected to go down anytime soon, and a lot of events scheduled on the same week/weekends, D-I coaches are probably going to get more choosey with where they go in the future, especially in the summer months. And what could make matters worse, are potential looming changes to the women’s ice hockey recruiting calendar from the NCAA Transformation Committee which could drastically cut down the number of days coaches can be off campus to evaluate players.
Recruiting as we know it, is going to look and feel drastically different sooner than later due to upcoming changes from the NCAA Transformation Committee. How soon no one really knows. But why… is bigger more complicated question.
If you follow news about the NCAA then the NCAA Transformation Committee (‘NCAA TC’ for short) should be a group you are aware of. If you don’t, you need to, because college athletics is about to get real interesting. Unlimited scholarships for teams, players getting paid, flexible transfer rules, squad size limits, are all a very real possibility.
So who and what is this NCAA Transformation Committee and why does it exist?
The NCAA hasn’t had a real good track record with its own athletes or in the court system, or with public opinion. It has an image problem. NCAA athletes largely have been uncompensated employees while the NCAA, athletic departments, and high profile sport coaches have reaped billions, all on the backs of their own athletes’ efforts. The dollar amounts are staggering. Lawyers and the athletes realized they were being taken advantage of. Lawsuits followed, as did congressional hearings in Washington. And after a few social media posts from the 2020 NCAA D-I Women’s Basketball Tournament, the disparity in financial support the NCAA doesn’t give to it’s female sport counterparts became a tipping point. A third-party gender equity law-firm review was conducted and voila – you have an organization in real trouble with egg on its face and unless something drastic gets done, the lawsuits keep coming.
To right-the-ship, the NCAA put together a group of 21 people charged with changing how the NCAA operates, what it oversees, and what decisions it gets to make, and thus – the NCAA TC was born. The real plan for the NCAA seems to be figuring out how to transfer power, not get sued, and limit risk while improving its public image.
The NCAA TC is slowly tipping its hand at what will change and how things will be different. The full extent is not known quite yet, but here are some examples of what this group has already committed to changing.
Set membership standards for each Division — I, II, and III. You want to compete at the D-I level, then your athletic department will have to abide by having a certain level of services and resources. What those are exactly isn’t known. Perhaps its in the area of providing adequate mental health professionals, diet/nutrition specialists, academic support services and the like. What the NCAA won’t decide, is how much money schools or sport programs have to spend in certain areas… like scholarships, etc.
Do away with scholarship limits. Example… hockey has a limit of 18 full scholarships. The NCAA wants to do away with those limits and open it up to allow schools the freedom to spend as they wish.
Squad Size Limits… the NCAA would dictate how large rosters could be. As an example, D-I hockey teams may be limited to having no more than a certain number of players on a roster.
Do away with coaching staff limitations… The NCA would not mandate how many or how few coaches could be employed full-time to work with a team. Now, D-I Hockey has a limit of 3 full-time coaches + 1 volunteer… that could go away and you could have any number of coaches on staff. The number of coaches who could be in a recruiting capacity would be very similar to what staffs have now however. In hockey, this amounts to programs adding compensated skills or power skating/goalie coaches. Whereas before, program could have only volunteer, the prospect of hockey programs having many coaches is real.
Recruiting calendars… This is the big one. Sports would have their own recruiting calendars with a pre-determined amount of weeks where no recruiting activities could take place. As an example, women’s hockey could have a period of up to 10 weeks per calendar year where no recruiting activities can take place… no player evaluations, no communication allowed with recruits, families, youth hockey/high school/club coaches… this is a complete evaluation and communication SHUTDOWN. D-I women’s hockey already has about 6 weeks where we can’t evaluate from the end of April (usually) until June 1. However, coaches can still communicate. Programs would have a certain number of ‘recruiting days’ to utilize per year to evaluate and potentially have NO limits on the number of evaluations or how often communication could take place. As an example, a D-I program may have 200 recruiting days to use as a staff combined between all coaches (not 200 per coach), and recruiting shut-downs would occur from say, around mid-April to mid-June (8 weeks), plus a week around the US July 4 holiday week and the week prior to Dec. 25… again – these dates are only used as examples for now.
Enforcement of rules and who handles that aspect of regulation will change too. It could be the conferences themselves more involved? Perhaps a 3rd party entity will be created? Much is not known on who will control enforcing the rules. But one thing we can infer is, you can’t make major rule/policy changes to say – recruiting – without sorting out how enforcement will work. So until that happens, don’t expect recruiting or scholarship rules to change yet.
The above list is just a smattering of what will actually may change and unfortunately, no one knows exactly when all these will occur. Who will be in charge of managing scholarships, financial aid, and who can spend what? It will be largely up to the conferences or at least we thing that is the direction the NCAA TC could go. May be certain institutions? What is going on is a complete shift in who has power. In college athletics, power is who controls money and people (athletes/coaches in this case) and the NCAA wants out of that business. They’d much rather transfer their risk to others willing to take it on. Conferences have too much $ on the line with TV contracts, apparel deals, etc. to not be the ones to take over for the NCAA in regulating the day-to-day of how college athletics operates.
As things become known, we’ll keep you as up to date as we can. For clear-cut definition and roster of who sits in The NCAA TC, click HERE.
Update as of 9pm EST July 20, 2022… The NCAA’s D-I Council announced its endorsement of several recommendations from the Transformation Committee, “… to better support student-athletes, improve efficiency and timeliness in the infractions process, and improve clarity in the transfer environment.”
The big takeaway from tonight’s announcement has to do with clarity in the Transfer Process... Specifically 1) The transfer window will be open for athletes to transfer more than once. Previously it was one-time. 2) Beginning the day after the NCAA D-I Women’s Ice Hockey Tournament field is announced (and for all other winter-sports), athletes have a 60-day window to notify their current institution in writing their wish to enter the transfer portal. Using this year as an example, the 60-day window would have began Monday March 7, 2022 and ended Thursday May 5th. 3) Schools accepting transfers will be REQUIRED to provide financial aid (athletic scholarships) through the completion of the athlete’s 5th year of eligibility or when their degree is granted – whichever comes first.
The D-I Council’s recommendations must be approved by the D-I Board of Governors next month to be adopted. You may read the NCAA’s official announcement from tonight HERE.
USA Hockey ends the busiest portion of its summer with the U18 Select Camp finishing up today. Yours truly attended the 15 Camp as well as the past 3 days of the U18 Select Camp. The only camp left to be held is the U18 final camp or 30 or so players usually, in early August to select the initial U18 World Championship roster. That team will then head to Calgary, Alberta for a 3-game series vs. Team Canada. Here are some observations…
Lots of D-I coaches on hand for the 15 Camp (’07/’08 birth yrs)… not as many for the U18 Select Camp. And certainly plenty on hand at the 16/17 camp (’06/’05 birth yrs).
USA Hockey made a change this year regarding 15 Camp attendees in that, no 15 Camp attendee would get selected for the the U18 Camp. Parents were not happy. The only way ’07’s were allowed to attend the U18 Camp was if they were selected to it in the first place. Where as 13 players from the 16/17 camp were selected to attend the U18 camp.
15 Camp is probably too long, especially for goalies. Goalies attended a USA Hockey goalie camp before the main camp. 4-5 days total would be plenty. 6 nights and 7 days for players or 10 & 9 for goalies (8 and 7 for staff), is way too much. Less is more. Especially if no one from camp is going to be moving on to the Select 18’s.
Interesting numbers on penalties called at the U18 Select Camp. Too many?
Game #
# of Penalties
Total # of Mins in GM
% of GM on Special Teams
Game 1
4
6
10.7%
Game 2
12
18
32.1%
Game 3
12
18
32.1%
Game 4
14
21
37.5%
Game 5
11
16.5
29.4%
Game 6
12
18
32.1%
Game 7
7
10.5
18%
Game 8
9
13.5
24.1%
*Warning, personal opinion based rant… One final thought from an NCAA coaches perspective…
Everything that goes on at these types of camps matters. You can add in all the Canadian provincial and Hockey Canada camps as well. These camps become extremely important to NCAA D-I coaches. And what better eval do you want as a coach then to watch players in a best-on-best format? It’s great hockey to watch and we as coaches are thankful USA Hockey / Hockey Canada and the Canadian provinces put these events on. However…
Sometimes it appears the ‘importance’ of these event for college coaches gets lost in the mix. Let’s face it, NCAA coaches come to these events and leave making six-figure type decisions that will impact lives and livelihoods based on what they saw at these events. For decades now, NCAA programs have helped produce Team USA and Hockey Canada’s olympic and World Championship rosters. There is a lot at stake. The money alone that gets decided on out of these events is a lot. I’d be willing to bet in the U18 select camp alone, when all the college commitments and scholarship/financial aid offers get made, there was close to $12 million dollars on the ice this week. Not to mention what the 16/17 camp was worth. Heck, if every D-I scholarship or financial aid offer was an average of $40K per year, D-I alone commands about $40 million a year with 42 teams.
Camps are a ton of work, and you can’t make everyone happy. But when 5 on 5 play is only close to 70% or less of game play or a goalie session gets cancelled on the last day of camp and no one outside of USA Hockey knows about it, or roster info doesn’t get distributed until a certain point in an event… lack of those things matters. If the NCAA ever deregulates camps/clinics rules to allow coaches to hold invite only events, perhaps NCAA coaches will band together and organize their own best-on-best events themselves. But until then, with all that money & opportunity on the line, it would be nice to see a different thought process where everything matters.
Last December, our Pipeline Blog Post had grad transfer data… rosters by team of graduate transfer players and statistics through the end of November. You can check it out here. Now that the season has ended, here is the the data for the 21-22 season which you can find HERE.
In all, 80 grad transfer players found their way on to D-I rosters this year. In a typical year, that’s about 1/3 of a incoming recruiting class across D-I. That means, 80 incoming freshman may not have had a spot. In addition to the 80 – 5th year grad transfers, who have now exhausted their NCAA eligibility, there are 200 or so Seniors graduating. That means the pool of next year 5th year grad transfers will come from this pool… but it won’t be all 200. 1) Seniors from Post, St. Mike’s, St. Anselms, RPI, Union, and all 6 Ivy League schools were not eligible for a 5th year. Players needed to be on a college hockey roster in 20-21 in order to get a ‘COVID 5th year’ from the NCAA.
In all, it looks like the grad transfer players were pretty productive with 18.5 points per player. 7.13 goals and 11.36 assists per player. Goalies averaged a save % of .926, GAA of 2.10, and 11.1 wins.
Sifters
Little tidbits from around the world of women’s hockey…
USA Hockey Moving On??? With the end of USA Hockey’s Nat’l Dev. Summer Camps in St. Cloud… we’re hearing rumblings it may indeed be the actual end of camps for USA Hockey in St. Cloud. Rumor is bids are being taken or will be, to host future camps. St. Cloud offered a nice combo of 2 sheets of ice, dorms, dining halls, and all the other services USA Hockey likes/needed to run its operation. No word on possible locations. That said, Lake Placid please???
Best-of-Three In CHA… College Hockey America is changing its post-season playoff format to include the top four team in a 1v4 and 2v3 – best two-out-of-three format hosted by the high seed. Semi-final winners will move on to play a 1-game CHA Championship Game hosted by the highest remaining seed.
ECAC Hires New Associate Commissioner… Nick Sczerbinski has been named new ECAC Associate Commissioner announced by the league office. Sczerbinski is no stranger to the ECAC having graduated from and worked in the athletic department at Quinnipiac University where he was associate athletic director for athletic communications. You can read more on his hiring HERE.
WCHA Hires Interim Commissioner… With Jennifer Flowers departing the WCHA to take an Athletic Director position at Southwest Minnesota State University, the WCHA announced on July 5th former Bemidji State Athletic Director Tracy Dill, has been hired by the league on an interim basis and will begin his duties August 1. In its press release, the WCHA sighted the NCAA’s uncertainty with de-regulation and what the role of a commissioner or conference may be in the near future. You can read more on his hiring HERE. Rob DeGregorio, commissioner of the CHA and NEWHA will also step down as of the end of this coming season. The D-I landscape of commissioners will look very different at the end of next season.
NCAA D-III Passes Legislation… Recently passed legislation at D-III will impact women’s ice hockey for the coming season. The biggest of which is the D-III National Championship Tournament will now be at 11 teams, up 1, from 10. You can read the NCAA’s official announcement HERE. Now the D-I and D-III national championships will have the same amount of teams – 11.
-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 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.
Grant Kimball is founder and contributing writer at Women’s College Hockey.org and beginning his 3rd season as an Assistant Coach with the Yale University women’s hockey program. Grant has developed an experienced perspective in the world of women’s ice hockey, having coached and recruited players from across the globe during his 25+ year amatuer and NCAA coaching career. He has coached at 6 NCAA DIII and DI programs in the NCHA (D3), the CHA, WCHA, Hockey East, ECAC, and the Ivy League (DI). Beyond coaching, Grant served as a site representative for the 2019 NCAA quarterfinal of the D-I NCAA Tournament. He also currently serves as an Officer with the American Hockey Coaches Association as Vice President of Membership and sits on the AHCA’s Women’s Hockey Executive Committee.
We are exactly 1-month into D-I coaches being allowed to initiate direct contact with recruits and family members (phone/email/text/social media), who are entering grade 11 next Fall. D-I coaches are also back on the recruiting trail as of June 1. The ‘Recruiting Ramp-Up’ bas we call it brings a lot of intrigue, excitement, as well as some heartache too. Over the next few days we’ll dive-in and give you a run-down of what we are hearing from D-I coaches about their first contacts with recruits, the changing landscape of recruiting events this summer, and an introduction to the NCAA Transformation Committee: What is it, why it was created, what they have been charge to do, and how college athletics… namely women’s college hockey… will be impacted.
On The Phones, 1st Contacts, andInformation Overload… It seems not as many verbal commitments are happening out of the gate as perhaps in years passed. Word from a lot of NCAA coaches we’ve talked to is players are interested in taking their time before pulling the trigger on a verbal commitment. Why? They want to visit campus as a part of their decision making process. We say hallelujah to that. Perhaps the pandemic had something to do with the delay in commitments? Not many families were able or flat-out decided – not to travel and visit campuses. It’s nice to actually hear a majority of players want to do their homework. Not all have though. There have been some early commitments, but far less that usual.
In our conversations w/ Club & high school coaches, they are indicating many parents/players are finding themselves under-prepared for the volume of calls, types of conversations players and parents are having, and are a bit overwhelmed. This is very typical to be honest. There is SO much info to wrap ones head around on these types of calls. If you’re a really good player, just imagine fielding 10, 20, 30, 35+ calls, emails, texts on June 15th. That’s a lot of time on the phone and a lot of info to keep track of. There are sales professional who don’t experience that kind of workload.
Unless recruits & their parents have had someone else in the family or a best friend go through the process, you would have no idea what was about to come your way June 15. There are some club/high school coaches who help their players with what to expect in terms of the types of questions they could get and what to be prepared for – but it’s rare to find this. Most recruits & families have no idea how many programs are going to try and get in touch with them. But when schools do, you need to be prepared. There are some best practices we recommend – outlined below… whether it’s a D-I or D-III program reaching out – makes absolutely no difference.
Recruiting Calls – Best Practices
Create a plan to organize call info… use a notebook, laptop/computer, phone – however best works for you, but find way to keep track what you talk about w/ each school and coach. After the call is over, write down your initial thoughts, good or bad and any next steps discussed.
Know what comes next with that school now that you’ve had that initial phone call by asking, ‘Ah, Coach, what happens next in your process, how do we move forward from here?’ That is assuming you have interest in that school. Knowing what you want to happen next also helps b/c a coach might just turn the question back at you for direction.
Do your research… look online at each school/hockey program after your call. May be you go visit campus on your own without the coaching staff. If you’re really interested in the school, reach out to an alum parent/player to ask questions and get a first-hand account of someones experience (social media is great for getting in touch w/ former players/parents!), Check-out the roster and gauge avail spots that may open up due to graduation.
Have a list of questions ready to ask… how many players at my position are you recruiting for? Have you made any offers yet? Have any commitments? When do you typically make offers? What kind of grades do I need to get in, etc. Having a list of questions ready to go makes you seem interested and prepared – and coaches love players who give some thought to the school/hockey program they’re engaging with.
Think about answers to questions you could get asked so you know how to respond… “Well Susie, we’re all for full this year, but we’d love to take you in our class of ’25, how would you feel about taking a gap year??—is a very real question you could get. I know you played Center last year, what about a year or two on D for us? How would you feel if you didn’t play much and had to wait a bit for regular playing time? Would you commit right now on the phone to us? What major are you looking for? What other schools are on your list? All of these could potentially get asked. Again, doing your homework and having answers tells coaches you’ve actually thought about these scenarios and are prepared.
Bottom line, be organized and prepare for what could happen. This type of prep. work will show well to any coach!
Last year we saw upwards of over 50 coaching changes across D-I/D-III, which we kept track of and can be found HERE. We’re doing the same this summer as well and we’re already at 61 & counting. You can find our ’22-’23 Coaching Changes Tracker Document of to date – HERE.
Here are a few takeaways…
Leaving the NCAA Coaching Profession to Play Pro… Thus far, 3 D-I assistants have left the coaching profession to sign pro deals in the PHF. Former Assistant coaches Breanne Wilson-Bennet of Union College, Melissa Samoskevich of Penn State, and Claudia Kepler of Syracuse have all moved on from coaching to play in the PHF. With the Premier Hockey Federation’s salary cap jumping to $750,000 this season and teams having to spend at least 75% of their cap, players are now positioned to make more than ever before. We thought this might be something that would occur if/when salaries and the $ became enticing enough for female Coaches who weren’t finished with their playing days. The ability to play has a shelf-life, obviously. It will be interesting to see if more NCAA teams will lose staff to not only play professionally, but perhaps to other coaching opportunities on the men’s pro-side as well.
It has been a very active season for coaching and professional staff changes. There have been 6 D-I head coaching hires which was 1 more than last year. Two of which are newer programs basically starting from the ground up in Robert Morris University and Assumption College. I say basically ‘starting up’ because both Assumption and Robert Morris do have some kind of history as they aren’t totally brand new programs.
As always, there are a few dominos that fall which create additional positions that need to be filled when current open positions get filled by coaches already coaching at a different school. When this happens, it tells us coaches are getting ‘recycled’, a common trend you see in the NHL and at all levels of hockey really. It also means very few ‘newbies’ are getting their chance to get into the game. Tough to tell what the applicant pools were for each position.
Little tidbits from around the world of women’s hockey…
New Programs Set to Grow The Game… As documented in our 22-23 Coaching Changes Tracker, there are some new programs at D-I and D-III slated to come on board as soon as this season. Robert Morris University is in the midst of their reboot and will enter the CHA, its previous conference home, for the ’23-’24 season. Assumption University will elevate it’s ACHA club program to full NCAA D-II/D-I varsity status for ’23-’24 and have already inked a conference – The NEWHA and will be it’s 8th member. Stonehill College is a new program and will begin play this coming Fall in the NEWHA as its 7th member. Hilbert College, near Buffalo, NY will begin play this coming fall as a D-III program.
Women’s Hockey Makes Maccabiah Games Debut… Women’s Ice Hockey will make its inaugural appearance at this years games, thanks in large part to former Northeastern Grad Chelsea Goldberg. You can read the full story HERE in the Hockey News of how the event came to be.
New NCAA Rule Changes… Every two years the NCAA Ice Hockey Rules Committee puts forth recommendations for new rules to take effect. the 22-23 season is such a year and there are a few new rules that if voted on (which should be known soon), will go into effect for the coming season. You can read what those new purposed rules are HERE
More Women Hired In Professional Men’s Hockey… Some very high profile female hires were made recently from the AHL to the NHL. This article is fantastic and documents how these opportunities are happening. It’s not by mistake thanks to the NHLCA. Read 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 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.
Grant Kimball is founder and contributing writer at Women’s College Hockey.org and beginning his 3rd season as an Assistant Coach with the Yale University women’s hockey program. Grant has developed an experienced perspective in the world of women’s ice hockey, having coached and recruited players from across the globe during his 25+ year amatuer and NCAA coaching career. He has coached at 6 NCAA DIII and DI programs in the NCHA (D3), the CHA, WCHA, Hockey East, ECAC, and the Ivy League (DI). Beyond coaching, Grant served as a site representative for the 2019 NCAA quarterfinal of the D-I NCAA Tournament. He also currently serves as an Officer with the American Hockey Coaches Association as Vice President of Membership and sits on the AHCA’s Women’s Hockey Executive Committee.
Episode #2 Now LIVE|Interview w/ Logan Bittle, Head Coach at Robert Morris University
Grant sits down with Logan Bittle, newly named head coach of Robert Morris University on of Feb. 3, 2022. Grant and Logan reflect on how Logan got into coaching, the tragic announcement of both the women’s & men’s ice hockey programs being cut, and the programs’ subsequent resurrection. Enjoy!
The Women’s College Hockey Podcast… our goal is three-fold. 1) Inform 2) Educate and 3) Promote NCAA D-I and D-III College Hockey. It’s that simple. We’ll recap all the major headlines as we analyze trending topics and storylines impacting the game today. You’ll hear everything from how NCAA coaches are trying to improve the path for youth hockey players to play NCAA college hockey, advice on navigating the recruiting process, to interviews with the sports most impactful influencers, as well as colorful banter on anything that insects with women’s college hockey.
thewomenscollegehockeypodcast@gmail.com
Stay tuned. Episodes will be dropping soon and available on all the major podcast platforms.
Until Next Time… Enjoy and Happy Listening!
-Streams for games in the ECAC can be found HERE. Subscriptions will be necessary to watch games.
-Streams in the WCHA can be found HERE. Subscriptions will be necessary to watch games.
-Streams in Hockey East this year can be found HERE. Hockey East once again is streaming all game live and for FREE.
-Streams for CHA games with the exception of Penn St. can be found HERE. Subscriptions will be necessary to watch games.
-Streams for NEWHA games can be found at each teams’ website. Subscriptions may be necessary to watch games.
NCAA Coaching Changes…Keep up with all the coaching changes across D-I and D-III HERE.
Give Someone a Stick Tap… Know someone in women’s college hockey who’s work needs some recognition? Nominate them for WCH.org’s monthly ‘Stick Tap’HERE or Email us at: womenscollegehockey@gmail.com
Recruiting Events/League Online Directory… Find all the recruiting events on WCH.org right HERE. Want to add your event? Click HERE to fill out our WCH.org event form.
Grant Kimball is founder and contributing writer at Women’s College Hockey.org and beginning his 3rd season as an Assistant Coach with the Yale University women’s hockey program. Grant has developed an experienced perspective in the world of women’s ice hockey, having coached and recruited players from across the globe during his 25+ year amatuer and NCAA coaching career. He has coached at 6 NCAA DIII and DI programs in the NCHA (D3), the CHA, WCHA, Hockey East, ECAC, and the Ivy League (DI). Beyond coaching, Grant served as a site representative for the 2019 NCAA quarterfinal of the D-I NCAA Tournament. He also currently serves as an Officer with the American Hockey Coaches Association as Vice President of Membership and sits on the AHCA’s Women’s Hockey Executive Committee.
Women’s College Hockey.org to Produce Podcast. Coming Spring of ’22
Filling A Void
As many of you may know from our social media posts, we have announced plans to produce our very own podcast!
We didn’t want to leave any doubt as to the nature of what our Pod would be about – so it’s all in the name.
The Women’s College Hockey Podcast… our goal is three-fold. 1) Inform 2) Educate and 3) Provide you – the listener – with access to some of the sports biggest personalities. We’ll recap all the major headlines as we analyze trending topics and storylines impacting the game today. You’ll hear everything from how NCAA coaches are trying to improve amateur & college hockey, advice for parents and players navigating the recruiting process, to interviews with the sports most impactful influencers, as well as colorful banter on anything that insects with women’s college hockey.
Why a podcast? It seems like the next logical step in helping promote the sport from the WCH.org vantage point. We have our Pipeline Blog (which isn’t going away… may be a ‘Blog-Cast’ instead???), we have our website, and – to our surprise – there is isn’t a podcast dedicated to covering women’s college hockey!!!! So, we thought, okay… time to step up. Women’s college hockey needs all the promotion it can get. Plus, what else would you want to listen to with all that time spent in the car on the way to practice and games, right? Ha.
Be sure to click the link above or below which takes you to our Podcast website page and subscribe! Why? You’ll receive episodes before the general public does, that’s why. It’s always better to be first!
Have an idea for an episode or a comment to share? Email our podcast team directly at: thewomenscollegehockeypodcast@gmail.com
Stay tuned. Episodes will be dropping soon and available on all the major podcast platforms.
Happy listening!
Until Next Time…
-Streams for games in the ECAC can be found HERE. Subscriptions will be necessary to watch games.
-Streams in the WCHA can be found HERE. Subscriptions will be necessary to watch games.
-Streams in Hockey East this year can be found HERE. Hockey East once again is streaming all game live and for FREE.
-Streams for CHA games with the exception of Penn St. can be found HERE. Subscriptions will be necessary to watch games.
-Streams for NEWHA games can be found at each teams’ website. Subscriptions may be necessary to watch games.
NCAA Coaching Changes…Keep up with all the coaching changes across D-I and D-III HERE.
Give Someone a Stick Tap… Know someone in women’s college hockey who’s work needs some recognition? Nominate them for WCH.org’s monthly ‘Stick Tap’HERE or Email us at: womenscollegehockey@gmail.com
Recruiting Events/League Online Directory… Find all the recruiting events on WCH.org right HERE. Want to add your event? Click HERE to fill out our WCH.org event form.
Grant Kimball is founder and contributing writer at Women’s College Hockey.org and beginning his 3rd season as an Assistant Coach with the Yale University women’s hockey program. Grant has developed an experienced perspective in the world of women’s ice hockey, having coached and recruited players from across the globe during his 25+ year amatuer and NCAA coaching career. He has coached at 6 NCAA DIII and DI programs in the NCHA (D3), the CHA, WCHA, Hockey East, ECAC, and the Ivy League (DI). Beyond coaching, Grant served as a site representative for the 2019 NCAA quarterfinal of the D-I NCAA Tournament. He also currently serves as an Officer with the American Hockey Coaches Association as Vice President of Membership and sits on the AHCA’s Women’s Hockey Executive Committee.
Quinnipiac scored 2 goals in the 2nd period and 2 in the 3rd, including an empty-netter for a 4-0 victory vs. Syracuse. The bobcats will now face #1 tournament seed Ohio State Saturday for a berth in the Frozen Four. Corrine Schroeder got the shutout and made 16 stops. Adzija, Mobley, and Boyd each had 2 points a piece to pace the Bobcats.
2 goals to finish the 2nd period with a 2-0 lead! 🎥⤵️
Taylor House and Sadie Peart light the lamp and we are rolling into the 3rd 🔥 pic.twitter.com/WQBLOOjX19
MN-Duluth forward Gabbie Hughes needed just 39 seconds to put Duluth up 1-0 on the Crimson and they never looked back en route to a 4-0 win over Harvard in Minneapolis last night. Hughes would go on to score two more goals to complete the hat-trick while 5th yer senior and Top 10 Patty Kaz finalist Elizabeth Giguere chipped in with 3 assists of her own. Anna Klein would 2 assists as well. Duluth’s Soderberg picked up the shutout making 27 saves.
Wisconsin took a 2-0 lead into the 3rd period and scored an empty net goal to secure a 3-1 win for the Badgers. Clarkson cut the lead to 1 on an extra-attacker goal with 2:01 remaining Almost half the game was played on special teams as a total of 26 minutes in penalties were called. Clarkson outshot Wisconsin 31-25. Wisconsin moves on to play the #3 overall seed Northeastern in a rematch of last years national championship game.
7 conferences give ‘Auto Bids’ to their post-season playoff champions. Those are below. 3 additional schools receive bids based on their season record and body of work. Those schools receive an ‘At-Large’ invitation to the tournament.
CONFERENCE
SCHOOL
Commonwealth Coast Conference
Endicott
Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference
Gustavus Adolphus
New England Hockey Conference
Elmira
New England Small College Athletic Conference
Middlebury
Northeast Women’s Hockey League
Plattsburgh State
United Collegiate Hockey Conference
Nazareth
Women’s Northern Collegiate Hockey Association
Aurora
The three institutions selected from Pool C were Colby, University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire and University of Wisconsin-River Falls.
Bracket
Schedule
March 9 – First Round
Aurora University 0 @ UW-River Falls 7
UW-Eau Claire 0 @ Gust-Adolphus 3
March 12 – Quarterfinals
#8 Endicott @ #1 Middlebury, 3PM EST
#9 Colby @ #2 Plattsburgh, 3PM EST
#3 Elmira @ #6 Nazareth, 3Pm EST
#5 Gustavus @ #4 UW-River Falls, 3:05PM CST
Sifters
2 Minutes For Delay of Game… The women’s hockey spotlight is now firmly on the NCAA D-I tournament with its expanded 11-team field. Not only are three more teams added, but the tournament selection show was aired for the first time ever on national television via ESPN News last Sunday. The D-I game is evolving. Coverage of women’s NCAA hockey, D-I or D-III, has been hard to come by consistently in one spot. One hockey media outlet, USCHO.com, which stands for US College Hockey Online, does its best to cover both NCAA divisions. But even their women’s hockey coverage is sporadic.
With three NCAA tournament games played last night, over 50% of the field, one might expect a bit of coverage from the likes of a USCHO. Yet when you go to the USCHO.com homepage, there’s nothing about any of the three games. Heck, there isn’t anything on the women’s D-I homepage either. Seems like it should be US Men’s College Hockey Online, right? The only place I can find coverage or recaps from a national type media entity is from The Ice Garden, which is a blog that covers not only NCAA D-I hockey but professional leagues like the PHF.
The need for national coverage of Women’s D-I and D-III hockey only helps the sport top to bottom. There are so many great college players, coaches, rivalries, human interest stories, etc. NCAA Women’s Hockey deserves timely, quality, and consistent coverage.
#5 Yale vs. #4 Colgate, 3pm EST. It’s been hard to find viewing info, until now. ESPN+ will carry the game according to its website. You can click HERE to subscribe.
Gustavus vs. UW-River Falls, 3PM EST / 2pm CST – Watch Here.
Enjoy the viewing!
Until Next Time…
21-22 Streaming Info
-Streams for games in the ECAC can be found HERE. Subscriptions will be necessary to watch games.
-Streams in the WCHA can be found HERE. Subscriptions will be necessary to watch games.
-Streams in Hockey East this year can be found HERE. Hockey East once again is streaming all game live and for FREE.
-Streams for CHA games with the exception of Penn St. can be found HERE. Subscriptions will be necessary to watch games.
-Streams for NEWHA games can be found at each teams’ website. Subscriptions may be necessary to watch games.
NCAA Coaching Changes…Keep up with all the coaching changes across D-I and D-III HERE.
Give Someone a Stick Tap… Know someone in women’s college hockey who’s work needs some recognition? Nominate them for WCH.org’s monthly ‘Stick Tap’HERE or Email us at: womenscollegehockey@gmail.com
Recruiting Events/League Online Directory… Find all the recruiting events on WCH.org right HERE. Want to add your event? Click HERE to fill out our WCH.org event form.
Grant Kimball is founder and contributing writer at Women’s College Hockey.org and beginning his 3rd season as an Assistant Coach with the Yale University women’s hockey program. Grant has developed an experienced perspective in the world of women’s ice hockey, having coached and recruited players from across the globe during his 25+ year amatuer and NCAA coaching career. He has coached at 6 NCAA DIII and DI programs in the NCHA (D3), the CHA, WCHA, Hockey East, ECAC, and the Ivy League (DI). Beyond coaching, Grant served as a site representative for the 2019 NCAA quarterfinal of the D-I NCAA Tournament. He also currently serves as an Officer with the American Hockey Coaches Association as Vice President of Membership and sits on the AHCA’s Women’s Hockey Executive Committee.
We’ll take a look at the upcoming weekly D-I schedule|
See who’s ranked in the USCHO.com, USA Today/USA Hockey Magazine, and the ‘Power 10’ national polls|
NCAA Tourney Preview|
Sifters… Little tidbits of news and info from around women’s college hockey|
D-I Weekly Schedule
Thursday March 10th, 2022
Minneapolis Regional – Harvard vs. Minnesota-Duluth 7pm EST. WATCH B1G+ (FREE)
Columbus Regional – Syracuse vs. Quinnipiac 6pm EST. WATCH – B1G+ (FREE)
Boston Regional – Clarkson vs. Wisconsin 7pm EST. Watch – SportsLive (FREE)
Friday March 11, 2022 – DAY OFF
Saturday March 12, 2022
Boston Regional Final – Clarkson/Wisco winner vs. #3 Northeastern 1pm EST. Watch – SportsLive (FREE)
Hamilton Regional Final – #5Yale vs. #4 Colgate 3pm EST. Watch – NCAA.com
Minneapolis Regional Final – Harvard/MN-Duluth winner vs #2 Minnesota 3pm EST. WATCH – B1G+ (FREE)
Columbus Regional Final – Syracuse/Quinnipiac winner vs. #1 Ohio State 5pm EST. WATCH – B1G+ (FREE)
Game results, box scores, and statistics come directly from CHN – College Hockey News, USCHO.com or the NCAA’s official stats site HERE.
Video highlight links are to individual program produced media, some of which may be found on team twitter or other social media accounts – so scroll the feed to see the game highlights.
Postgame links are any postgame video produced by individual programs and found on either team websites or social media accounts.
Don’t See a link… for video highlights or postgame? Assume there was none available at the time of our post.
D-I Top 10 Polls
Evan’s last look at his Top 10 in D-I women’s college hockey came in Pipeline Post #65. You can find it HERE.
2022 NCAA Tourney Preview
The Bracket
Seedings
-5 teams are seeded, #1 Ohio State, #2 Minnesota, #3 Northeastern, #4 Colgate, and #5 Yale
-Seeds 1-5 get an automatic bye into the regional final. There are 4 regions: Columbus – Ohio State as the host, Minneapolis – Minnesota as the host, Boston – Northeastern as the host, and Hamilton, NY – Colgate as the hosts. Seeds 6-11 play a 1st round game with the winner moving on to the regional final.
-The top 5 teams, by virtue of their pairwise rankings after all post-season playoff championships were completed, received seeds 1-5. Using the pairwise rankings as the seeding method was determined by the 2022 NCAA Women’s Ice Hockey Tournament Committee.
How They Got There
There are 4 automatic qualifiers for the 4 D-I conference playoff champions that award ‘Auto-bids’ and 7 ‘At-Large’ bids awarded that make up the 11-team NCAA Tournament field.
-#1 Ohio State, received the WCHA automatic qualifier by winning the WCHA playoff championship 3-2 in OT vs. Minnesota and ranked #1 in the pairwise.
-#2 Minnesota received an At-Large bid and ranked 2nd in the pairwise rankings.
-#3 Northeastern University, received the Hockey East automatic qualifier by winning the Hockey East Playoff championship vs. UCONN 3-1 and ranked #3 in the pairwise.
-#4 Colgate University, received the ECAC Automatic qualifier by winning the ECAC playoff championship over Yale 2-1 in overtime and ranked #4 in the pairwise.
-#5 Yale University, received an ‘At-Large’ bid and ranked 5th in the pairwise rankings. Yale lost to Colgate in the ECAC Championship game 2-1 in OT.
–Syracuse University, received the College Hockey America Automatic qualifier by defeating Mercyhurst University in the CHA Championship 3-2 in overtime.
–QuinnipiacUniversity received an ‘At-Large’ bid and ranked 7th in the pairwise rankings. The Bobcats lost to Colgate 3-2 in the semifinals of the ECAC post-season tournament.
–Wisconsin received an ‘At-Large’ bid and ranked 6th in the pairwise rankings. The Badgers lost to Ohio State in the semifinals of the WCHA post-season tournament.
–ClarksonUniversity received an ‘At-Large’ bid and ranked 10th in the pairwise rankings. The Green Knights lost to Quinnipiac in the first round of the ECAC post-season tournament.
–Minnesota-Duluth received an ‘At-Large’ bid and is ranked 8th in the pairwise. The Bulldogs lost to Minnesota 5-1 in the WCHA post season tournament semifinals.
–Harvard University received an ‘At-Large’ bid and is ranked 9th in the pairwise. The Crimson lost its first-round ECAC quarterfinal series to Princeton.
Sifters
Free Viewing… Nice to see first round NCAA games free to watch. Click the links above for info.
National Awards Season… This is the time of year when national players’ of the year, coach of the year, goaltender of the year, etc. get named. The 3 finalists for Goaltender of the Year in D-I have been announced–2 from the ECAC, St. Lawrence’s Lucy Morgan and Quinnipiac’s Corinne Schroeder. And from Hockey East, it was Northeastern’s Aerin Frankel. The winner will be announced March 17th.
USA Hockey Nationals Update… One of the last events for D-I college coaches to get some in-person evals in before the April-May quiet period takes place will be in Pittsburgh, PA as USA Hockey hosts its girls tier I national championships.
Tier I Schedule and Info can be found HERE. Tier II Schedule and Info can be found HERE. All games will be streamed live on HockeyTV.
Here is who we know to have made the field as of now… with still a few spots to doll out the next few weeks.
U14s – Qualified
Amherst Lady Knights
Cleveland Lady Barons
Detroit Little Caesars
FL Alliance
LA Lions
MN Green Giants
Philadelphia Jr Flyers
Pittsburgh Penguins Elite
Team North Dakota
4 more teams to qualify + 3 At Large Bids
Central District
Mass District
New England District
Rocky Mtn District
U16s – Qualified
Anaheim Lady Ducks
BK Selects Academy (Rochester Youth Hockey)
Detroit Belle Tire
East Coast Wizards
Gilmour Lancers
FL Alliance
MN Grey Sharks
Philadelphia Jr Flyers
Pittsburgh Penguins Elite
Team Colorado
Team North Dakota
2 more teams to qualify + 3 At Large Bids
Central District
New England District
U19’s – Qualified
Alaska All-stars
BK Selects Academy (Rochester Youth Hockey)
NAHA White – North American Hockey Academy
Detroit Little Caesars
Gilmour Lancers
FL Alliance
Philadelphia Jr Flyers
Pittsburgh Penguins Elite
Shattuck St. Mary’s (Prep)
3 more teams to qualify + 4 At Large Bids
Central District
New England District
Rocky Mtn District
Until Next Time…
21-22 Streaming Info
-Streams for games in the ECAC can be found HERE. Subscriptions will be necessary to watch games.
-Streams in the WCHA can be found HERE. Subscriptions will be necessary to watch games.
-Streams in Hockey East this year can be found HERE. Hockey East once again is streaming all game live and for FREE.
-Streams for CHA games with the exception of Penn St. can be found HERE. Subscriptions will be necessary to watch games.
-Streams for NEWHA games can be found at each teams’ website. Subscriptions may be necessary to watch games.
NCAA Coaching Changes…Keep up with all the coaching changes across D-I and D-III HERE.
Give Someone a Stick Tap… Know someone in women’s college hockey who’s work needs some recognition? Nominate them for WCH.org’s monthly ‘Stick Tap’HERE or Email us at: womenscollegehockey@gmail.com
Recruiting Events/League Online Directory… Find all the recruiting events on WCH.org right HERE. Want to add your event? Click HERE to fill out our WCH.org event form.
Grant Kimball is founder and contributing writer at Women’s College Hockey.org and beginning his 3rd season as an Assistant Coach with the Yale University women’s hockey program. Grant has developed an experienced perspective in the world of women’s ice hockey, having coached and recruited players from across the globe during his 25+ year amatuer and NCAA coaching career. He has coached at 6 NCAA DIII and DI programs in the NCHA (D3), the CHA, WCHA, Hockey East, ECAC, and the Ivy League (DI). Beyond coaching, Grant served as a site representative for the 2019 NCAA quarterfinal of the D-I NCAA Tournament. He also currently serves as an Officer with the American Hockey Coaches Association as Vice President of Membership and sits on the AHCA’s Women’s Hockey Executive Committee.
NCAA Championship Tournament Selection Show Details
Pairwise Update
Here is the latest Pairwise rankings as detailed by USCHO. Rankings are updated as of Sunday March 6th at just after 3am this morning.
There was one more game to be played this afternoon in the WCHA Final-Faceoff as Ohio State beat Minnesota in a #2 vs. #1 match-up. Ohio State erased a 2-goal deficit in the 3rd period to force overtime. It only took OSU 23 seconds into OT while on a PP to end it and win the WCHA Championship and the WCHA’s auto-bid to the NCAA tournament.
Ohio State and Minnesota are #1 and #2 respectively in the Pairwise, so not much movement should happen below them. It’s now up to the NCAA D-I tournament committee to work on sorting out the bracket & regional site team placements.
The NCAA D-I National Collegiate Tournament Selection Show will air tonight, Sunday March 6, at 9pm EST. For the first time ever, it will be broadcast on television live via the ESPN News channel. Check local cable listings for where you can find ESPN News.
If you have access to the ESPN App, you can subscribe to ESPN+ and watch the selection show from there.
More on how to watch the selection show can be found HERE.
Be sure to tune in!
Until Next Time…
21-22 Streaming Info
-Streams for games in the ECAC can be found HERE. Subscriptions will be necessary to watch games.
-Streams in the WCHA can be found HERE. Subscriptions will be necessary to watch games.
-Streams in Hockey East this year can be found HERE. Hockey East once again is streaming all game live and for FREE.
-Streams for CHA games with the exception of Penn St. can be found HERE. Subscriptions will be necessary to watch games.
-Streams for NEWHA games can be found at each teams’ website. Subscriptions may be necessary to watch games.
NCAA Coaching Changes…Keep up with all the coaching changes across D-I and D-III HERE.
Give Someone a Stick Tap… Know someone in women’s college hockey who’s work needs some recognition? Nominate them for WCH.org’s monthly ‘Stick Tap’HERE or Email us at: womenscollegehockey@gmail.com
Recruiting Events/League Online Directory… Find all the recruiting events on WCH.org right HERE. Want to add your event? Click HERE to fill out our WCH.org event form.
Grant Kimball is founder and contributing writer at Women’s College Hockey.org and beginning his 3rd season as an Assistant Coach with the Yale University women’s hockey program. Grant has developed an experienced perspective in the world of women’s ice hockey, having coached and recruited players from across the globe during his 25+ year amatuer and NCAA coaching career. He has coached at 6 NCAA DIII and DI programs in the NCHA (D3), the CHA, WCHA, Hockey East, ECAC, and the Ivy League (DI). Beyond coaching, Grant served as a site representative for the 2019 NCAA quarterfinal of the D-I NCAA Tournament. He also currently serves as an Officer with the American Hockey Coaches Association as Vice President of Membership and sits on the AHCA’s Women’s Hockey Executive Committee.
We’ll take a look at the upcoming weekly D-I schedule|
See who’s ranked in the USCHO.com, USA Today/USA Hockey Magazine, and the ‘Power 10’ national polls|
The Pairwise & NCAA Tourney|
Sifters… Little tidbits of news and info from around women’s hockey|
D-I Weekly Schedule
We are going to try a new format for displaying the weekly schedule as well as games played with links to box scores. Formatting from USCHO.com is not kind to mobile users. So to help, we will be using the links CHN – College Hockey News.
It’s ‘Final-Four’ Weekend for NEWHA, ECAC, Hockey East, and WCHA… The CHA completed its post-season playoff championship last weekend with Syracuse beating Mercyhurst in the final 3-2 in OT. The NEWHA, ECAC, Hockey East, and WCHA are all down to its ‘Final-Four’ championship weekend. The NEWHA held quarterfinal games Tuesday. Hockey East played its Semifinal games last night. The NEWHA and ECAC championship weekends have semifinals Friday and championships Saturday. The WCHA final-four championship weekend is Saturday/Sunday. All schedules are below:
Make sure to scroll down
Tuesday, March 1
NEWHA Quarterfinals #6 St. Michael’s 1 @ #3 St. Anselm 2
NEWHA Quarterfinals #5 Post 2 @ #4 Sacred Heart 5
Wednesday, March 2
Hockey East Semifinal #3 UCONN 3 @ #2 Vermont 1, HIGHLIGHTS
Hockey East Semifinal #5 Maine 1 @ #1 Northeastern 3, HIGHLIGHTS are ⬇️
We're headed to our sixth-straight @hockey_east title game.
Hockey East Championship TBD, 7PM, @ TBD Campus site of highest remaining seed, TV-NESN+
WCHA Semifinal #4 MN-Duluth vs. #1 Minnesota, 1:07PM CST, @ Univ. of MN Ridder Arena, TV/Stream INFO
WCHA Semifinal #3 Wisconsin vs. #2 Ohio State, 4:07PM CST, @ Univ. of MN Ridder Arena, TV/Stream INFO
Sunday, March 6
WCHA Championship TBD, 1Pm CST, @ Univ. of MN Ridder Arena, TV/Stream INFO
NCAA Tournament Selection Show, 9PM EST, TV-ESPN NEWS Channel, Stream Info Coming Soon
Game results, box scores, and statistics come directly from CHN – College Hockey News, USCHO.com or the NCAA’s official stats site HERE.
Video highlight links are to individual program produced media, some of which may be found on team twitter or other social media accounts – so scroll the feed to see the game highlights.
Postgame links are any postgame video produced by individual programs and found on either team websites or social media accounts.
Don’t See a link… for video highlights or postgame? Assume there was none available at the time of our post.
D-I Top 10 Polls
Evan’s last look at his Top 10 in D-I women’s college hockey came in last week’s Pipeline Post #65. You can find it HERE.
The Pairwise & NCAA Tourney
The Pairwise
In a Jan. 8th post of the Pipeline we introduced what is known as the Pairwise rankings. ‘The PWR’ or ‘The Pairwise’ as it’s known in NCAA hockey circles, is a way to rank teams that play an unbalanced schedule based on a specific mathematical formula. We use the USCHO.com iteration of the Pairwise rankings which can be found online HERE.
Why are the Pairwise Rankings important? It is what the NCAA D-I Women’s Ice Hockey Committee will use will determine the 11-team field for the NCAA Tournament. And this year, the committee is strictly going by the math and not subjectivity. The Committee will conviene Sunday March 6th and crunch the numbers to announce the 11-teams going to the NCAA Tournament.
Contrary to what many may think, the USCHO.com top 10 poll that comes out each week or any other media poll that exists, has no bearing on who makes the NCAA tournament. Those polls are for media purposes only and not used by the D-I NCAA Women’s Ice Hockey Committee.
Making The NCAA Tournament, Auto & At-Large Bids
There are two ways to make the NCAA Tournament’s 11-team field. Receive your conference’s automatic bid by winning the conference post-season playoff championship – or – have a high enough Pairwise Ranking to fall within the top 11 teams and receive an ‘At-Large’ bid.
There are 5 D-I conferences. 4 of the 11 bids come from conference post season playoff tournament championship Auto Bids. The other 7 are ‘At-Large Bids. The NEWHA does not have an automatic bid until the 22-23 season by virtue of an NCAA rule which stipulates conferences must compete with 6 teams for two full seasons before getting an automatic bid. The NC
