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.
