Tag Archives: COVID

Post #134 – April 12, 2024 – Sifters + Possible D-I Recruiting Changes?

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How will the absence of the COVID 5th year graduate transfer change D-I recruiting?

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

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

Errors & Omissions…

Omissions…
One more crack at correcting my myself about the USA Hockey Girls Tier II National Championship Tournament locations… I was partly correct in saying they were held in Green Bay, WI. However, only the U16 division was held there.

I omitted the fact that the Tier II tournament had 3 separate locations for each age division, whereas the Tier I tournament was held at a single location for all divisions. The U14’s were in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, U16’s in Green Bay, Wisconsin, and U19’s in East Lansing, Michigan.

Possible D-I Recruiting Changes W/ COVID 5th Year Grad. Transfers Going Away…

Change is coming to the way D-I coaches manage their future recruiting classes. Which should be good news to future incoming first-year recruits – in that there will be more of them entering college hockey. Why?

The upcoming 2024-2025 season will be the last year D-I programs can recruit 5th year Graduate Transfer players. And with around 80-90 grad. transfer players (plus or minus a few), dotting D-I rosters since 20-21, a majority of those 80-90 roster spots will now be filled with first-year incoming players. Around 265-ish players is the average makeup a typical recruiting class across D-I. So about one-third was taken up of grad transfers. 

There will still be a small number of grad transfers for reasons like for medical/injury red-shirt situations or other NCAA waivers players could take advantage of. I think the question programs are wondering is how may players with eligibility left in their career will decide to transfer. There has always been a small number of players each year that decide to move on from their previous school with eligibility remaining. The NCAA has made transferring easier with the introduction of new rules allowing players to become eligible right away without sitting out a year. 

We’ll have to wait and see what the numbers look like at the start of the 25-26 season. Suffice to say, there will undoubtedly be more first-year recruits than grad transfers a part of future recruiting classes. 

Sifters… Little Lobs of News & Info From Around Women’s College Hockey

-Post University is seeking a new head coach as it has posted for the position. That makes 3 new head coaches for 24-25, 2 in the WCHA and 1 in the NEWHA.

-Congrats to Chris MacKenzie of UCONN and Joe Cranston of UW-River Falls for being named the D-I and D-III AHCA National Coach of the Year.

-The SUNYAC, State University of New York Athletic Conference, will be adding William-Smith beginning in 25-26.

-Transfer rules may be changing to allow student-athletes to transfer as many times as they like and be immediately eligible as long as they meet academic requirements. The change could come to a vote at the D-I council meetings April 17-18.

-Forrest Karr, athletic director at MN-Duluth, has been named the new Executive Director of the American Hockey Coaches Association. Karr will take over for longtime Exec. Dir. Joe Bertagna in July.

Until Next Time Everyone… Be Well and Take Care,

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is wch-pic-logo-header-circle-3-12-21.jpg

-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.

Hello There! Grant Kimball here… founder and contributing writer to my blog & website: Women’s College Hockey.org. I’m very glad you found my site. My goal is simple – to help those play women’s NCAA college hockey. I am beginning my 6th season as an Assistant Coach with the Yale University women’s hockey program. I have developed an experienced perspective in the world of women’s ice hockey having coached and recruited literally hundreds of players from across the globe and talked with thousands of parents during my close to 30 years of amateur and NCAA coaching. I have coached at 6 NCAA DI and DIII programs in the NCHA (D3), the CHA, WCHA, Hockey East, ECAC, and the Ivy League (DI). Beyond coaching, I have served in a variety of leadership capacities. I currently serves as an Officer with the American Hockey Coaches Association as Vice President of Women’s Hockey where I lead our D-I and D-III coaching body and sit on the AHCA’s Women’s Hockey Executive Committee.

Mailbag Monday – #8 – Nov. 15th

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In This Post…

  • Mailbag Monday #8 |

Mailbag Monday #8

Click on the link below to watch this week’s video version of Mailbag Monday. Mike from Minnesota asks: Do college coaches/recruits only tend to look in affluent areas/cities when looking for players to fill a partial scholarship situations? Lengthy video caution… lots to unpack here!

It’s a good question Mike. We have not touched on the scholarship topic much to date yet. We discuss how each program is different in how they manage scholarship and it’s not a one-size-fits-all answer. We talk about what the scholarship environment is like now compared with just a few years ago and how COVID and transfers have changed things. We also talk about the mindset parents and players should have when thinking about scholarships.

We hope this video helps!

Be sure to tune in next Monday for another addition of Mailbag Monday. Remember you can submit your questions HERE, email them to us at womenscollegehockey@gmail.com, or send us a Tweet to @WMNSCollHockey and use the hashtag #MailbagMonday.

Odds & Ends + Streaming Info

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 event form.

Streaming Info

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

-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. Subscriptions are not needed to watch games this season.

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

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

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

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Mailbag Monday – #7 – Oct. 11th

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In This Post…

  • Mailbag Monday #7 |

Mailbag Monday #7

Click on the link below to watch this week’s video version of Mailbag Monday. A frustrated parent, ‘Jason’ from the Mid-West’ who’s daughter is currently in grade 11 this academic year, wants to know why the class of 2023 is perhaps being overlooked in the recruiting process. Lengthy video caution… lots to unpack here!

It’s a good question ‘Jason’. We do a deep dive on some factors that recruits in the 2023 class will want to keep in mind as they go through the process. We hope this video helps!

Be sure to tune in next Monday for another addition of Mailbag Monday. Remember you can submit your questions HERE, email them to us at womenscollegehockey@gmail.com, or send us a Tweet to @WMNSCollHockey and use the hashtag #MailbagMonday.

Odds & Ends + Streaming Info

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.

Streaming Info

  • Streams in the ECAC can be found HERE. Subscriptions will be necessary to watch games in the ECAC.
  • Streams in the WCHA can be found HERE. Subscriptions will be necessary to watch games.
  • Streams in Hockey East can be found HERE. Subscriptions will be necessary to watch games.
  • Streams in CHA games with the exception of Penn St. can be found HERE. Paid subscriptions will be necessary. Penn State streams can be found HERE.
  • Streams in NEWHA games can be found at each teams’ website. Paid subscriptions will be necessary.

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.

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Post #7 — 11/17/20

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In This Post

  • Union College Cancels 20-21 Season
  • RIT Reconsiders
  • 20-21 Women’s & Men’s Beanpot Cancelled

Union College Cancels 20-21 Season…

Another ECAC Hockey member school has cancelled its 20-21 season. Union College becomes the 10th DI program to put hockey on pause for the 20-21 season. Athletic Director Jim McLaughlin made the announcement just before noon today. You can read it HERE. The ECAC is now down to 4 teams on both the women’s and men’s side–Clarkson, Colgate, Quinnipiac, and St. Lawrence.

RIT Reconsiders…

RIT which announced it was cancelling its women’s and men’s 20-21 hockey seasons on Nov. 9, is now reconsidering its decision. RIT president David Munson states as long as the state of New York accepts Atlantic Hockey and College Hockey America’s return-to-play plans, hockey for the 20-21 season will continue at RIT. Details can be found on USCHO.com HERE.

2021 Women’s & Men’s Beanpot Tourney Cancelled…

Another hockey casualty of the pandemic is not a hockey program, but an in-season tournament, The Beanpot. The 2021 four-school annual event in February between BC, BU, Harvard, and Northeastern has been cancelled. The Boston Globe has the story HERE.

Stay tuned later this week for our regularly scheduled post with an update on the program and part-II of our Understanding the Process series on how academics play into our recruiting process.

Until next time… stay safe and be well.

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Post #6 — 11/16/20

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Another COVID Casualty, RPI Cancels 20-21 Season

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) becomes the 9th women’s and men’s hockey program to cancel it’s 20-21 season due to COVID concerns. RPI, a member of the ECAC, made the announcement Monday afternoon. You can read the official announcement HERE.

This leaves the ECAC with five remaining schools planning, at least for now, to play—Clarkson, Colgate, Quinnipiac, St. Lawrence, and Union. The ECAC lost six schools when the Ivy League announced it would cancel all winter sports last week.

One has to wonder if more schools will follow the six Ivy programs, RIT, RPI, and Post University with cancelling their seasons. If you include St. Cloud and Vermont who have recently postponed upcoming games between Bemidji St., UCONN, BC, and BU respectively, that’s 15 programs affected already. 41% of DI teams impacted.

We’ll keep you updated on more COVID related developments.

Until next time… stay safe and be well.

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Post #5 — 11/16/20

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Nov. 16 UPDATE as of 8:30am…

  • COVID Already Impacting NCAA Games and Programs

Games have been postponed this Friday between St. Cloud and Bemidji in St. Cloud, MN as at least 8 St. Cloud players tested positive for COVID-19 on Sunday. Players who tested positive and meet the criteria for mandatory quarantine must remain in quarantine for up to 14-days. St. Cloud is scheduled to play its next series Nov. 27-28 vs. Mankato in St. Cloud. You can read more on this developing story HERE.

The University of Vermont Athletic Department announced late Sunday evening it will not compete in any winter sports until Dec. 18. An article in the Burlington Free-Press [Read Here] links the decision not to any outbreak of cases with any one team, but more out of a “…most responsible course of action”. Vermont has seen a spike in cases statewide which has prompted a change in restaurant dining and travel restrictions, all recreational sports has been paused until Dec. 15t as well. High school winter sports, which usually begin in late November, have now been pushed to begin Jan. 11. As one of the largest employers in the state, you can bet UVM has been in close communication with VT state health officials in how to not make matters worse. I suspect teams traveling to UVM was a major concern as states in the new england region have cases surging.

Hockey East had just announced on Nov. 11 its 20-21 women’s and men’s return to play protocol and schedule. Looks like that will be getting a major adjustment. No word on if missed games will be made up.

As we stated in our previous post, we figured hockey would have the same game postponement issues as football. Looks like hockey is in for a bumpy ride.

We will continue to update and monitor any other related COVID college hockey developments.

Until next time… stay safe and be well.

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Post #4 — 11/15/20

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IN THIS POST…

  • NCAA/COVID Update

NCAA/COVID Update…

It looks like NCAA DI and DIII teams are going to give it ‘the ‘old college try’ and start playing games. Some already have. DI women’s and men’s conferences have been announcing schedules over the last few weeks, and the puck finally dropped Friday night in South Bend on the men’s side as Wisconsin traveled and took on Notre Dame. I have to imagine a charter flight was involved for Wisco.

As it stands now (Sunday, Nov. 15) there are 8 DI women’s teams and 2 DI men’s programs who will not be playing hockey this year. Here is what we know.

Women

  • Ivy League–Brown, Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, Princeton, and Yale
  • College Hockey America (CHA)–Rochester Institute of Technology
  • New England Women’s Hockey Alliance (NEWHA)–Post University

The WCHA and Hockey East have announced their intended schedules. Hockey East came out with a full season schedule while the WCHA announced a schedule through December. You can click the links below to find them. The ECAC and CHA have yet to announce anything official. The NEWHA hasn’t appeared to announce anything official but their official website does list games for Sacred Heart.

WCHA-Announcement Schedule | Hockey East-Announcement Schedule | NEWHA

Men

  • Ivy League–Brown, Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, Princeton, and Yale
  • Atlantic Hockey Conference (AHC)–Rochester Institute of Technology
  • Western Collegiate Hockey Association (WCHA)–Alaska Anchorage

The Ivy League announced Thursday evening it would cancel all winter sports. I doubt there were many who thought the Ivy League would have decided anything different. It was only a matter of time before they pulled the trigger. On both the women’s and men’s side the ECAC now drops to 6 teams from 12. Additionally on the women’s side, Post University made its announcement to cancel Winter and Spring sports back in October sighting safety concerns due to the pandemic. With Posts’ women’s team out, the NEWHA drops to 5 teams from 6. Post also decided to move to all-virtual classes and a hope to return to competition in 2021. The leadership at RIT made a similar announcement just a week ago on Nov. 9. to cancel all winter sports for the 2020-2021 season. You can read that HERE. The CHA now drops from 6 teams to 5. On the men’s side, Atlantic Hockey where the RIT men play will drop to 10 from 11. The University at Alaska-Anchorage in the WCHA cancelled its indoor winter sports season, details can be found HERE. And in doing so, likely cancelled the men’s hockey program altogether. 20-21 was supposed to be the men’s hockey teams’ last season. UAA announced an athletic restructuring in August that would cancel four sport programs, men’s hockey being one of them.

As we’ve seen with the college football season, I think college hockey can expect some of the same with game cancellations/postponements, etc. There are already a few games on the men’s side involving Army that were/will be postponed. Unlike football, hockey is an indoor sport and thus the chance for infection rises. But don’t expect any fans at any games this year, I haven’t heard of a conference allowing them. Interestingly, men’s teams in the NCHC will try an NHL-like bubble with all 8 teams heading to the University of Nebraska-Omaha to play games until late December. You can read more about that HERE.

The first games on the DI women’s side will happen Friday Nov. 20 as UNH hosts Boston College at 4:30PM. If you need your college hockey viewing fix, you can catch the game live on NESN – the New England Sports Network. And speaking of TV, with the NHL not having games until who knows when, I wonder if sports networks will add more women’s hockey to it’s scheduling line-up to fill the hockey void. Let’s hope so.

Until next time… stay safe and be well.

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Post #1 — 10/1/20

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In This Post

  • Welcome to Women’s College Hockey.org
  • NCAA COVID Update

Welcome to Women’s College Hockey.org

We appreciate your time checking in and taking an interest in our new blog The Women’s College Hockey Pipeline! These are times unlike any of us have ever experienced and we hope you and your families are doing well. Women’s College Hockey.org provides news, notes and insight from around NCAA women’s hockey as well as scores, schedules and video highlights to help prospective female players, their families and coaches stay informed, understand how the recruiting process works and on a path to playing NCAA college hockey. Have a question? Be sure to get in touch and send us a note in the ‘CONTACT US’ section above in the menu bar. So sit back, relax, and enjoy!

NCAA COVID Update…

–On September 16th, the NCAA DI Council voted to extend the recruiting dead period through January 1, 2021. You can find the DI Council’s official report PDF HERE. Certainly, this has a major impact on recruiting not only for coaches to evaluate players live, but for players and families not being able to visit campuses. NCAA programs have resorted to watching games online or streamed live. We would encourage any club/team with the capability to stream live or tape and upload video of games to the web with NCAA coach access to please do so.

-On September 10th the five NCAA Division I Women’s Ice Hockey conferences, along with six men’s hockey conferences, made a joint statement represented by the Hockey Commissioners Association, that the hockey season will be delayed. A link to the announcement can be found HERE.

-Yale University Assistant Coach Grant Kimball has been on the front lines of the COVID discussions with the women’s DI coaching body as a member of the Women’s Ice Hockey Executive Committee and as a Governor within the American Hockey Coaches Association.
-With a delayed season comes challenges:
     1) Will each conference play the same amount of games?
     2) Will there be an opportunity to play out of conference games? If so, how many and vs. whom?
     3) If players opt out, what does that do to their NCAA eligibility?
     4) With a shortened season, how will the NCAA tourney field be determined? All of these questions are being evaluated. Individual conferences will make announcements as to their season starting on a case by case basis. The impact is hardest hit on the Ivy League as no hockey will be played until Jan. 1 at the earliest women or men. Within the ECAC, Union, St. Lawrence, and RPI are following the Ivy lead and not allowing winter sports to resume until Jan. 1. That leaves, Clarkson, Colgate, and Quinnipiac to potentially play games earlier than Jan. 1 should a ECAC decision allow them to.

We’ll certainly be keeping you up to date on any additional program and NCAA news as it relates to the start of the 20-21 season.

Until next time…