Greetings, as we finally get rolling with summer (look at the Duluth weather forecast if you don’t believe me), there’s really no better thing to do than talk about hockey. Couldn’t agree more.
I’ve got a few college hockey-related items to discuss, starting with a potentially gigantic development for the UMD women’s hockey program.
Off its first Frozen Four trip in 11 years, Maura Crowell has added to the team one of the biggest transfers in the history of college hockey, bringing All-American Élizabeth Giguère to UMD.
(That sounds like hyperbole. It is not. UMD has picked up a player who won the Patty Kazmaier Award — the nation’s top player — in 2020. These types of transfers don’t grow on trees. Giguère is Clarkson’s all-time leading scorer, has ring cred, and has been a leader. This is massive for UMD.)
Giguère heads to UMD after being — somewhat surprisingly — cut from the Canadian National Team Camp. Hockey Canada only took four players for national team centralization who were active in college programs (one of them is UMD captain Ashton Bell, which opened up the roster spot for Giguère). The 24-year-old Quebec City native scored 99 goals and tallied 233 points over 137 games in four years at Clarkson.
UMD figures to field one of the deepest and most talented forward groups in the country, while also returning experienced defensemen in Maggie Flaherty, Kailee Skinner, Lizi Norton, Taylor Stewart, and Nina Jobst-Smith, along with goalie Emma Söderberg, who is a candidate for the Swedish Olympic Team (if she makes it, she won’t centralize, as only the U.S. and Canada go that route with their women’s hockey teams, but she’d miss a significant chunk of the late season).
With Wisconsin and Minnesota both affected by Olympic participation, UMD is definitely a contender in the WCHA for 2021-22.
******
Will the women’s NCAA Tournament expand before UMD and the City of Duluth host the 2023 Frozen Four at Amsoil Arena?
If Crowell, associate coach Laura Bellamy, and the group they’ve been working with have their way, the answer is “Yes” to this question.
It’s expected that the NCAA will be presented with a proposal to expand the women’s tournament from eight teams to ten. Read Matt Wellens’ story from last week’s Duluth News Tribune, and hear Matt and I discuss this and the Giguère transfer from my radio show last Friday.
Matt lays out the straight numbers on why this is happening and why it makes sense, which it does. At a time where gender equality is (finally) a huge issue that has a lot of people’s attention, the timing probably couldn’t be better to seek this change. With 60 teams currently playing Division I men’s hockey, 16 (nearly 27 percent) qualify for the national tournament. Currently, there are 35 teams eligible for the women’s NCAA Tournament, which is eight teams, or 22.9 percent of the field. In 2022-23, teams in the New England Women’s Hockey Alliance (NEWHA) become eligible for the NCAAs, as that league will receive an automatic bid. That will mean 43 teams can make the national tournament, and an eight-team field means only 18.6 percent of teams will get in. Expanding the field to ten brings that percentage up to 23.2, more in line with the men’s ratio.
Matt’s story has more on this, as well as the possibility of the NCAA Tournament becoming a single-site event, which it was in 2021 (hosted by Mercyhurst in Erie, Pa.). I do think there’s an appetite for a single-site tournament, though I’m not sure that will happen in 2023. If it does, it sounds like Duluth will be ready to accommodate all eight (potentially ten) teams. The single-site tournament as an eight-team event is about an eight-day affair. Teams would likely arrive to the venue Saturday or Sunday, with quarterfinal games Monday and Tuesday, followed by the Frozen Four semifinals Thursday and the title game Saturday. It’s expensive to house teams that long, but would it be more attractive for fans, and could that offset some of the upfront expense? Also, if the tournament expands to ten teams, how would that be handled? If a fully single-site tournament, it could potentially elongate stays by a couple days for teams that are needed to play in first-round games (the bottom four seeds would play first-round games, with the winners joining the top six in the quarterfinals).
There’s a lot to sort through, but in the end I do believe the tournament will expand, and it does seem to make sense to hold a single-site tourney if it is financially and logistically viable.
******
The other big college hockey news last week wasn’t good.
Robert Morris announced it was dropping men’s and women’s hockey, effective immediately.
“The decision to discontinue the men’s and women’s ice hockey programs was made based on an analysis which included scholarships and operating costs, and the necessary investments to maintain and improve the current facility,” the school said in a statement. “The university also wanted to align our athletic offerings more closely with other similar nationally-ranked universities of our size.”
These types of decisions happen, rarely with the kind of response we saw, even from members of the college hockey media.
According to multiple sources, RMU coaches had no warning that this decision was forthcoming. In fact, sources said earlier today that the coaches and players found out only a short time before the press release was posted online.
As of this afternoon, support staff was still trying to figure out how long they’ll be able to keep their paychecks coming.
For the administration to contemplate a move like this without cluing in anyone that it would directly affect is heartless and cowardly.
RMU tried to spin this decision by saying that it will honor scholarships if student-athletes want to continue to pursue their degree. But, they know full well that most of those players will want to play and will ultimately decide to transfer.
But, if you’ve noticed, the transfer portal news has slowed considerably over the last two weeks. That’s because most programs have already filled out their rosters for the 2021-22 season. Space is very limited, and we’re about to see another huge influx of players hitting the open market, the majority of whom will not be able to find a landing spot.
By making this decision so late, the school effectively gave most of their student-athletes little to no chance of finding a new home in the transfer portal.
The RMU administration informed no one that this news was coming. An Atlantic Hockey source said this afternoon that the league had no prior warning that this was even on the table. The league’s athletic directors were meeting via Zoom this afternoon and are scheduled to meet again on Friday to discuss scheduling.
One Atlantic Hockey school was on the phone with Robert Morris coaches just yesterday discussing potential scheduling dates for this upcoming season.
Everyone was blindsided.
Well, everyone but Chris Howard and his administration.
That’s because this decision was announced at the RMU Board of Trustees annual retreat last week, according to a press release.
It seems clear that budget shortages weren’t a main factor for this move. There must be some other political forces at play within the RMU universe for this sudden and drastic move to happen. Schools can do whatever the heck they want — we say that play out all the time, in different ways, good and bad — but this was done without any consideration for the people it would most directly impact.
To be blunt, this was handled horribly. It’s bad enough that the move came when, as Mike McMahon notes above, teams are finalizing rosters for the upcoming season and there are still dozens of Division I players in the transfer portal who might not find a place to play in 2021-22. But RMU made its own situation worse when, in the same press release where it announced the elimination of two sports, it bragged up its fundraising and registrations. It was callous, completely unnecessary, and made it impossible for the university to win anything in the court of public opinion. That was a battle the school was simply not going to win anyway, given it admitted the cuts weren’t because of budget problems or COVID issues, but instead about a “broad strategy” or whatever. But somehow it made its own position worse.
******
On the UMD men’s side of Amsoil Arena, things have been very quiet since it was announced that seniors Matt Anderson, Koby Bender, Louie Roehl, and Kobe Roth will all return, along with captain Noah Cates and graduate transfer Casey Gilling (from Miami).
Obviously, this is a nice infusion of experience into a group that will be — by at least one important metric — quite young next season.
Yeah, guys like Anderson, Bender, Cates, Roehl, and Roth are “grizzled veterans” in the college hockey world. Bender’s 85 games are the fewest among the five, after all (Gilling has over 130 games of experience with the RedHawks). But UMD’s freshmen and sophomores from last season, all of whom are expected back for 2021-22, have logged a total of four postseason games (NCHC quarterfinal game vs. Western Michigan, NCHC semifinal vs. St. Cloud State, and the NCAA Tournament games against North Dakota and UMass).
To put that in perspective, the five “old guys” have accounted for a combined total of 76 playoff games played (Anderson, Roehl, and Roth all have 20). The COVID cancellation in 2020 and all of 2021’s weirdness have caused this impressive gulf of experience on the team.
(Then again, that UND regional final felt like about five games at once, so maybe the young guys can catch up fast.)
If you haven’t seen the schedule, well here you go:
10/8 at Bemidji State
10/9 vs Bemidji State
10/15-10/16 Ice Breaker (Michigan, Minnesota State, Providence)
10/22 at Minnesota
10/23 vs Minnesota
11/5-11/6 at Western Michigan
11/12-11/13 vs Colorado College
11/19-11/20 at North Dakota
11/26-11/27 vs Alaska
12/3-12/4 at Northern Michigan
12/10-12/11 vs Denver
12/30 at Minnesota State
1/1 vs Minnesota State
1/7-1/8 at St. Cloud State
1/14-1/15 vs Miami
1/21-1/22 at Omaha
1/28-1/29 vs Western Michigan
2/11-2/12 at Denver
2/18-2/19 vs North Dakota
2/25-2/26 at Miami
3/4-3/5 vs St. Cloud State
I’ll be back once the roster is finalized with a look at the depth chart, and here and there along the way as there’s news.
Comments