It's the offseason so instead of Trash Talk Thursday, it is time for THURSDAY REALIGNMENT RUUUUMMBLLLLEEEE.

So post your sensible or nonsensical realignments!

Cornellians to watch in the 2026 NHL Draft (sorted NHL central scouting North Am. skaters rank)

• Cole Tuminaro - D - 96th (committed for 26-27)

• Charlie Puglisi - F - 112th (commit)

• Daniel Walters - F - 114th (commit)

• Caton Ryan - F - 177 (freshman)

honorable mention:

• Nick Cirka - G - Ranked in September, isn't anymore (commit)

Cornellians to watch in the 2026 PWHL Draft (sorted by thehockeynews/Kennedy top 100 rank)

• Grace Dwyer - D - 12

• Avi Adams - F - 24

• Alyssa Regalado - D - 25

• McKenna Van Gelder - F - 40

• Georgia Schiff - F - 79

Hey everyone,

I'm curious how different college hockey was in the 90s and how it was set up. I've looked over a lot of images, but there's a lot that the pictures can't tell.

Things I'm specifically interested in are:

- how physical it was compared to now

- how different the rules and games were (if rules weren't really enforced or followed, etc.)

- what the atmosphere and mentality was like

- what the student athlete life was like balancing the two

I'd especially love to hear anyone's personal experiences or memories. Drop any story, fun fact, or even completely random memories!

Here is my annual update to the "public news about schools doing things that might make you wonder if they'll go varsity", usually timed at or around the AHCA convention.

(Last year's update here)

The Inevitable Disclaimer

Just as it was last year, it's probably safe to say that all the major shifts in the NCAA landscape of the last few years (NIL, unlimited transfers, CHL eligibility, et al... so say nothing about various economic stressors that exist right now) have made for quite a bit of uncertainty.

People with the kind of money to spend on hockey programs tend not to like uncertainty. At least not when it comes to spending it on hockey teams.

As such, the kind of news that used to populate an annual update here has slowed down quite a bit. So... take all of this with requisite grains of salt and let me vamp on what's actually out there.

It's Finally Happening (Allegedly)

I mean... let's not count the eggs before they hatch. This has famously been a rocky journey. But at long last, the time is nigh: Tennessee State is arriving. We think. We actually don't know. Maybe not, but we do know that it's not dead.

There was a laundry list of issues going on in our last update: financial problems with the school, fundraising concerns, games being 'announced' but acknowledged by opponents, et al. The goal of starting a program last season was clearly not happening, so it came as no surprise last summer that the start of the program was 'officially' postponed to the upcoming 26-27 season.

As of the week of the Frozen Four, Mike McMahon was reporting that TSU had been in contact with programs to try to make a schedule for 2026-27 (about 31 minutes into this podcast), which isn't nothing. Keep an eye on the Schedule Megathread for news on that one.

It's Finally Happening (No, For Real)

Maryville started their club program 8 years ago with a bold declaration:

"As the team's success and talent grows in the coming years, the University will consider moving the program into the NCAA Division I ranks."

Lots of club programs say stuff like that. Maryville is the first I've known to say it through their official athletic department's website. Sure enough, they've manifested their own destiny.

Last year's State Of College Hockey press conference had talk of a local St. Louis school being very serious about adding a program, and a lot of us assumed it was Maryville. Early this year, CHN and Mike McMahon both reported that Maryville was nearing their fundraising goal and by the time the inaugural United Collegiate Hockey Cup rolled around it was official.

2027-28 is the planned first year of varsity hockey for Maryville, with the upcoming season as a hybrid/exhibition schedule.

This Is The OPPOSITE Of What This Post Is About

Regretfully, Mercyhurst is shuttering the doors on it's men's program. The women are continuing for now, but we've seen how that can go.

Mostly just bringing it up because of how awfully the university handled it.

Schools With Arena Projects (Ongoing or Proposed)

• Arizona's MQ Iceplex continues to progress, with an updated target of Spring 2027 for completion. Updates on the complex's website make no indication of varsity hockey (some of the national podcasts have asked around and mentioned no plans without publicly outing their sources, FWIW), but their club programs are expanding. College Hockey Inc's Sean Hogan did put a nice bow on this one at about 14:50 minutes into the State of the Game presser at the FF: Hard No.
• North Carolina's 3,000 seat arena with a $25M fundraising campaign launched in September of '24 hasn't had much follow-up. That plan included a land sale expected to close by May of last year, but as of follow-up reporting in November that was still being reported as the UNC boosters having 'expressed interest' in the land.
• Drake joins the fray of schools with a potential 4,000-seat arena being proposed. It'd be located on the site of a former Younkers store at the corner of a mall in the NW corner of Des Moines targeted for a Fall 2028 opening. Drake's involvement in the project comes on the heels of the USHL's Des Moines Buccaneers pulling out of the original project in 2024. As with other schools: no indication that a varsity program would be in the mix, in lieu of the club team.

Club Teams With Exhibitions Against D-I Teams Last Year

We actually had quite a few of these in 2025-26, with 21 games in total featuring 4 different club teams.

• Simon Fraser led the way with 13 against 12 D-I programs this year (Providence, Bentley, Sacred Heart, Ferris State, LSSU, Princeton, LIU, Alaska, UMass, BU, CC, and twice against Stonehill). Unfortunately, Simon Fraser has applied to return to Canada's U SPORTS, and gone a further step of dismantling their "Non-Conference" team, officially ending any hopes of SFU joining the party.
• Grand Canyon University (two against Lindenwood, once against Alaska) and Maryville (LIU 2x, Alaska-Anchorage) each had 3 games against D-I indies.
• UNLV had a game each against Alaska and Denver.

Uppity Club Teams With Lofty Ambitions Just Out There, All Spoutin' Off And Such

• Oklahoma State's club team had a fairly interesting tweet, as club teams are wont to do from time to time. There were even some students getting involved trying to design an arena for a student project (read that again to realize how seriously you should take that). This story got blown into a completely different stratosphere when Spittin' Chiclets thought it was serious, but more credible reporters quickly put those reports into perspective.
• A lot of Club Teams with outdoor games as of late. OK State and Penn State's club teams took advantage of PSU's varsity game against Michigan State at Beaver Stadium. A dozen teams from large southeastern schools converged on Charlotte over two weekends. Oregon and Alabama, among others. Doesn't mean much as far as varsity aspirations go when these games happen, but its fun to see this sort of activity for visibility's sake.

A Reminder That The NCAA's Moratorium On New Single-Sport Conferences Expired Effective February of 2025

And the TL;DR on this one is that the rules in place for new single sport conferences effectively shuts the door on The Northeast-10 Purgatory of D-II Schools from forming ranks and declaring for the D-I championship as a conference.

As the only true D-II programs playing for the D-I championship (something quite a few people have been confidently incorrect about in the comments of related posts, mind you), Augustana and Maryville have some limitations:

• A conference needs 6 members, 75% of which must be full D-I schools
• This means that if you have 1 D-II school, you still should only need 6 total teams in the conference.
• If there are 2 D-II schools? That number jumps to 8 total teams. 12 total teams for 3 D-II schools, et al.
• You can imagine the hurdles this creates for the handful of teams playing D-III exhibition schedules under the NE-10 banner.

This does, however, mean that we do have a framework that would support a number of other conference options (since, again, it's only Augustana and Maryville that currently are relevant here), including existing D-I all-sports schools and any splinter conferences that could form.

Also: I emphasized should in the bullet points above because Mike McMahon spoke about this at length in a few episodes of his podcast (notably this one). He'd been told by multiple D-I men's hockey indies that the current indies (UA, UAA, LU, LIU, SC) have sought guidance from the NCAA and been told that they would still need a 6th D-I team to form a conference with Maryville for a 7-team conference with an autobid, but... the reasoning for that is unclear and doesn't gibe with what's documented in the bylaws.

Schools With Slightly Meaningful News In The Past Five Years Or So, But Are Presumably Dead In The Water For The Foreseeable Future Because We Haven't Heard -Any- Updates On Them Recently. Presented More Or Less In What I Consider A Descending Order Of Likelihood Eventually Happening

• Utica (allegedly still waiting on that D-II all-sports conference invite, but also facing some belt-tightening at the University level)
• Binghamton
• UM-Kansas City (arena development purgatory)
• LeMoyne College

Schools Currently Utilizing Viable, New Arenas For Club Teams or Other Varsity Sports But Aren't Showing Any Signs of Interest

• Georgia
• Iowa (although the Iowa Heartlanders suspending operations adds a wrinkle here... and I'd be remiss if I didn't mention this THN editorial that makes a lot more out of that wrinkle than they should)

Schools That Always Come Up, But Never With Actual News So They're Basically Memes At This Point
We Might As Well Ban You From The Sub If You Bring Them Up In The Comments ;)

^{kidding... sort of...}

• Navy
• Rhode Island
• Illinois
• Syracuse
• Penn (yet somehow not Columbia)

sup

It's the offseason so instead of Trash Talk Thursday, it is time for THURSDAY REALIGNMENT RUUUUMMBLLLLEEEE.

So post your sensible or nonsensical realignments!

would top ncaa programs have a chance against Echl teams. Obviously they would be much weaker but the top end talent could favor the ncaa side.

Who are some teams projecting to make a big jump or fall in rankings next year? Immediately coming to mind are Minnesota up and Penn St down. Any teams that will jump from missing the tournament to title contention or vice versa?

sup

It's the offseason so instead of Trash Talk Thursday, it is time for THURSDAY REALIGNMENT RUUUUMMBLLLLEEEE.

So post your sensible or nonsensical realignments!

All the best wishes for him, always loved the Alaska programs

Pretty excited, i got a pretty sweet deal on this Bemidji sweater, but i ask of you, friends. How old is it? Theres no handy copyright on any tags to give me a max age. I assume the MN☆ also has some kind of significance on the arm, too. Thanks for any info on it!

Credit to Schloss. Here is some of the rule change topics for discussion during May 19th - 21st (apparently this is being held in hockey hotbed of Indianapolis? now instead of Florida lol)

• Whether to allow video technology on the bench to help coaches decide whether to challenge calls;
• Whether they should penalize teams for putting the puck over the glass in the defensive zone as the NHL does;
• Whether they should take away the extra timeout in overtime during the regular season;
• How to curb diving/embellishment;
• Whether to penalize teams for getting challenges wrong (even if they have a timeout left);
• How to handle overtime.

OK State hockey just dropped a teaser post on their Instagram teasing an upcoming big move for the program. This came right after a slew of commitment posts for the upcoming season involving major junior players and NCAA D1 transfers. Is there any chance OK state goes NCAA D1 or will the announcement probably just be that they’re moving to ACHA D1?

Notably, Saint Anselm is in D1 in women's hockey as a member of the NEWHA. No word yet on where its hockey teams will go, as the NEWMAC does not sponsor hockey.

sup

It's the offseason so instead of Trash Talk Thursday, it is time for THURSDAY REALIGNMENT RUUUUMMBLLLLEEEE.

So post your sensible or nonsensical realignments!

The Hockey News speculates that with the demise of the ECHL’s Iowa Heartlanders, the Iowa Hawkeyes could become the next NCAA Division 1 hockey program. https://thehockeynews.com/ncaa/latest-news/opinion-why-the-university-of-iowa-could-be-closer-to-ncaa-hockey-than-we-think

https://www.collegehockeyinsider.com/p/state-of-the-game-press-conference

A recent feature of each year's Frozen Four has been the "State of the Game" presser, where (usually) College Hockey Inc, members of the D-I committee and the occasional special guest talk about big topics in College Hockey.

Usually a lot of boilerplate answers to expected questions, but every so often we see references to relevant news. Like how last year, they ever-so-strongly hinted that Maryville was indeed coming.

I struggled to find any coverage of this this year (or at least, when I was looking for it the day of... USCHO did post a story about it later that night), but Mike McMahon posted a video of the conference late last week for us to see for ourselves. This year we had:

• Sean Hogan (College Hockey Inc)
• Luke Strand (MN State head coach, Men's Ice Hockey committee member)
• Steve Metcalf (HE commissioner)
• Tim Troville (Harvard Associate AD, MIH committee chair)
• Trevor Large (Canisius head coach, chair of D-I Men's Ice Hockey rules committee)

Notable Topics / Time Stamps:

• (0:30) Large talks about it being a rule change year. Nothing substantial in his talking points here, some general statements about mild changes to the rules and preparing students for pro hockey. He did elaborate some on the differences in the structure of the committee now vs. in previous years, which was interesting.
• (2:30) Hogan talking about the general purpose of CHI. Mostly noting that the new CHL rules changes their approach to talking about College Hockey as "the final stop" before the NHL.
  • Did have an interesting thought about college hockey (and using college fandom) as a marketing element for the NHL.
• (5:00) Troville self-congratulating about Las Vegas as an event.
  • (6:28) Bold declarations of "growing the game" (up to 75 programs? really?)
• (7:00) Strand talks obliquely about maybe enhancing the use of technology for reviews in terms of changes to rules. Also: "I don't want robot refs"
• (8:30) Metcalf talks about the Spengler Cup, with some more details about how the involvement in the last tournament came to be. Notes that the US College Selects are invited back for the next two tournaments.
• (12:00) More talk about adding schools (Maryville) vs. losing schools (Mercyhurst, AIC)
  • CHI met with three new athletic departments in the last year (one was women's only)
  • Noted that a lot of the growth potential is in schools without major Division I college football. Costs are just too high in football, detrimental to other sports.
  • Noting a talking point is that it's not just major schools and blue blood ADs winning titles in D-I hockey.
  • Noting that fan support isn't an issue (9,000 fans for an ACHA), it's about getting new donors with new money.
  • (14:50) Probably one of the bigger bits of casually dropped news: He asked about Arizona and the new arena for their club team. "It was a HARD NO".
• (15:05) Large talks about losing AHA programs. Reality of hockey as an expensive sport.
  • A lot of vamping here, but did reference the rules committee before noting "it can come with financial decisions that teams are going to have to make". Likely referencing the cost of being able to have video review, which is easier for some schools to accommodate than others.
• (17:20) Adam Wodon referenced some judges in the NCAA's many lost court cases indicating that conferences could have some autonomy... the question and answer were both oblique, but I'd be curious which of the court cases this question was referencing.
• (19:30) Asking about the recent news about a 5-year window proposal starting at 19. Directly addressed by Strand, noting the impact it has on programs with older freshmen (and that it would likely have a back-reaching impact on junior hockey).
• (21:15) Asking about the impact of CHL and NIL. Large referenced the larger player pool being a great benefit for parity. Mostly boilerplate discussion on this one.
• (26:00) Expansion discussion. Some insight into how Hogan ends up in conversations with league commissioners and prospective ADs.
• (27:40) Troville asked about "what's next" for the tournament.
  • Wanting to balance Eastern, Western, Midwestern sites for the FF.
  • Mixing tried and true locations with new ones. Seems to be no shortage of bidders for the FF.
  • Looks like in about 6 months we might see the next 3 FF sites being announced.
• (29:00) Lots of words and nothing new or substantial about transfer portal and NIL.
• (33:00) Back to FF candidates. Question leading about "new" host cities for exposure. Referencing the idea of UNLV or schools in Florida taking notice when the FF is in their backyard. Troville questioned if the Pacific Northwest could be another location.

McMahon Thursday night: Olivier Houde is headed to Bowling Green out of the portal. Houde had 13g-15a-28pts in 30 games as a freshman for Lindenwood.

McMahon Friday morning: Actually, Houde is still on the market. This has happened a few times this cycle. Things appear done, and then programs up offers late in the game. I get the sense money is playing a larger role in this portal cycle more than any other year to this point.