NFL
By: Jason Gulden
Welcome to Opening Weekend of the NCHC (National Collegiate Hockey Conference) for the 2025-2026 season. As we sit here waiting for the puck to drop it’s a great time to look ahead to see what is happening on Opening Weekend.
Let’s look at the NCHC Preseason Media Poll for the 2025 season. Leading at top with is defending NCAA National Champions the Western Michigan Broncos. #2 belongs to the Denver Pioneers. #3 belong to the North Dakota Fighting Hawks. #4 belongs to the Arizona State Sun Devils. $5 belongs to the Colorado College Tigers. #6 belongs to the Minnesota Duluth Bulldogs. #7 belongs to the Omaha Mavericks. #8 belongs to the St. Cloud State Huskies. Coming in at #9 is the Miami (OH) Red Hawks. Every weekend games in this conference are very hard to win. This conference began playing in 2013. Of the 12 seasons that they have played hockey; this conference has won the National Championship in Men’s Hockey 7 times. There was no National Champion during the 2019-2020 season due to being cancelled due to the Covid shutdown nationwide.
Before we head into the weekend games for the conference let’s look at the NCAA preseason rankings. These rankings are from the USCHO Division 1 Men’s Poll for from September 22nd. The NCHC teams will be in bold.
| Rnk | Team | (First Place Votes) | Record | Points | Last Poll |
| 1 | Western Michigan | (29) | 0-0-0 | 921 | 1 |
| 2 | Boston University | (3) | 0-0-0 | 907 | 2 |
| 3 | Michigan State | (14) | 0-0-0 | 877 | 6 |
| 4 | Denver | 0-0-0 | 840 | 3 | |
| 5 | Penn State | (3) | 0-0-0 | 820 | 5 |
| 6 | Boston College | 0-0-0 | 647 | 4 | |
| 7 | Maine | 0-0-0 | 619 | 8 | |
| 8 | Minnesota | 0-0-0 | 592 | 9 | |
| 9 | Providence | 0-0-0 | 559 | 13 | |
| 10 | Connecticut | 0-0-0 | 542 | 7 | |
| 11 | North Dakota | 0-0-0 | 536 | 18 | |
| 12 | Michigan | (1) | 0-0-0 | 434 | 17 |
| 13 | Quinnipiac | 0-0-0 | 373 | 15 | |
| 14 | Arizona State | 0-0-0 | 358 | 16 | |
| 15 | Massachusetts | 0-0-0 | 311 | 10 | |
| 16 | Ohio State | 0-0-0 | 280 | 11 | |
| 17 | Cornell | 0-0-0 | 228 | 12 | |
| 18 | Minnesota State | 0-0-0 | 169 | 14 | |
| 19 | St. Thomas | 0-0-0 | 92 | NR | |
| 20 | Wisconsin | 0-0-0 | 78 | NR |
Others receiving votes: Colorado College 68, Clarkson 64, Northeastern 23, UMass Lowell 23, Omaha 20, Minnesota Duluth 19, Sacred Heart 19, Bentley 16, St. Cloud State 15, Notre Dame 12, Dartmouth 10, Bowling Green 5, Colgate 5, Brown 4, Harvard 4, Holy Cross 4, Michigan Tech 3, Augustana 1, Bemidji State 1, Union 1
Now let’s look at the games for the opening weekend. On Friday night we have no league games; all games are out of conference play. In an Exhibition game, Augustana travels to St. Cloud State. We have Ferris State traveling to Miami (OH). In another exhibition game we have Air Force traveling to Omaha. We have UConn traveling to Colorado College. We have Penn State traveling to Arizona State. The last game on Friday night we have Minnesota-Duluth traveling to Alaska Fairbanks.
On Saturday night, just like Friday night, there are no league games; instead, there are out-of-conference games. Penn State finishes their weekend series against Arizona State. The US Under 18 Team plays an exhibition game against the defending National Champs Western Michigan. St. Thomas plays St. Cloud State. UConn finishes there weekend series against Colorado College. UNLV plays an exhibition game at Denver. Ferris State finishes their weekend series in Miami (OH). Manitoba plays an exhibition game against North Dakota. Minnesota-Duluth finishes their weekend series against Alaska Fairbanks.
Well, that ends our look ahead to the first weekend of the NCHC action. We will be back next week to look back on the games from this weekend, update the polls, and look ahead to the 2nd weekend of NCHC hockey.
