NFL
By Jason Gulden
The first weekend of NCHC conference play is in the books, and what a weekend it was—all the series except for one ended with a split. Let’s look back at the NCHC conference results and how they affect the standings after the weekend of play.
Reigning Conference Champs, Western Michigan Broncos would start their defense of their title with a trip over to St. Cloud, Minnesota, to take on the Huskies from St. Cloud State. Friday night’s game would go back and forth until Western Michigan scored the game-winning goal on the Power Play at the 15:13 mark of the 3rd to win by the score of 6-5.
Saturday night would bring game 2 of this series and a whole different outcome this time around. St. Cloud State would handle Western Michigan by the score of 5-1. The Huskies would score 2 goals in both the 2nd and 3rd period to put the game out of reach.
With the split this weekend, both teams would earn 3 points of the possible 6 points on the weekend. These games are the only 2 games these two teams will play each other this season during the regular season.
This next series was the only non-conference series of the weekend. It put Alaska-Anchorage in Denver, Colorado, to face off with the Denver Pioneers. This series would also end in a split. Friday night, the game was back and forth as each team would score a goal in each period and would force Overtime. At the 3:55 mark of Overtime, Alaska Anchorage would score number 4 on the night and end this game with a 4-3 victory.
Saturday night would be a whole, entirely different story as the Pioneers would come out firing and would run away with a 6-0 victory in front of 6,235 happy fans at Magness Arena. Denver would improve their record to 4-3-1 as it heads into their first conference games next weekend.
The only sweep of conference play this weekend took place in Colorado Springs, Colorado, at Ed Robson, as the Omaha Mavericks would take on the Colorado College Tigers. If you were part of the 6,939 fans that came through the door at Ed Robson this weekend, looking for a Tigers victory, unfortunately, that didn’t take place.
Friday night game, Colorado College would put 51 shots on Omaha goalie, Simon Latkoczy, and he would stop 49 of them, leading the way to a 3-2 victory for Omaha. Tigers would end the first period with 17 shots on goal, but were able to find the back of the net. Two of Omaha’s goals on the night would come on the Power Play as they went 2-3 with the man advantage.
Saturday night, Omaha would win 5-4. Every time Colorado College scored, Omaha would answer back to either tie the game or take the lead. The Tigers would once again put up 40 shots on the Omaha goalie but were only able to score 4 times.
With the sweep in Colorado Springs, Omaha would end the weekend with 6 of the possible 6 points and lead the conference standings after the 1st weekend of conference play. These two teams will face off again in Omaha on January 23rd and 24th. Let’s hope Colorado College can return the favor and win both games up in Omaha.
Next series puts Arizona State Sun Devils up in Oxford, Ohio, to face off against the surprise Miami (OH) Red Hawks. This series continued the trend with the road team winning on Friday night. Arizona State would control the game after Miami (OH) would take a 1-0 lead at the 2:15 mark of the 1st period. Arizona would score 2 in the 1st and then 2 in the 3rd to win 4-1. With the loss, Miami (OH) would experience something that they have experienced all season, a loss.
Once again, on Saturday night, the home team would come out on top. Miami (OH) would rebound and would take this game 5-2. They would be down 2-1 after Arizona State scored at the 9:19 mark in the second. The Redhawks would string together 4 straight goals on their way to their first conference victory of the year. It would be their first conference victory since the 2023-2024 season. That season, they would only win 1 conference game.
If we have learned anything so far this season, Miami (OH) will be breaking that record here soon. With the split this weekend, both Arizona State and Miami (OH) would come away with 3 points each of the possible 6.
If you have paid attention to this article, you will know what happened when the Minnesota-Duluth Bulldogs traveled to Grand Forks, North Dakota, to take on the University of North Dakota Fighting Hawks.
On Friday night, we would see the first overtime game of conference play this year. Minnesota Duluth would have a 3-1 lead with 5 minutes to play in the game, until North Dakota scored 2 goals with the game-tying goal coming at the 18:49 mark of the period to tie it at 3. The game would go to overtime, and Duluth didn’t wait long to get out of Ralph Englestad Arena and the sea of green jerseys, with the game-winning goal coming at 43 seconds into overtime and a 4-3 victory.
Saturday night was no different from the other series. North Dakota would rebound and recover from the heartbreak and send 11,495 Fighting Hawks fans home with a 5-1 victory. Duluth would score at the 8:49 in the first period to quiet the Fighting Hawks fans down, but they would have the final cheers of the night as they would score 5 straight goals.
With the victory and the loss that came in overtime on Friday, North Dakota would earn 4 points of the possible 6, which is good enough for 2nd place in the conference. Minnesota Duluth would get 2 points out of the possible 6.
The standings are as following the NCHC conference results: Omaha, with the sweep, has 6 points. North Dakota, with the win and overtime loss, has 4 points. Arizona State, Miami (OH), St. Cloud St, and Western Michigan, following their splits, each have 3 points. Minnesota Duluth has 2 points due to their win in overtime. Denver and Colorado College each have 0 points. Denver due to them not playing a conference game, and Colorado College due to them being swept.
I know it’s only one weekend of league games, but if this is how the season is going to go, it’s going to be a fun ride. Just like the first month of the season, I will be taking you on the ride through the end. Talk to you all this weekend when we preview weekend 2 of the NCHC conference games.
