NFL
Welcome back, NCHC hockey fans. What a great weekend we experienced in league play. Even though it’s only 2 weekends into league play, we have the defending champs in trouble in conference play. Let’s look at them as well as the rest of the NCHC teams and how they fared over the past weekend.
As I mentioned above, Western Michigan is struggling right now. Through 4 conference games so far, they are 1-3 with 3 points and are dead last in the league standings. In the rematch of one of the 2025 National Semifinals against Denver University, Western Michigan would get swept on its home ice over the weekend. Denver would win Friday night 3-1 and then on Saturday night would destroy the Broncos 6-3.
Denver would earn 6 points on the weekend to move into a 2-team tie for 3rd place in the conference with 2 games in hand over Omaha.
Speaking of Omaha, following their sweep against Colorado College last weekend, this weekend wasn’t so friendly to the Mavericks. They welcomed North Dakota to town, and the Fighting Hawks of North Dakota took over 1st place in the conference and earned all 6 points on their way to a weekend sweep against the Mavericks. Friday night was a 7-2 beatdown, and Saturday night was a 4-1 win.
Colorado College was looking to rebound from their disappointing showing last weekend against Omaha when they traveled down to the desert to take on the Sun Devils from Arizona State. It looked like Colorado College would take game 1 easily when they were leading 3-0 halfway through the 2nd period.
Unfortunately for Colorado College and all the Tigers fans around the nation, they gave up 3 goals in the final 28 minutes, allowing Arizona State to tie the game 3-3. The game would go into the 5-minute 3-on-3, and neither team would score. They would then head to the shootout, where Arizona would go 2-0 to earn the extra point in the standings.
Saturday night was a whole different ball game. Colorado College would score the first 2 goals in the 2nd period and would go on to win the game 3-1 and earn 4 points on the weekend.
The final series of the weekend would take place up in Duluth, Minnesota, with St. Cloud State and Minnesota Duluth facing off against each other. Friday night, Minnesota Duluth would get the shutout 4-0, with reigning NCHC Goaltender of the Month for October, Adam Gajan, earning his 2nd shutout of the season. Saturday night, they needed an extra 5 minutes to determine the winner, and it came at the 2:32 mark off the stick of NCHC Forward of the Month for October, Max Plante, to send the Bulldogs fans home celebrating a series sweep. Minnesota Duluth would earn 5 of the 6 points on the weekend to move into 2nd place in the NCHC standings.
Above is a look at the NCHC standings as we stand following the games on Saturday night. One good weekend by any team could change the standings in any direction. Remember, fans, a weekend is worth 6 points.
We are still a long way away from crowning the 2026 Penrose Cup champ for the regular season. There is still time for any team to fix their issues and get things going in the right direction.
Usually, we don’t have games until Friday, but this weekend is a little different. That’s cause one of our teams plays their next game before the next article comes out.
That’s cause back on Saturday, October 4th, which was opening weekend for college hockey, St. Thomas and St. Cloud State would start a home and home series this season. They finish that home and home series on Tuesday night when St. Cloud State will travel to St. Paul, Minnesota, to take on St. Thomas. Will St. Thomas sweep St. Cloud State back to St. Cloud, Minnesota, following Tuesday’s game?
I will answer that question, along with a look ahead to the weekend games, NCHC players of the week for November 3rd through November 8th, and the new USCHO rankings, in the next article that will drop later in the week.
