NFL
By Jason Gulden
Opening weekend for the NCHC is in the books. All the teams in the league had at least 1 game with multiple teams having 2 games. Let’s go ahead and look at the results from Opening weekend.
Friday Night the NCHC dropped the puck on the 2025-2026 season with 6 games on its schedule. The league began its season with an exhibition matchup between Augustana and St. Cloud State in St. Cloud, Minnesota. The two teams would skate to a 2-2 tie. The second game on the schedule was another exhibition game between Air Force and Omaha in Omaha, Nebraska. Omaha would come away with a 3-2 victory as they would score 33 seconds into overtime. The third game on the schedule would pit the #10 team in the nation, UConn, in Colorado Springs against Colorado College.
The #10 team would go down by a score of 4-2. The fourth game on the schedule would be the matchup of the weekend as #5 Penn State would travel to the desert to take on the #14 Arizona State. Penn State would take this matchup 6-3. Gavin McKenna, NHL #1 top prospect for the 2026 draft, assisted on the first 2 goals for Penn State. The fifth game on the schedule was Ferris State taking on Miami (OH) in Oxford Ohio. Miami (OH) would get its first win since October 26th, 2024, with a 6-4 victory. The final game on the schedule on Friday night put Minnesota Duluth against Alaska Fairbanks up in Alaska. Minnesota Duluth would come away with the 5-1 victory. That would conclude the opening night of the NCHC schedule.
As we headed into the first Saturday of the season, multiple teams were looking for the opening weekend sweep. Did any of it happen? Let’s look at those games. The first game was the rematch of Friday night’s big matchup between the #5 Penn State and #14 Arizona State in Tempe. Just like Friday night and the dismay of NCHC fans, Penn State would take the game 4-2 and earn the weekend sweep. Gavin McKenna scored the game-winning goal for Penn State in the 3rd period. The second game would be the season debut of the defending NCAA Champions Western Michigan as they welcomed the USA Under-18 Team to Kalamazoo for an exhibition game. Western had no issues with them as they steamrolled them 7-0.
The third game of Saturday night would put St. Thomas, who will join the NCHC next season, taking on in-state rival St. Cloud State in St. Cloud. St. Thomas would come away with the 4-3 victory. The fourth game on the schedule would put #10 UConn against Colorado College. Colorado College would score the first goal of the game at the 10:31 mark of the first period and then UConn would score 5 unanswered to win 5-1. 2 of UConn’s goals would come on the Power Play when they had the 5-3 advantage. The fifth matchup took place about 60 miles north of the Colorado College campus in Colorado Springs, up at Magness Arena in Denver Colorado. Denver University would welcome UNLV to their house for an exhibition game. Denver would come away with a 6-1 victory. The sixth game would also be an exhibition game between Manitoba and North Dakota up in Grand Forks. North Dakota would steamroll Manitoba by a 7-0 score.
The seventh matchup of the weekend would take us back up to Alaska for the Minnesota Duluth against the Alaska Fairbanks. Minnesota Duluth would take this game by the score of 4-1 to complete the weekend sweep of Alaska Fairbanks. The final matchup would be a big game for Miami (OH) with them playing Ferris State for the second straight night. Miami (OH) would come away with their 2nd victory in as many nights as they won 3-1. The reason it was big cause that last season Miami (OH) only had 3 wins the whole season and all three of those wins came in October 2024. Will this season be different? Stay tuned for the coming weeks to find out.
Well, NCHC hockey fans, that concludes this article with our look back to the first weekend of the NCHC hockey season. Stay tuned to the article later in the week where we look ahead to a 4-day weekend worth of games, the players of the week for the NCHC as well as the new hockey poll that came out yesterday. Did any NCHC teams hurt their case in the rankings after this last weekend’s results? Come back this weekend and find out. Talk to you all then.
