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September 17, 2025 • 35 mins
On the first episode of the PodKaz for the 2025-26 season, Nicole Haase and Todd Milewski from USCHO.com discuss how preparations for the Olympics could impact the NCAA hockey landscape. It's a season unlike any others before because of the lack of centralization for the U.S. and Canadian national teams.

Changes to the NCAA tournament selection process and an experimental rule also are new this season, and we touch on those.

Then we start our previews of the five NCAA conferences with ECAC Hockey. Cornell won both the regular-season and playoff championships last season and made it to the Frozen Four. Do the Big Red have enough for another run? We discuss the contenders and a dark horse before debating whether the conference will have equal, exceed or fall short of the four NCAA tournament spots it earned in 2025.

Previews of Hockey East, Atlantic Hockey, the WCHA and the NEWHA are coming on future episodes.

The PodKaz is a production of USCHO.com. Have a question for us? Reach out to Nicole (@NicoleHaase) or Todd (@ToddMilewski) on social media or email todd.milewski@uscho.com.
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Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Usccho dot com twenty sixth season is about ready to
get going in NCAA Women's hockey, and we are back
with another season of the podcast.

Speaker 2 (00:18):
Todd Musky and Nicole Hose here with you from us
echo dot com. Thanks for joining us for another season. Nicole,
this is gonna be an interesting one. We're going to
preview all five conferences here as we go along in
the next week or so. But there are some big,
kind of overarching issues here that are going to come

(00:41):
into play really quickly this season. First off, this is
an Olympic year, but it's an Olympic year like no
one's ever seen before, when we're talking about no centralization,
players coming and going, and then the whole month of
really the Olympic being a little bit unknown right now

(01:04):
of how that's going to turn out for the last
couple of weeks of the regular season.

Speaker 3 (01:08):
Yeah, it's uh. Everybody keeps asking and the coaches keep
saying they don't know you and I definitely don't know we. Uh,
it's going to be interesting. I think that's just the
key word. And every team has to be adaptable this year.
I mean, tons of teams are going to be affected
or are not just talking about North American players though
that's the this is the first time that they'll be
coming and going, Yeah, we don't we don't know how

(01:32):
it's gonna affect the season. I thought it was interesting.
On one of the conference calls, there was a question
as to whether or not players may ask for red
shirts after if they end up missing a lot of time,
and the commissioner said the coach nobody had asked about
that yet. But yeah, it's just a it's a great, big,
wide unknown, and I think that makes it for a

(01:52):
fun collegiate season because we don't really know what's going
to happen.

Speaker 2 (01:56):
That is one of the amazing things here is that
like we're getting into okay with the middle of September. Here,
we're getting into the first week of games and I
haven't really heard a lot from the federations about what
this your schedule is going to look like. It seems
a little strange, but I understand it too that there's
a little you don't want to show your hand too

(02:18):
early here.

Speaker 3 (02:19):
Yeah, you know, nobody Canada put out a roster of
people invited to a meeting, to an orientation meeting, and
Team USA hasn't put anything out despite having held the
camp and posting pictures of everybody at the camp. And
that's just the North American programs. So yeah, it's a
whole wide new world. I think, you know, if you

(02:41):
were with you take the Olympics out of the equation
and you looked at the rosters, you'd be like, Wow,
Wisconsin's returning a lot. But many of the very great
players that are returning that you would think would they'd
be relying on to possibly go back to a national
championship team are going to miss in quite a bit
of time this season. And you're going to see that
with you know, Minnesota, Ohio State, You're gonna see it
across the board. And so I think that there's lots

(03:04):
of opportunities both within each individual conference for teams to
make a big step up, but also on the national
stage going to.

Speaker 2 (03:11):
Get into a lot of those, you know, teams that
may have a chance to do that over the course
of our previous year. Let me just give you a
rundown of how we're gonna do this. This episode, we're
gonna be talking about some of these bigger picture issues
and ECAC hockey. Then we're gonna have an episode where
we're talking about Hockey East and Atlantic Hockey, and we're

(03:32):
gonna have an episode where we're talking about the w
ch A and New HA. Those will all be rolling
out over the next week or so. Stay tuned to
your podcasting platform of choice or US Echo dot com
for all those episodes. But I think when you're looking
at this season as a whole, like we've been talking about,

(03:53):
some of those players may be missing, you know. Okay,
so the hockey season NCAA is thirty four games for
regular season. Some teams play a little bit less. If
you've got players that are gonna miss, you know, the
last three or four weeks of the regular season possibly
and a couple of games every month possibly, Again we
don't know for sure. You're talking about a third of
the season might be gone for some players, which is

(04:14):
going to affect not only what we're looking at for
team performance, but also individual awards. So when you come
down to the end of the season, we're gonna have
to be doing some creative math for who qualifies for what.
And we, like we said, we've never had to do
this before because if in the past for the US

(04:35):
and Canada, if you were going to the Olympics, you
weren't playing this season. It's gonna be a really honestly
stressful kind of situation for a lot of teams, a
lot of players, a lot of journalists in terms of
who votes for things when it comes down to that,
a lot of stuff that we just haven't had to
think about before.

Speaker 3 (04:55):
Yeah, I'm really glad I'm not in the business of
predictions because I was bad at it with U all
these extra variables. I think one of the things, too,
is that we have seen in the past players from
European countries go and play with their teams but generally
not miss much of as much of the season. And
I think that may change too, that they may be
able to take a little bit, you know, a page

(05:16):
from the book of the North Americans and ask a
little bit more of their players. Obviously, the travel necessary
to go play at some of those things might impede
some of that, but I just think overall, we're going
to like you said, I mean, I think a third
is probably generous. If you're talking like two games a weekend,
you're talking all four weeks at the Olympics, that's eight games,
and then you know another eight two per month. Maybe

(05:40):
that's that's not quite half.

Speaker 2 (05:42):
So that's a big decision for a lot of those
players and do what a red shirt make more sense
just to keep take the year off, But I know
those federations don't want to have those players doing nothing
in that interim time.

Speaker 3 (06:00):
Yeah, absolutely, it's it's gonna be I just I hate
just saying it's gonna be interesting and we don't know,
but like that's it's just there's just so much. I mean,
I don't think because of centralization. I feel like we
didn't pay or we didn't know as much about what
was going on with European players. And to be frank,

(06:20):
we just have more European players than ever in the
NCAA from more countries that are participating in the Olympics.
So I I think that there there's a big unknown
aside from the non centralization, in terms of how teams
will be impacted by by those players missing and how
much that will play into how it affects their collegiate team.

(06:44):
And again, if they're traveling back to Europe, the recovery
time is very different than if you know players from
the US are going to a camp in New York
or Minnesota, right.

Speaker 2 (06:56):
Well, that has given me something we're gonna be following
a lot obviously as the season goes on, so we
wanted to bring it up right away here because it's
going to shape a lot of how this twenty five
to twenty six NCAA season goes, so we'll stay on
top of that. There are more things to look out
for as we get into the season, and again these

(07:16):
are just the we're touching on them briefly here. We're
going to talk about them a lot more when they
maybe come up later in the season. But the first
is a little bit of news that maybe you've seen
along the way, but maybe not. Maybe you could have
predicted this coming a few years ago, maybe not. The
pairwise rankings are out. The NCAA Power Index is in.
We saw the NPI over the last couple of seasons

(07:38):
as a replacement for the RPI as a component of
the pair wise but now just stripped it all out.
Everything else is gone. You head to head comparisons, all
that no more. It's just where your rank in the
NPI is where you get seated in the NCAA tournament.
Maybe a little bit easier to understand that than have

(08:00):
explain the pair wise system. But this has its own
is not easy, yeah, right, its own quirks in terms
of how the math goes here. But we'll let the
the the PhDs in the room handle that. Uh, neither
one of which is us. But it is just something

(08:23):
to keep an eye on that we're not gonna be
talking about pair wise where you're talking about NPI as
we get into January February March.

Speaker 3 (08:30):
So we will, I mean, we'll still be saying pairwise
because we've been using years, but just know that we're
we're catching up and it is mp I and I
honestly it would be interesting. I'll have to see if,
if you know, some of those smarter math people still
run some of their their models, because I'm not sure
that it's going to change a whole heck of a lot.
The NPI is set up with the way that it

(08:53):
multiplies upon itself to to take into accounts of that
head to head and all that other the things that
like it was, all of the other stuff is superfluous
really to the math that the NPI does, which is
why they were able to do this. So I'm not
sure that like fundamentally we'll see a ton of change,
but it is just different from what we've done before,
and you just kind of got to remember what you're
looking at when you're looking at where teams are sort

(09:15):
of trending. When we get to you know, February in March.

Speaker 2 (09:19):
I remember it right. There was maybe one spot difference
of the eleven that were in the NCAA tournament last year,
maybe eight and a nine were different between the pair
wise and the NPI. So that was part of the
design of going to those changes that it most years
would not change much at all, if anything. But it's

(09:39):
a cleaner way of doing the math in theory if
you understand the math.

Speaker 3 (09:44):
So it used it also it's incredibly confusing and it's
cleaner for somebody.

Speaker 2 (09:52):
Correct. Yeah, that's somebody has not me. But I have
a very very very vague understanding of it thanks to
about an hour as long a discussion about it last season,
So keep an eye on that as this season goes on.

(10:14):
This is an item that is only happening in WCHA
conference games, an experimental rule being used this season to
perhaps give some thought to the people who are creating
the rules on how this would work if it was
applied to everything. And that is that in wha games,

(10:38):
there is no whistle and no wave off of a
goal if the stick is over for goals, the level
of the crossbar for stoppages to play the level of
the shoulder. You can play the puck wherever you want
above shoulder or crossbar and it will be counted as

(10:58):
a goal. There are still, of course, high sticking penalties
where if you hit someone with a high stick, you're
going to the box, But this is one of those
that I honestly don't know how this shakes out, because
it seems like a I don't know if anyone uses
this as a strategy as much as a whoops, I

(11:19):
hit that one a little bit too high.

Speaker 3 (11:22):
Yeah. I mean what was interesting to me when this
was brought up is that apparently this is a discussion
that's been ongoing with the greater coaches in those rules
meetings for a while, and it did not pass when
it came to that point, and so there are you know,
sort of foreign against and most of the coaches say
they don't think that it will lead to injuries. Being

(11:43):
able to control a puck, a small puck, a small
you know, stick, like if you're able to do that,
that's a skill move and so taking that away is
basically the argument against, like not the argument for having
this this rule is that like, they're not swinging their
stick wildly right, Like, it's it's a skill play to
be able to pull a puck down and deflect it

(12:04):
or control it. And so I think that the thought
was that there is has been this discussion. It was
a close vote, so like, let's get some data and
some video and see what happens when it's allowed. And
so the w c h A decided to implement it
this year. So it's only in w c HA conference games.
When WHA teams play non conference games, it is not
the rule. But yeah, I don't do you have any

(12:27):
I guess I don't have any serious thoughts on it,
like I before or against. I thought it was interesting
that the coaches that have thought about it a lot
more talking about it.

Speaker 2 (12:36):
You know.

Speaker 3 (12:37):
One of the things that was pointed out is they're
you know, they're wearing full cages and they're wearing helmets,
and again, nobody's taking baseball swings with their their stick,
and so like there could be occasional contact, but it
is unlikely that that would result in like serious injury
and obviously, if injuries go up, then that's that's the

(12:57):
information they needed and wanted to gather on this, and
that that ends the discussion. So I don't know. I
don't know that it will change a ton of what
players were already doing, do you.

Speaker 2 (13:09):
I don't think so, But I'm interested in finding out
and seeing if if there's first person I thought of
was Leila Edwards at Wisconsin, who's six ft six foot one.
Her stick is probably able to be higher than anyone
else's if she can get to a popped up puck first.
I guess that's an advantage, but again it's a it

(13:31):
would have to be a insane amount of skill or
a pretty good amount of luck.

Speaker 3 (13:36):
So yeah, I was thinking it was like catnet for
Abby Murphy, like, oh yeah, someone someone that really is,
you know, good with puck control and their stick and
or you know, we watched like Lacy or Lacy Eden
and she can you juggle the puck utter stick. I
feel as like the kind of like a little bit
of a challenge for some of those players that might

(13:57):
take it as a like a way to hone in
some of those skills and things like that, But not again,
I don't know that it like, well, Abby tried a
few more times than she might have. Maybe again that's
exactly like that's that's her cat neb right Like. But
I just yeah, I'm with you. I just I think
that maybe it'll become an advantage. I mean, we see

(14:18):
players if you watch, uh, like on ice war ups,
you'll see practicing deflections sort of in front of their
bodies and from from you know, their chest down and
so you may see some more of that where they
just put a little more practice time into corraling some
of those bucks and really honestly spotting it because if
it's up that high, then you're you're no longer dealing
with dasherboards and ice that helps you see the little
black book. Now you've got you know, fans in the

(14:39):
background and a lot more things. So honestly, it might
just be about better spotting the puck as you're doing
that sort of thing.

Speaker 2 (14:46):
Yep. The the thing that stood out to me when
I had heard about this originally one was that the
last last season the rules change here, they were two
votes away from getting this put into the rules as
as a full rule for everyone, that there would be
unlimited height for high stick and then that Minnesota coach

(15:08):
Brad Frost was really the one that was pushing for
this as an option, and he said that it is
really Saint Lawrence's coach, Chris Wells, who had been talking
this up for years and years, and he was able
and Brad Frost was able to just get this in
as a experiment for the WHA this year to see
what will happen, and that's really the data they need.

(15:31):
There's the WCAH says they're keeping data on high second penalties,
on on goals that may have been waved off in
the past to kind of inform the decision that's going
to have to be made here. In the end, Frost
said it it kind of came down to, you know,
we want more goals in hockey, and this is a

(15:53):
way to stop goals from getting waved off, especially in
that really gray area of you know, if you're going
to review to determine whether you know it was hit
an inch above or an inch below the crossbar, those
reviews aren't going to be good enough to to tell
you that answer most of the time.

Speaker 3 (16:12):
So yeah, on that was really helpful because, as he
pointed out that the refs are required to make a
split sect second decision there and honestly not necessarily like
as a ref you're mostly looking now and I mean
not that they're not tracked, but they're they're that's not
putting them in the best position to make a call.
And then it's incredibly overturned. Hard to overturn a call,

(16:33):
no matter which direction it is, whether it's called good
or no good, like, whatever the call was on the
ice is most likely to stand. And so you're putting
the refs, you know, like so the it's let it,
let them play, let it be a skill play, and
let the the goals just count or rely on refs
in a really difficult situation, and then rely on a
turnover scenario that is, you know, to turn over the

(16:56):
call that probably isn't going to turn over a call,
like it's just that how that system is set up.
And in women's arenas we have poor quality video generally,
So yeah, just all of those things are set up
to mean that it's not an ideal situation and so
let's at least try this, which I thought was a
really good explanation and helped me understand like the thought process.

Speaker 2 (17:17):
Yep, absolutely a little bit of intrigue. They are going
into the season a lot of intrigue, as you mentioned,
for the season as a whole, which is beginning in
the next few days as we're recording this here in
the middle of September, we've got the first few games
of the season coming up on the nineteenth and twentieth,
into the twenty first, I believe it was also a game.
So we'll see how these all all these things happen

(17:42):
and what develops out of them over the next couple
of weeks here. But we're going to take a quick
break when we come back a look at ECAC Hockey.
Stay with us on the podcast. We're back with the
podcast Todd Luski and Nicole from us Echo dot Com.
Let's take a look at ECAC Hockey. Nicole, and this

(18:05):
is a league that Cornell won by two points last
season over Colegate, really tight battle for that one. Then
Cornell won the playoff championship also by beating Colegate. So
those are the two teams that were going right down
the wire in both of those. Cornell also made it
to the Frozen Four last season, lost to Ohio State

(18:28):
in the semi finals. Are we looking at a repeat
in any way? Or do you feel like there's some
teams here that might be able to make a run
at getting a top four spot, maybe dispatching a Saint
Lawrence or Clarkson to move into one of those spots.

Speaker 3 (18:48):
So I'm really high on Princeton and they only were
rinked sixth in the coaches preseason poll. I just think
they're a team that, you know, defensively, offensively, there's there's
a lot that they have here in despite starting late
with that Ivy League calendar, I think they have a
really high ceiling and players like Wonder, who you know,
more than tripled her output from last season and goals,

(19:08):
are just kind of primed to continue to fill in
those roles and do even more than she did last year.

Speaker 2 (19:16):
It is a change year for Princeton though, in that
Karen Morey is gone as head coach, she left to
become GM of the p WHL Vancouver expansion franchise, and
Courtney Kessel comes in as head coach. How much do
you think that maybe puts a little uncertainty into what

(19:38):
the Tigers have this season?

Speaker 3 (19:40):
Well, but Kessel was an assistant with Princeton up until
two years ago, Like she coached I is you wonder
in her I think freshman year and she coached Kensey
Alexander with the U eighteen Canada team, so obviously the
just two of the players, which she's got a lot
of familiarity with the program with the players obviously there
it was like a two year d tour. But I

(20:02):
mean she's only going to have grown from that experience
and from being a head coach and you know, getting
that more attention, And I just think it's kind of
an ideal. So if you're going to make that transfer
back and pick up a program that you know has
is in a really good spot in terms of returning,
there shouldn't be a ton of transition like that. It
should be that these players are pretty familiar with her,
and she's pretty familiar with what was happening here beforehand.

(20:26):
So obviously she will put her own stamp on it.
But I think in terms of sort of isolating Princeton
saying like they got a new coach and they were
in a really good position, like is could that be
a problem. No, I just don't think it's going to be.
With Castle.

Speaker 2 (20:40):
Cornell coming back as a defending league champion two times over,
it's rail season and playoff champion really have to starting
goal there. Anlis bergmann is is coming back off a
ninety three save for stay season and just foundationally, you know,

(21:02):
Cornell doesn't change. So it feels like there's a opportunity
there again for Cornell to even build on what they
did last season and you know, maybe overcome some some
personnel losses with even stronger goaltending in defense.

Speaker 3 (21:20):
Yeah, that's always going to be the focus with Doug
darra right. One of the interesting things with Cornell is,
particularly in recent years, you know, they sort of haven't
had one standout offensive talent. It's been a lot more
balanced up and down the roster, and so they really
rely on one person, which is really helpful in terms
of like replacing through graduate you know, players that leave
and graduate. One thing that I think they're really going

(21:42):
to need to focus on or have someone step into
that role is sort of that clutch player. They played
a lot of close games. That's just the nature of
the ECAC. As we said, it's probably going to be
even more volatile and sort of like up for grads
this year and down to the wire, and in that case,
they need the player that's going to score you know,
late in the third period or win the game in overtime,
and Lily Delianidis and Rory Yilde were two of those

(22:04):
players for them, and they both graduated, and so I
think they, you know, they really eat out some close wins,
and I think they need players that can make that
things happen in those big moments. And that's not to
say that someone else and the roster can't do that,
but I just think we don't know yet if someone
will step up and fill that role. Avi Adam and
Lindsay Avar were both very good on offense last season.

(22:25):
I expect that they will continue to improve and be
sort of leaders on the team. But yeah, I think
until we see if there's sort of another player that
can just be that that sees that spotlight it somehow
makes them even better than they were and can really
step up and take that challenge on. I'm not I'm

(22:46):
not that I don't think they're still the top team,
but I will feel better about their chances of repeating
at the top of the league when we see, you
know who, who's the player that can count on in
the clutch.

Speaker 2 (22:59):
Gate after the season, had they finished fifth in the
pair wise, which accurately fifth. Last season, we're still talking
about pair wise. This year we'll be talking about NBI.
But fifth to get put into the four or five
game at Minnesota and they lost that by a goal,
to just miss out on a frozen four spot. I

(23:19):
think when you're talking about a team that returns a
fifty one point scorer like Alyssa Biederman, you've got something
to build out. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (23:30):
I mean the biggest thing for them is that they're
they lost you know, their their scorer in kelton Kova,
but also goalie Hannah Murphy, and they they're goalie truo
is two sophomores, one who hasn't played at all and
a freshman. So I think they've got like a total
of eight games of experience in net and so that
is going to be the big question mark. Alista Biederman

(23:52):
is one of my favorite players. You know, she's like
five to one, She's super you know, small and quick
and still gets in the dirty areas and does all
that stuff. I think a big key for Colgate will
be whether Emma Pies I'm sorry if I'm saying that wrong.
I'm pretty sure that's correct. If she can maybe take
on I don't think anybody needs or expects her to
become culty, but Emma is a bigger player, and I

(24:13):
think as a contrast to Alissa, they do need a
player that's going to go, you know, stake some ground
in front of the goal and be able to really
control some ice and be a bit more physical. And
so I think I think they need that anyway, but
especially when you can trast her to to how small
Beiederman is and just the fact that Peter will get
pushed around a little bit more. But I do think

(24:34):
that Emma is somebody that can do that, and I
think that Colegate really needs to be even more offensive
while their defense figures and stuff out their defense, their
goaltending figure some stuff out, just to give them the cushion,
because I do think there's just going to be you know,
a learning curve there.

Speaker 2 (24:52):
Hey, Lawrence and Clarkson were the third and fourth place
teams last season and both made n s A Rman
appearances as well. I Saint Lawrence is a team that
I think fits in what you're just saying there too,
of like a lot of pieces missing, but if you
can get goaltending, you have a chance. And with Amma

(25:14):
Sophie Nordstrom, You've got a chance.

Speaker 3 (25:18):
Yeah, they she had gone into the portal and then
withdrew herself, And I feel like every Saint Lawrence fan
has to be silently thinking whatever whatever they want to
think for that positive because they just they had a
lot of graduation, They had some of their best players
maybe in program history moving on, and so there's just
I think this might have been a generous placement of

(25:41):
them in the coach's preseason poll. I just I think
they have a lot of question marks that they're going
to have to figure out and again just have there's
nothing but opportunity, and it's whether or not they're younger
players or players that hadn't gotten as much ice time
before can can step into those roles and really blossom
with more ice time in the opportuit be presented to them.
But yeah, I think as long as you have them

(26:03):
and the Sophie Nordstrom in your net, you are in
a really good position. And I think she's just going
to give that that the opportunity. Sort of the other direction,
right with Colgate, you want the offense to give your
defense a chance to to settle it, and then on
the other side, I think Nordstrom is just going to
give Saint Lawrence's offense a chance to to find their legs,

(26:23):
and they won't. They won't hopefully need four or five
goals to win a game because she is going to
keep both that's more in control for them. But yeah,
I very much want Saint Lawrence to keep on the
path that they've been on. Right, they're two frozen four
appearances in the past in the past two years. I'm
sorry to and see a tournament appearances in the last
two years. But there's a lot of question marks for

(26:46):
them that they have to answer before I will be convinced.
Clarkson's just gonna say and Clarkson, yeah, but Clarkson has
it's the turnover, right, Like they they are consistantly moving
in and out, five six, seven players on each side.
And so that being said, they managed, they've done it
for the last couple of years and they still keep

(27:08):
getting to where they're getting. So I think in terms
of finding getting their team to gel on that sort
of stuff, they're they're very good at it. But yeah,
the you went to six new players in and eight out,
so it's a lot of turnover. It's a lot of change.
That's not even counting their graduation. They're graduated players, like

(27:30):
they graduated their two top scorers.

Speaker 2 (27:33):
In the middle of VCAC hockey last season, the middle
four was Yah, Quinnipiac, Yale, Princeton, Brown and And I
know you have some thoughts about Brown as a where
where does Brown go from here?

Speaker 3 (27:48):
I don't think it's I don't want to say do
word to die, but I do feel like all the
glimmers of possibility and like what they're capable of the
last few seasons, I think they got to come together
this season if they're gonna sort of make all that payoff,
you know it Jadagan lizz a senior some of that stuff,
and it's obviously not all on her, but I think

(28:08):
they you know, they sort of have had a moment
where they built a really strong roster and then they've
just not always been able to be consistent with it.
And so they got some big wins last year and
really showed I think what they're capable of, but they
also left a lot of points on the table, and
so I think they just need to be able to
close out those close games, win those overtime games, win

(28:29):
those one goal games, not give up, late goals, all
the sort of this little stuff that takes you from
a middle team to a top of the table. I
still don't think they're probably not pushing, you know, for
a one, two three spot, but I do think that
they could finish and probably should finish top of the standings,
a top half of the standings in the ECAC. I
really want it for them. I just They've been fun

(28:50):
to watch, It's been cool. It's always nice to see
a program that has struggled in the recent pass sort
of start to put the things together and you see
the culture grow and you see, you know, the talent
come in, and so I just for for them. I
would like to see it all come to fruition ye.

Speaker 2 (29:06):
Autumn four. Last season was Union renst layer Dartmouth and Harvard,
and Union is moving into a new arena this season,
the twenty two hundred seat and T Bank Center. I
always think that there's a little bit of a boost
for a program when there's something new, like an arena

(29:27):
coming on board, because you start talking about, well, we've
got something new to show recruits, We've got really cool
you know, team spaces, those kinds of things that can
start making a difference. I don't know if you see
that right away necessarily, but it does feel like Union
has something they can they can build on here. You know,

(29:50):
no pun intended with a new building to try and
you know, kind of reverse a little bit of a slide.

Speaker 3 (29:58):
It's hard with Union for me and you know, my
tenancy to be crouchy about these sorts of things. But
the men's program there, you know, has had their sort
of their big they had their they won the title
right a couple I mean, probably more than a couple
of years at this point. I always think thirteen, I
caught myself, but just it's I mean, you know, the
one when the title and the woman the women around

(30:20):
that same time had a you know, a winless season
and so it's like, ugh, so I I mean, I
feel like, I I'm glad that the women are getting
you know, getting something out of this as well, and
I hope that it's a boost.

Speaker 2 (30:32):
I like the improvement.

Speaker 3 (30:32):
They're in that situation where we talked about like sort
of with like the Minnesota States and Saint Cloud's in
w h right where they're like they have shown some improvement,
but the jump needed to really like see that in
the standings and see that in more wins is just
really hard to do in their conference. And so one
of the things that I like from them is that,
like their best players last year were youngins. They were

(30:53):
all underclassmen, and so they're returning, you know, players that
I think can just help their their offense grow. I
think they've done a really good job on defense and
not giving up as much, and so now they've got
to find that next step of putting a few more
goals in the net, and you know, that's what leads
to wins. I know it's obviously overly over simplification, but
when you're trying to build from the ground up, I think,

(31:14):
you know, first you got to shore up your defense
and not be giving up as much, and then you
got to start, you know, finding a way to like
have a purposeful offense and not an offense that just
like sometimes takes the puck up the ice. And so
I think that's where they're at, and I think they
just need one or two more players that can step
up and so it's not so one dimensional and so
that they are really like possessing the puck and moving
the puck and like having an offense that is going

(31:37):
to give their opponents difficulties defending.

Speaker 2 (31:41):
So you said before ECAC Hockey had four teams in
the NCAA Tournament last season. Cornell colegate Saint Lawrence Clarkson,
Do you foresee the same number fewer more this season?
What if you had to guess what, what would you
say is being the forecast for how many teams ECC

(32:04):
gets in the NCAA's this year.

Speaker 3 (32:06):
I think the safe bed is four, in the outside
is five. Again. Like I said, I'm high and Princeton
and I think that, you know, things have to go
right for them, But I do think that they're a
team that could be pushing towards that this season and
get just sort of all those bits coming together. So
I could see them being five, particularly because I think
the Hockey East is going to beat up on each

(32:27):
other a little bit, and I think we're going to
see a single Hockey East team. There's just always chaos
there and unfortunately no one seems to like really rack
up the points needed to be to be higher than that.
And so yeah, I don't I don't know. I mean,
I said at the beginning, I don't like predicting things,
and we've got so many question marks this year. But
I think just looking at knowing that those top fourteens

(32:48):
are probably the same and are going to keep doing
what they do because they've been doing it for several years,
and then me thinking that Princeton can do what they do.
I think we're at five.

Speaker 2 (32:58):
I don't know, and that would be pretty remarkable for
Princeton to make that jump from a they would yeah,
seventh place finished to a the NCAA Tournament, but yeah,
that would be an impressive movement year over years.

Speaker 3 (33:14):
I'm willing things into I think that I really well,
I've always said I love chaos, and I think that
I have been looking at this season is just like
a lot more doors open. I think that any no
team is going to have the opportunity to dominate in
any sort of way. I think it's just going to
be even more wide open because I think it's not

(33:34):
just missing one or two key players. It's about having
to put second or third liners in your in your
power play or your penalty kill. It's about players that
haven't had a lot of minutes having to play different roles,
and so it's not just the adjustment of one person
being out or not having sort of their talent, but
also the adjustment of putting somebody else or like do
you completely reshuffle your lines or do you just go

(33:56):
one for one? Like all of that chemistry stuff is
the bit that I think is going to make this
season fun to watch in what's going to be fun
to watch as it unfolds, because I just I think
the way that a team adapts is going to be
the biggest key to this season. And so I think
the team that is returning a lot of their players
isn't going to spend a bunch of their season trying

(34:18):
to figure out that bit, the like brand new roster,
taking out, the taking out the people are going to leave.
Just any team that doesn't have to spend a lot
of time getting their roster together, it is going to
be in a really good position.

Speaker 2 (34:32):
Okay, Well that's our look at ECAC Hockey and that
is our first episode of the twenty twenty five twenty
sixth season here on the podcast. We hope you will
stop back with us for the next episode, which will
be priving two more of the NCAA conferences, and we'll
be starting a more regular weekly look at what happened

(34:54):
and what is going to happen possibly around the league
in the coming weeks. For Nicole hose On Todd Lusky,
thanks for listening to the podcast.
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