Thursday, October 9, 2025

Men’s Notes: The Champs are Here

Western Michigan Begins NCAA Title Defense

Following its exhibition win over the U.S. National Under-18 Team last Saturday, defending NCAA champion Western Michigan officially begins its title defense this weekend.

The Broncos, the preseason No. 1 in both the USCHO.com and USA Hockey/The Rink Live national polls, will tangle with in-state rival Ferris State in a home-and-home series. WMU hosts FSU at Lawson Arena on Thursday before the two teams shift venues to Ewigleben Ice Arena in Big Rapids on Friday.

WMU returns 95 goals and 264 points – third-most and fourth-most in the nation, respectively – from last year’s team. Between the pipes, national coach of the year Pat Ferschweiler (WMU ’93) welcomes back sophomore G Hampton Slukynsky (Warroad, Minn.), who started all four games in the national tournament and finished his freshman campaign with a 19-5-1 record.

This weekend against Ferris State kicks off a grueling opening month, which also includes road trips to UMass Lowell and St. Cloud State sandwiched around a home-and-home with Michigan.

That sort of schedule grind is nothing new for WMU, which won both the NCHC regular-season and playoff championships on the way to the NCAA Tournament. There are no layup weekends in college hockey – a test last year’s Broncos passed with flying colors – only new challenges.

For the 2025-26 edition of the Broncos, a fresh quest awaits.

Daily Scoreboard | Weekly Schedule | Scoring Leaders | Goaltending Leaders

Must Read:

College Hockey News: Boija returns to finish business

College Hockey News: Breaking the trend, McKelvie continues the tradition

Daily Collegian: Pieces of Gavin McKenna’s jersey featured in autographed card

Duluth News Tribune: Wellens travel journal: Checking Fairbanks off my college hockey bucket list

FloHockey: What we learned from Gavin McKenna’s first college hockey weekend

Grand Forks Herald: UND believes it has a rising star in associate coach Matt Smaby

Lansing State Journal: MSU might have its best top two lines this century. That comes with new challenges.

Schenectady Daily Gazette: M&T Bank Center is a great place to watch college hockey

The Hockey News: The top 100 NCAA players to watch in 2025-26

Must Hear:

College Hockey Today: Worth the Wait

The CCHA Show: Featuring Bemidji State alternate captain Adam Flammang

The Pipeline Show: Previewing the Big Ten with College Hockey News’ Mike McMahon

This Week in College Hockey: 2025-26 season kickoff

UND Hockey Podcast: A look at the NCHC

USCHO Weekend Review: Men’s DI hockey gets underway with big non-conference games, CHL hype

Breaking the Ice in the Desert:

Arizona State’s Mullett Arena will be the site of the 2025 Ice Breaker Tournament this weekend.

The event, which typically marks the traditional start of the college hockey season, celebrates its 29th edition in 2025-26. In addition to host ASU, this year’s field includes Alaska, Notre Dame and Quinnipiac.

Omaha captured the 2024 Ice Breaker with a pair of overtime wins at Orleans Arena in Las Vegas.

Click HERE for more information on this year’s event. Click HERE for the history of the Ice Breaker.

Austin’s Powers:

UMass Lowell freshman G Austin Elliott (Strathmore, Alberta) earned a 17-save shutout in his NCAA debut last Friday, a 4-0 Hockey East win over Merrimack.

Winning is nothing new for Elliott, who went an incredible 51-2-0 (regular season and playoffs combined) last year with the OHL’s London Knights and WHL’s Saskatoon Blades. He led the Knights to a Memorial Cup championship and was named the CHL Memorial Cup Most Outstanding Goaltender.

‘Matt Trick’ Powers Penn State:

Junior forward Matt DiMarsico (Wexford, Pa.) tallied his first collegiate hat trick – all in the third period – to lift Penn State to a 6-3 win over Arizona State in last Friday’s much-hyped season opener.

According to Penn State SID John Hanna, it was just the second single-period hat trick in school history (Casey Bailey on Jan. 9, 2015).

DiMarsico is coming off a sophomore campaign in which he finished second on PSU with 17 goals.

Out with the Old, In with the New:

Northeastern opened its final season in the venerable Matthews Arena last Saturday with a 6-4 non-conference win over Holy Cross. Forwards Joe Connor (Nottingham, N.H.) and Dylan Hryckowian (Jr., L’Île-Bizard, Quebec) both enjoyed three-point nights for the Huskies.

The oldest venue in college hockey, Matthews Arena opened in 1910 and has been the home of Northeastern hockey since 1930.

That same night, Union opened its brand-new M&T Bank Center with a 1-1 tie against Army on Saturday. A capacity crowd saw F Connor Smith (So., Hugo, Minn.) score the tying goal midway through the third period in support of Michigan transfer Cameron Korpi (So., South Lyon, Mich.), who stopped 25 of 26 shots in his Union debut.

Tall Tales:

For the second year in a row, Clarkson D Jack Sparkes (So., Ottawa, Ontario) is the tallest player in all of NCAA Division I men’s hockey.

Sparkes checks in a 6-foot-8, a full inch taller than his next-closest contemporaries:

Tallest Players in DI Men’s Hockey
6’8” – Jack Sparkes (D), Clarkson
6’7” – Pavol Funtek (D), Alaska Anchorage
6’7” – Dean Letourneau (F), Boston College
6’7” – Michael Hrabal (G), UMass
6’7” – James Mackey (D), Harvard

Sparkes appeared in 38 games as a freshman last season, contributing a goal and four assists. His lone tally was the game-winning goal in an Oct. 25 win at Michigan Tech.

Fit to Print:

“I’ve never seen so many ‘first goal’ pucks in a weekend.”

— Michigan Tech head coach Bill Muckalt (Michigan ‘98) after his team, which features 18 newcomers, earned a non-conference series split at Minnesota (source: YouTube).

NHL Note of the Week:

The 2025-26 NHL season began Tuesday night with 247 former college hockey players listed on opening night rosters, the most on record since College Hockey Inc. began tracking that data in 2017-18.

Forty-five NCAA Division I programs – representing all six NCAA Division I men’s conferences – boasted at least one former player on those opening night rosters, led by Michigan’s 22. Other schools with 10 or more alums on NHL rosters included: Boston College (20), Boston University (18), Minnesota (18), North Dakota (13), Northeastern (11), St. Cloud State (11), Denver (10), Harvard (10), Notre Dame (10) and Providence (10).

Fries at the Bottom of the Bag:

Canisius opened the year with wins over No. 20 Clarkson and St. Lawrence last weekend, giving the Golden Griffins their first 2-0 start since 1998-99 … Alaska Anchorage forward Ryan Johnson (So., Calgary, Alberta) had his point streak snapped at 11 games Saturday against Bemidji State. Johnson had ended 2024-25 campaign with points in his last 10 games and had picked up an assist in Friday’s season opener versus the Beavers … Johnson’s streak was halted in a 5-0 loss to BSU in which freshman G Max Hildebrand (Martensville, Saskatchewan) pitched a 23-save shutout for the Beavers in his first NCAA start … Michigan Tech’s 5-3 win at seventh-ranked Minnesota on Saturday was Muckalt’s first victory at the helm of the program. He served as an assistant coach with the Huskies from 2011-15.

Conference Websites

College Hockey Inc. Resources:

Did you know? 93% of NCAA Division I men’s hockey players earn their degree!