The first U.S. College Hockey Online rankings are out, and Minnesota State is No. 4, with one first-place vote. The Mavericks were third when the season came to an abrupt end due to COVID-19 last spring but lost seven key players to graduation and another to an early NHL signing. The cupboard's certainly not bare, with junior goaltender Dryden McKay and five players with at least 24 points last season.
North Dakota is No. 1, followed by Boston College and Minnesota Duluth. Bemidji State is the only other WCHA teams in the top 20, coming in at No. 16. Bowling Green, Northern Michigan and Michigan Tech received votes. Here is the poll:
When the seven teams leaving the WCHA after this season (if there is a season) announced they would be called the CCHA, resuscitating the Central Collegiate Hockey Association brand, I thought the group erred, missing out on a chance to do something bold, fresh and exciting.
However, I added, what the league does under its new banner will prove whether or not it is indeed bold, fresh and exciting.
Show, don't tell ... to quote one of my old writing instructors.
The CCHA appeared to make quite the bold move when it hired Don Lucia as commissioner. And it didn't take long for Lucia to do something bold himself when he and the conference brought in St. Thomas as an eighth team.
On Wednesday, the new CCHA made the announcement that the Tommies will join the league right away, beginning play in the CCHA's inaugural season, 2021-22.
The St. Paul school, which earlier this month got the OK to make the jump directly from Division III to DI in all sports (after getting booted out of the MIAC last summer), will give the new CCHA eight teams. And the geography couldn't be better, giving the league a Twin Cities presence and a third Minnesota school (the state will have six DI programs next season) to balance things out.
Here's how the league will look:
Minnesota State
Bemidji State
St. Thomas
Michigan Tech
Northern Michigan
Lake Superior State
Ferris State
Bowling Green
The NCAA approved St. Thomas' move to DI a couple of weeks ago, and the school announced it was going to the Summit League for all sports but football and hockey. Football was joining the non-scholarship Pioneer League, and women's hockey got an immediate invite to the WCHA to join Minnesota State, Minnesota, Minnesota Duluth, St. Cloud State, Bemidji State, Wisconsin and Ohio State as that conference's eighth team.
At the time St. Thomas said it was exploring its men's hockey options. Clearly the university and the CCHA were moving quickly to do something bold, fresh and exciting together.
There are a lot of things to work out, such as where St. Thomas will play in the long-term. It's current arena, which it shares with St. Thomas Academy, is too small for DI, although it is a fine DIII facility.
Lucia also talked in the press conference about a league schedule and whether the CCHA would play 24, 26 or 28 league games; that has yet to be decided. A 28-game slate means the teams can play each other four times, home and home. But it leaves just six nonconference games available.
As a person who covered Minnesota State for 20 years and is a graduate of St. Thomas (Class of '94!) and just loves the sport of college hockey, I'm excited about what's to come. I think St. Thomas will do everything it can to be as competitive as it can be and as quickly as possible.
Don Lucia was 59 years old when he stepped down as Minnesota's men's hockey coach, a young age for someone whose been successful in that profession.
After a year as an athletics administrator at the U and another year away from the game, the 61-year-old Lucia is back in the college hockey business. On Wednesday he was hired as the first commissioner of the new CCHA.
Lucia was the Gophers' coach for 19 years, winning national championships in 2002 and 2003. Prior to that he coached at Colorado College and Alaska Fairbanks. He played college hockey at Notre Dame.
Now, his task is to make a new conference successful. The CCHA, which will begin play in the 2021-22 season, will have seven teams, at least at this point — Minnesota State, Bemidji State, Bowling Green, Ferris State, Michigan Tech, Northern Michigan and Lake Superior State.
Lucia was asked about an eighth team — St. Thomas could be a possibility if the NCAA grants the Division III school a waiver to move up to DI — and said that the group is fine currently at seven. Only if a program is a good fit competitively and geographically would another school be considered.
“You need a leader," Minnesota State coach Mike Hastings told The Rink Live. "You need somebody that understands the multitude of levels that you have to have a handle on in a one-sport conference. I think we’re moving in a really good direction with Don.”
Hastings was an assistant coach under Lucia at Minnesota for one year. Northern Michigan coach Grant Potulny was also a Lucia assistant and former player.
Lucia officially begins his duties on July 1. He said his tasks in the year prior to play include compiling a conference staff, coming up with a scheduling model, figuring out referees and the CCHA brand.
Lucia, who splits time between Minnesota and Alaska, hinted that the CCHA might not have a home office — something we've learned during this time of COVID that many can do without — and that he plans on attending games every weekend during the season.
The CCHA and its seven members who will begin play in the new conference in 2021 announced on Tuesday that its first commissioner will be named on Wednesday afternoon.
The unveiling will take place at 2 p.m. and can be seen on YouTube.
Last month, Todd Milewski of the Wisconsin State Journal and USCHO reported that the finalists for the job are former Minnesota coach Don Lucia, Minnesota State athletic director Kevin Buisman and Minnesota associate AD Tom McGinnis.
Reading the tea leaves, it seems like Lucia is the favorite, and luring a smart hockey man out of retirement to lead the conference seems like a good get. Buisman is an interesting candidate, too, being part of the old and new WCHA from an ADs perspective and knowing pretty directly what's worked and what's hasn't post-realignment. McGinnis has been the administrator for hockey, among other sports, at the U, where he's been since 2011.
In somewhat-related news, the CCHA Twitter page was taken out of dry dock and relaunched.
The new CCHA will consist of seven teams (at least at this time): Minnesota State, Bemidji State, Bowling Green, Ferris State, Michigan Tech, Northern Michigan and Lake Superior State.
For the third time in four years, Minnesota State will have a graduate transfer at the goaltending position.
New England Hockey Journal recently reported that Boston College's Ryan Edquist, a Lakeville, Minn., native, will be joining the Mavericks next season. Edquist played just 21 games for the Eagles — one last year and three the season prior — backing up NHL prospects.
He'll likely be in a backup role again at MSU, playing behind Richter Award finalist Dryden McKay, who will be a junior. But the Mavericks have been on the lookout for a goaltender to bolster the group since Jaxson Stauber opted to leave the school and return to junior hockey last November of his freshman season. Stauber, who played just one game for Minnesota State, will be attending Providence.
Two seasons ago, the Mavericks brought in Mathias Israelsson as a grad transfer from Northern Michigan. He competed for the No. 1 job, which McKay eventually won. A year earlier, Connor LaCouvee joined MSU as a Boston University graduate and had an outstanding season, leading the team back to the NCAA tournament.
Edquist backstopped an outstanding Lakeville North team in 2014-15 that included MSU defenseman Jack McNeely as well as St. Cloud State's Poehling brothers that went 31-0 and won the Class AA state championship. He played one season for the USHL's Madison Capitols before going to BC.
After Stauber's departure, Jacob Berger was McKay's primary backup last season. He played in two games, starting one. The Mavericks also brought in Evan Foss, a straight-out-of-high-school MSU student on a tryout and ending up rostering him for the remainder of the season.
Here's hoping that the college hockey season starts and goes on as normal. No guarantees, at this point. Nonetheless, Minnesota State (and the WCHA) released its 2020-21 schedule on Wednesday. Here's how it looks (with a few editorial comments):
Home series in bold
Oct. 10-11 — Icebreaker tourney at Duluth, Providence, UMD/Minnesota ... Fun way to start the season. I'll be a lot of Mankato folks will make the trip to Duluth — if they're able.
Oct. 16-17 — St. Cloud State ... Too bad this isn't a home and home, considering the heavy road swing to start the year for the Mavericks.
Oct. 23-24 — Alaska ... The WCHA schedule begins in Fairbanks. Better in October than February, though. Oct. 30-31 — Minnesota Duluth ... Gotta wait until Halloween weekend, but kicking off the home schedule against UMD is good. Mythical 2020 national championship on the line? Nov. 6-7 — Northern Michigan ... The first home conference series is a good one with the Wildcats in town.
Nov. 13-14 — Bemidji State ... The Beavers should be one of the league favorites next year. By the time MSU rolls into town in mid-November we'll know for sure. Nov. 20-21 — Lake Superior State... Lakers could be sneaky good next season. They don't lose much.
Nov. 27-28 — Alaska Anchorage ... Will this be MSU's last trip ever to Alaska? Dec. 4-5 — Bowling Green ... Enjoy the only meeting of the season between MSU and BG. The Falcons should be a league favorite next year.
Dec. 11-12 — Michigan Tech ... And now they can breathe after 10 straight weeks of play. What a grind of a first-half schedule. Jan. 1-2 — Alaska ... The first repeat customer of the season (unless they end up playing UMD in the Icebreaker)
Jan 8-9 — Alabama Huntsville ... Another last hurrah before the conference change up?
Jan 22-23 — Ferris State ... Could this be the Hockey Day Minnesota opponent? Will it be played outside? Or will the weekend before, currently an idle on the schedule, be Hockey Day? Stay tuned. Jan. 29-30 — Michigan Tech ... When we last left the Mavericks they were preparing to play the Huskies in the WCHA semifinals.
Feb. 5-6 — Lake Superior State ... I never made the trip to the Soo. Tough trip in February.
Feb. 19-20 — Ferris State ... Good thing there's an off weekend between two long treks to Michigan. Feb. 26-27 — Bemidji State ... Here's betting this series decides the MacNaughton — again.
This is from today's Star-Tribune and made this "genius" think about his story regarding this phrase everyone in Minnesota knows so well.
Prior to coming to Mankato in 2000, I was the editor of Let’s Play Hockey for five years. In the late 1990s I had created a column in LPH called “State of Hockey." It was part of a full-page feature on Minnesota high school hockey that ran weekly.
I liked the play on words — "state" referring to both Minnesota and the condition of the sport — and I created a simple, little logo with an outline of Minnesota and those words across the map.
Around the same time, the Wild was gearing up for its inaugural season and putting together promotional materials for season tickets, etc. Let's Play Hockey's then-owner/publisher Doug Johnson got a call from a Wild official asking if it would be all right for the team to use “State of Hockey” for some of those materials.
Doug came to me and asked if I'd consider giving the Wild permission to use it. Although it was my creation, I told him it was his call, as he was the owner of the paper.
Although I don’t know if any official deal was actually struck between the Wild and LPH (certainly, nothing extra came my way), the publisher gave the Wild his blessing to go-ahead to use the phrase as it wished.
The Wild did and, well, you know the rest.
Maybe it was an inevitable idea. Someone else surely would have come up with it, right? Maybe someone at the Wild had thought of it themselves, only to call LPH after doing their due diligence and jumping through the proper legal hoops. I don't know.
But little did I realize that "State of Hockey" would become the Wild’s theme and motto and catch-phrase, that they would have a fight song/anthem composed around the concept, that it would be co-opted by seemingly every hockey entity in Minnesota and appear on T-shirts and sweatshirts and hats, or that it would still be going strong 20 years later.
