Latest / The PodKaz: USCHO Women's Hockey / What you should know about NCAA women's hockey

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What you should know about NCAA women's hockey · The PodKaz: USCHO Women's Hockey

0:08
Hi, everybody, This is Nicole Hasey. Welcome back to the Usaho Women's
0:13
Hockey podcast that we have decided to name the podcast will explain that reference for
0:19
anybody that doesn't get it. I'm here with Tom Moleski and we are heading
0:24
into our second episode. Here we'll do a little bit of history, get
0:27
everybody caught up on what it means to follow women's college hockey. So,
0:32
Todd, why don't you tell everybody about why why we're doing this podcast.
0:37
Well, we're doing this podcast because women's college hockey is one of the most
0:41
exciting NCAA sports out there. For one, let's start with that, just
0:46
from speed and competition wise, it is a tremendous driver of international play.
0:55
That you know, if you watch the Olympics or you watch high level women's
0:58
hockey, you're watching players, most of them that have played NCAA hockey.
1:03
Those are for me, those are the two big reasons why women's hockey is
1:11
it was just at the at the top of for me, competition in terms
1:17
of sports in the NCAA sports landscape. I don't know for you, maybe
1:23
you look at it differently. I don't know, what's what's your perspective on
1:30
you know why NCAA hockey is a big thing for you. I think women's
1:34
hockey in general really appealed to me. I grew up playing soccer, but
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I'm sort of older than that boom from nineteen ninety nine, right Like I
1:42
was eighteen and wondered, like, we're all those new fans that had suddenly
1:46
showed up were while I was like the only girl liking soccer for most of
1:49
growing up. So I was tracted to women's hockey because I saw sort of
1:53
the potential for growth and saw it sort of echoing and mirroring what women's soccer
1:57
had done, and then just really fell in love with the game. Like
2:00
you said, the speed, the finesse, There is just a really great
2:06
flow to the women's hockey game versus men's without the checking, and as you
2:10
said, it's just this huge driver. I mean, I first went to
2:15
a college a men's college hockey game and with my husband in two thousand and
2:19
six, and I hadn't really grown up with hockey, and when I recognized
2:23
that there was a really good women's team too, I was like, well,
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why isn't anybody paying attention to them? You know, there's pretty much
2:28
multiple Olympians and all the top teams. You get this opportunity to just watch,
2:32
you know, elite level, international level talent for a couple of dollars
2:39
in really small stadium. Was allowed you to get up close and personal and
2:44
really watch the game and learn the game. And so to me, if
2:46
you are a fan of the international game, if you're a fan of the
2:50
progame, then you need to also be following the college game. There's just
2:54
there is no denying that the NCAA is the driver for development women's international hockey.
3:00
And uh, if you like watching the game, I don't you know,
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there's there's sort of no reason to not be paying attention to these up
3:07
and coming players. I think we should say. That's a little bit of
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the point of what we're doing here with this episode, right is if you're
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interested in women's hockey, but you don't know much about NCAA women's hockey,
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let's talk about that and let's bring you in, uh to to the family
3:23
here and and give you kind of the background and some things that you know,
3:27
maybe unusual if you follow other levels of hockey. Uh And and that's
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what we're gonna do in our segments today is go through, you know,
3:38
what what happens for a seat, what's a season like really for NC women's
3:43
hockey, what are the big points? What you're playing for your That's a
3:46
multi layered thing, uh, for UH NCAA sports, because you have a
3:52
conference level and you have the national championship level. But we're going to go
3:55
through all those things, and I think maybe we should you know, also
4:01
mention that we cover the game. We're fans of the game, but we
4:05
also cover the game. We I'm a reporter for the Wisconsin State Journal and
4:10
I've been with us EHL for a lot of years. I was thinking about
4:14
that. It goes back to I think nineteen ninety seven or ninety eight.
4:16
The first thing I wrote for us HL whatch Yeah, Okay, thank you,
4:20
I am that old so uh And Nicole is is I'll let her speak
4:26
to this, but she is the pre eminent UH hockey women's hockey writer for
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NCAA NCAA women's hockey and she is our, I guess, our senior writer
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for women's hockey at us EHL. So why don't you talk about your background
4:42
a little bit there too? Well? Thank you? Yeah, I you
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know, like I kind of said. I started watching the women because I
4:46
was like, well, why isn't anybody paying attention? And so little by
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little I started, you know, first covering Wisconsin for no longer existing hockey
4:56
blog written by a man who's now and cr a NHL scout, so shout
5:01
on Andy Johnson. But yeah, I just started covering it because I thought,
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why is nobody paying attention to this? And uh that was, like
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I said, around two thousand and six is when I started paying attention.
5:12
I probably started writing a couple of years later, and I've been at Usho
5:16
as the women's hockey writer for I think like eight nine years. So yeah,
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you know, I am the only kind of international women's hory hockey corsepondent.
5:30
People like Todd cover you know, their local teams across the country,
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but I try to, you know, cover the landscape as a whole.
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You know. I've been to the last I think it's six or seven frozen
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fours in a row. So yeah, I this is this is my niche
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Sometimes I joke it's the world smallish one, but it is mine. So
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yeah, I just I love this game. I love telling people about the
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game and telling people about the players, the women who are playing it,
5:56
who are just extraordinary and you know, year after year just impress me with
6:00
what they accomplish on the ice, off the ice, what they go through
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playing internationally, keeping up you know, their GPAs, playing on national championship
6:11
teams, until I just want more people to know about them. Yeah,
6:14
so let's get into this. Can you give us the I guess, the
6:16
thumbnail of what the history of NCAA women's hockey is, because it doesn't go
6:21
back as long as maybe you might think as you talk about college sports,
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you know, basketball goes back decades. We're still kind of in the infancy
6:31
of NCAA women's hockey, even though women's hockey on campus goes back farther than
6:35
that. What can you kind of give us on the background there? Yeah,
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I think a lot of when you talk about women's hockey nationally and internationally,
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can date back to the nineteen ninety eight Olympics, which is when they
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were added as a sport in Nagado. So the sport was officially sanctioned by
6:57
the NCAA starting in the two thousand and two thousand and one season, but
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there were a couple of seasons before that. That were actually sponsored by the
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Olympic Committee that was called the ACCHA, and they had their own championships for
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two years. You will sometimes see teams like Harvard and Minnesota talk about their
7:14
national championships that they won in those years, but those were not NCAA sanctioned
7:18
because the sports becomes sanctioned until two thousand and one. However, like the
7:21
first is still exist, are still yeah, you kind of have to you
7:28
have to make those distinctions. But you know, Brown University had their first
7:31
women's hockey team in nineteen sixty five, which I think probably surprises people.
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The IVY League had their first tournament in nineteen seventy six. The ECAC,
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which is a conference that still exists, had their first women's tournament in nineteen
7:43
eighty four. So women's hockey has existed, you know, at first at
7:47
a club level and then sort of growing and then reaching that NCAA sort of
7:55
sanction in the two thousand and two thousand and one season. So we're talking,
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you know, less than twenty five years. The WCCHA is elevating their
8:01
twenty five years this year. So relatively new and young sport in that way.
8:09
But yeah, so we were talking about the titles, tod, do
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you want to talk a little bit about like the national championships and who's won
8:15
them? Yeah, Well, it won't take long because it's it's been four
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teams, correct, I'm I'm looking at this. That's four teams have won.
8:24
No, five teams have won national championships. No, yes, is
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that right? I'm going to go back through this. Yeah, Wisconsin has
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won the most with seven. Minnesota's won six plus the the national Championship,
8:37
not through the NCAA. But that's uh, you know that discussion that Nicole
8:41
was having that that doesn't really count for the NCAA championships. Minnesota Luth has
8:46
won five. We've got three from Clarkson, one from Ohio State. Am
8:50
I missing anyone? No? I don't think so, because it's all the
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w CHA teams, right, Minnesota, Minnesota, Duluth, clarks and Wisconsin
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and Ohio State. So, like I said, it doesn't take long to
9:05
go through the list of who has won the championships. But those those four
9:09
teams, five teams have have had their respective eras. I guess, if
9:15
you want to look at it, Minnesota was very strong in those early years
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a power, and we probably need the credit to some teams that were close
9:26
but didn't actually win. Some of those Harvard back in those early years it
9:30
was a very strong team didn't get the championship, but definitely needs to be
9:33
in that discussion too. They were runner up like three or four years in
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a row years and Minnesota had its era and still is one of the top
9:45
teams in women's college hockey. Clarkson won two in a row and they were
9:52
the first team out from outside the w c h A to win a national
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champion NCAA Championship. Wisconsin has won seven and as we look in most recently
10:03
three of the last four, even though we're not counting the year that the
10:07
pandemic canceled the national championship in twenty twenty. So Wisconsin really came on in
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the mid two thousands, one and six, seven and nine, and twenty
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eleven before Minnesota. It's kind of swung towards Minnesota. We had Clarkson come
10:28
in Clarkson and then Yeah, it's it's been kind of those those teams have
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been in the in the running for it in a lot of these years.
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But I think it's it's worth noting too that there's been a lot of teams
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that have been knocking on that door, and there are going to be more
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teams winning championships soon because there are teams that are I shouldn't I say teams,
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but I really mean programs because it goes on that deeper level if there
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are programs with a lot of court and there are programs that are are very
11:03
good in there, uh in their conference and are and are right there when
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it talks to when it comes to talking about a h NCAA tournament, and
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it's you know, a lot of times comes down to luck. You get
11:15
a bad, bad draw, a bad UH run through the tournament and it
11:20
doesn't work out for you. But that's UH, that's the way it goes
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in single game elimination tournaments. But as part of the NCAA tournament every year,
11:30
the the UH now it's the USA Hockey runs UH the Patty Kasmayer Award.
11:37
And I wonder if you, Nicole, want to talk about what that
11:39
is, since you're you're a voter and you've you've been through that process,
11:43
what that is, who it's for, and and who it's named after.
11:48
Sure, so we mentioned at the top, we've decided to call this the
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podcast, and that is, you know, a nod to Patty Kasmayer.
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The Patty Kasmayer Award goes to the top collegiate female player of the year.
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It's named in honor of the lat late Patty Kasmyer Sant, who was a
12:01
four year varsity letter winner for Princeton in hockey in the eighties but also played
12:07
field hockey on lacrosse and she died on February fifteenth, nineteen ninety at the
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age of twenty eight from a rare blood disease. In the name, the
12:15
award is named in her honor, so it has been given out every year
12:20
that the sport has been an NCAA station sport. The current of the most
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recent winner was Ohio State Sophie Jakes. She was the second ever defender to
12:28
win the Patty CAAZ had been several years. Angelo Ruggieriro is the only other
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defender to win it. The most winners have come from Harvard with six,
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Wisconsin has five. But yeah, it is it's a long process that involves
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but first coaches voting and compiling a list, and then it gets narrowed down
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to ten names and then it goes to the committee. The committee changes from
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year to year. Journalists are on it in two year stints, so this
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year will be my second year of this current stint, but I did one
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other a few years ago. And then there is a selection of coaches from
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across the country and we get the name of the top ten, as I
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said, was compiled, and then we talk about each one of them in
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like a conference call, and then from there we vote and they'll announce a
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top three and at that point the winner will already been chosen but not announced,
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So we have that discussion, we vote in rank the women, and
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then the winner is announced on frozen four weekends. So used to be prior
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to COVID that there was sort of a brunch on the Saturday in between the
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two games between the Friday Sunday National Championship weekend. Now they have turned it
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into a more sort of low key but fan friendly event that happens. It
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happened on site in Duluth, which was really great, was in the lobby
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of the arena and was just a really awesome way to give the award.
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I thinking, so I'm really happy that that change has been made. So,
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yeah, a couple of goaltenders have won it, but mostly generally the
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lord goes to the top forward for the year, which is maybe a different
14:13
discussion to have, but yes, so Patty has a pretty cool award.
14:18
Pretty cool woman. Laura Hollerson, who was the first coach at Minnesota,
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knew her, played with her, and so she is often at the awards
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ceremony representing the Kasimyir family and it's pretty cool to be able to have that
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connection to the woman that the awards named for. All right, well,
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that's our first segment today. When we come back, we will talk about
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how the NCAA is the driver of talent and players for the international game.
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If you watch an Olympic game, you're seeing an NCAA player. So we'll
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be back with the podcast. Welcome back to the podcast. I'm Todd Moleski.
15:03
That is Nicole Hasey. We are talking today giving you kind of a
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primer of what NCAA women's hockey is all about. And it's it's coming in
15:13
different layers here, I guess if you want to look at it that way.
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We we've talked about, uh, just kind of the background of of
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of what, uh, you know, what the the history has been and
15:26
and what some of the the what the Patty Kasmi Award is given for.
15:31
And and now we want to talk about what, uh, you know,
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what happens after players are done playing NCAA hockey. Maybe we're jumping the gun
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here a little bit. We're going to get into later in our final segment
15:43
about what the season is actually like. But it's important to uh keep in
15:48
mind that that players in college hockey, the best of them, are going
15:54
to be going to the international stage. And Nicole, I wonder if you
15:58
can talk about how that has developed, and I guess how NCAA women's hockey
16:03
has developed into the the you know, the driver of what we see in
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the international game. And I think, like to start off with it's really
16:14
important to you to point out that one of the reasons the NCAA has to
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be the driver of indifferent international development is that the for a long time and
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even up till now, federations aren't doing that, particularly for girls and women,
16:27
and so US and Canadian players obviously are getting more support than North American
16:33
players, but even still, like the NCAA provides the best resources from nutrition
16:40
to facilities, to weight training to all of that that any you know,
16:45
sort of teenage girls hockey player can have access to on a regular basis.
16:52
So you're sort of starting with when you're talking US and Canada. You know,
16:56
at the two thousand and two Salt Lake City Olympics, so the second
17:00
time women's hockey was in the Olympics, only eight members of the Canadian team
17:03
were either current or former NCAA players. In twenty twenty two, all the
17:08
women on both US and Canada were NCAA players, and forty percent of all
17:12
players, it's a little more than forty percent, were committed to play or
17:17
had played at least one season of D one women's hockey. So two hundred
17:21
and thirty total women rostered on ten teams and one hundred and four of them
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had played for a total of thirty two different NCAA D one schools. So
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it's just this massive driver you had mentioned. You know, Minnesota Duluth was
17:34
strong in the early years of the NCAA. One of the reasons that happened
17:38
is because their coach at the time did a really good job of recruiting internationally.
17:44
She went and found talent and brought started to bring some players over from
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you know, one or two players from individual countries that would come over and
17:52
really help bolster the team, and that process has something that's just sort of
17:59
grown over the years. So even you know, five, ten, fifteen
18:03
years ago, we didn't see as many women from so many different countries playing
18:10
in the nca But this year, you know, I just I just did
18:11
this article a few weeks ago at USCCHO. There are one hundred and I'm
18:15
sorry, one one hundred nineteen total players playing NCAD one hockey this year.
18:21
Six hundred and ninety four of them are Americans, three hundred and sixty five
18:25
are Canadians, and sixty of them are international players outside of North America from
18:29
fifteen countries. Recently, in international women's hockey, we've seen sort of the
18:37
growth of the of Czechia as an international powerhouse, winning the last two bronze
18:41
medals at World Championships. A big driver of that is that many of their
18:45
players have come to the US and played NCAA hockey because it is just by
18:52
far the best development that they can have. And this is, you know,
18:55
from them telling me this the best development that they can have to be
18:59
able to to grow the sport at home, their international league or their domestic
19:04
league at home just doesn't provide the same ability for them. So yeah,
19:11
it's just it's just this huge it's a cyclical thing where it's really good to
19:15
talk about what's great about the NCAA is a driver for international development. But
19:19
I think it's also important to note that the reason it has to be is
19:23
that a lot of these programs have not historically and continue to not be getting
19:29
the support from their federations domestically, and so the players have taken it upon
19:33
themselves to you know, go play elsewhere and try and grow the game and
19:37
find other ways to make their team better. So, you know, in
19:41
the current we just saw you know, Alena Mills retire from international play with
19:47
cech Ya. You know, she came over and played at Brown. I
19:49
mean, she's was joking with her. There are a couple of teenagers on
19:52
her team, so she has a longer career than some of them have been
19:55
alive. And you know, she but she came over and once she had
19:59
that experience, she went home and sort of helped share the idea of like
20:03
this is possible, this is what you can do, this is how you
20:07
can go get an education, and those sorts of things. But yeah,
20:10
I think it's really important to point out how much you know, the international
20:17
game, Like I said, every member of US and Canada are NCAA players,
20:21
and how much the game so is growing and making the women that we
20:29
you know that people see at the Olympics, the players that they are giving
20:33
them those opportunities. What I'm fascinated by is what we'll see in the next
20:37
generation because we're still we're really talking about this, like you said that we're
20:41
kind of in the infancy. And Shannon Miller, like you talked about the
20:45
Duluth coach, was really ahead of her time in looking internationally. Now it's
20:51
it's that's just a matter of normal course of actions for most NCAA coaches is
20:56
looking beyond North America because there are some really good players out there and they've
21:03
come up through these because of some of the players that have traveled this route,
21:11
and so you look, you know, that's you know maybe eight nine
21:15
years ago that some of those players you know developed that well, that's that's
21:18
right when the players that are now eighteen or seventeen and eighteen are being recruited
21:25
would have been starting in hockey and you know, getting to that that level.
21:29
And just like maybe having a role model from your country go travel this
21:33
route has really changed the path for some of some of the young players from
21:40
outside North America. And so what I'm interested to see is what that looks
21:44
like in ten years again, Now what the what the next? You know
21:48
what these players that that that come to the US to play college hockey will
21:53
inspire for for for the next two And like you mentioned, as long as
22:00
the support is there, and I think we're seeing it from from some countries
22:03
where there's more supports, it's certainly not to the level that it is on
22:08
the men's side, and that's a I think you can go through any of
22:14
the things we're talking about here, and that's going to be a problem in
22:17
a lot of the the the areas we're covering today is that there is not
22:22
an equity there in a lot of situations. And so where are we ten
22:30
years from now, I don't know, but I think there's going to be
22:33
more international flavor to college hockey as as we continue to go on, because
22:40
it's developing in other countries where it's obviously still developing here and in the US
22:47
Canada as well. And when we're talking about at the young ages on the
22:52
girls hockey side. So it's it's going to be fascinating to see where that
22:57
comes comes up in the in the next cycle of players that we're talking about
23:03
a generation from now. Yeah, and I also think we see, you
23:07
know, sort of a ebbs and flows as to which countries some of the
23:11
international players come from. I think early on, particularly you know, some
23:15
of the Nordic countries Sweden, Finland, which are still many of those players
23:18
do come over and play in you know, the the largest number of international
23:23
players this season are you know, there's twelve from Sweden and eight from Finland.
23:27
But like as we mentioned c Chechia this year, there are a couple
23:30
of players from Norway. There's a couple players, there's five players from Austria.
23:34
What's interesting to me about some of that is those are those are countries
23:38
who are not currently top tier IHF you know in the I don't even mean
23:44
that from a the way that the IHF stratifies the different divisions, so you
23:48
know Division one or Division one A and things like that. So there's a
23:52
player from Slovenia, there's the players from Japan and South Korea, and so
23:56
as we see, as we have seen in the past as some of those
24:02
Scannavian players, as we said, go back and show what's possible in their
24:06
connections with coaches over there. And now we've seen this, you know,
24:08
sort of growth in Chechia, and so like, maybe what is the next
24:12
sort of wave of players that we see. I think will be really interesting
24:15
and I think as we pay more attention to this, we'll be able to
24:18
see a bit more of the the trends as to where these players may be
24:23
coming from and how they're going back to their programs, you know, affects
24:30
them on an international level. But I think too, you use the word
24:33
equity, which I think is really important when we're talking NCAA, right,
24:37
because like, if this is all relative, it is the NCAA for women
24:41
in North America is very very good, and yet you know, the state
24:45
of the women's game NCAA versus the state of the men's game is very different.
24:48
You know, we just had equity reports come out from the NSANE and
24:52
things like that. So I think it's important too to just talk about how
24:56
relative all of this is. That this is a very good situation, but
25:00
it is by no needs perfect. There's definitely stuff to look at and critique
25:04
it is better than exists and maybe in some other countries. But I think
25:10
just to point out that like this this situation, First of all, I'm
25:12
not sure that we should count on a sort of a private entity to be
25:18
the development the main development tool for international women's hockey or really any international sport.
25:26
But it's statement of fact is that it is right now. But you
25:30
know, there are questions to be had of like why you know there's a
25:33
USA men's development like residency program and that doesn't exist on the women's side.
25:37
There there's very little development on the women's side, and that was you know,
25:41
in twenty seventeen, the US women's national team threatened to boycott the IHF
25:47
Women's World Championships that were we hosted in the US that year, and one
25:51
of their big things was about development. And I know that COVID played a
25:56
huge part in some of this, But the fact that we are six years
25:59
old on from that discussion and haven't seen a ton of movement from USA Hockey
26:03
and like what that development could look like and what they're going to do for
26:07
development for girls and women in the US is I think a big question.
26:11
So you know, there is sort of two sides to this coin, which
26:15
is that the NCAA is a very important part of the international game right now.
26:19
And also these federations should be doing better by their players so they don't
26:25
feel like they have to leave their home country to go get the development that
26:27
they need. When you look at it from I guess, just inside the
26:32
US, there's so much that is centralized with USA hockey in terms of how
26:41
I guess just looking at it from a big perspective of how the game has
26:45
grown, the girls hockey game is going to talking about early young ages,
26:49
but a lot of it does come down to those individual local youth hockey groups
26:57
to make those things happen. And you know, there's there's money available in
27:03
some places, but we all know anyone who is in hockey knows it is
27:06
not a cheap sport. It is not something you just pick up and do
27:11
without a significant investment of money and time. And and so those to me
27:18
are are really big hurdles that I think need to be I was going to
27:27
say address, but it's more than addressing. It's it's you know, just
27:30
studying how do we get better at that Inside the US. I'm talking about
27:36
it in terms of you know, providing opportunities and and making this a game
27:41
that is is really open for young kids to play when they are forming those
27:51
kind of you know, interest levels in sport. You know, how do
27:55
we get young kids interested in hockey and you know, while they're also trying
28:02
out soccer and while they're also trying out basketball and these things, having hockey
28:06
be part of that conversation. And we're talking you know, a real early
28:11
part of this year, but that becomes so much of you know, when
28:17
you talk if we're talking about like getting them when they're seven, eight years
28:21
old, ten years later, you know, if you're talking about an elite
28:26
athlete, have they even considered hockey where they even like offered hockey as an
28:30
option? And that's where I know there are a lot of efforts to make
28:37
that happen at the USA Hockey levels. It's just so reliant on you know,
28:44
you know, volunteers and parents and things like that at the local levels
28:48
to be knowledgeable and to be experienced enough to be able to help out with
28:52
that. And that's some of where things I think in the US have struggled
28:59
over the years in terms of getting quality coaching for young girls players that's that's
29:03
something that's that's not easy to find. I think too, is that there
29:08
is sort of a disconnect in that there's things like try hockey for free days,
29:11
and there's there's a lot of getting people in the door, but then
29:15
I think that they're that next step of keeping them coming back, of getting
29:21
them on teams on like you said, providing good coaching. I think that
29:25
is a part of the pipeline that sort of gets let down, sort of
29:29
making sure once you've got them in the door, like what is the next
29:30
step? And you know, kind of what you were saying is that like
29:33
girls aren't picking up hockey as teenagers and becoming NCAA players at this point,
29:37
Like you do have to start at that young age and be you know,
29:41
sort of on an elite path by the time yere. I mean, these
29:44
many of these girls are going to boarding schools. They're going to especially schools
29:48
at thirteen years old, like they are, they're doing training regimens to become
29:51
NCAA players. You know, this is a it's sort of a whole listic
29:56
like they have to decide pretty early, and so I do think that they're
30:00
is a gap there sort of you're not already a hockey family of like at
30:04
five, six, seven, eight nine, Like they came to the door,
30:07
they tried hockey, they liked it. What comes next? And then
30:11
the other place that I think, you know, maybe not exactly the same
30:15
vein, but that what we're letting down is that there is a U eighteen
30:17
women's national team program, and there is a senior national team program, and
30:19
there is not a lot else. We're starting. The PWHL is starting this
30:25
year, and that pro league offers an opportunity for like once you're done with
30:27
college, you know, but at this point, most of those women are
30:32
also national team players. Until the league grows and can get more teams,
30:34
we're still talking sort of a pretty small group of women. So what happens
30:38
to the player that didn't catch hockey Canada USA Hockey's I at eighteen nineteen years
30:45
old in college so it wasn't or even sixteen and wasn't part of a national
30:48
team program and doesn't make the senior team pool, Like, that's that's kind
30:53
of it for them right now. I mean, there are very few women
30:56
we've seen like maybe an sophie but tay in Canada who went and had a
31:00
very good pro career in the CWHL and that is how she she finally got
31:06
invited into the pool. But we're still seeing some of the top ENDCA talent
31:08
not even get invited in some of the player pools at this point. So
31:14
what happens to a player when she graduates college if there isn't if she doesn't
31:17
go straight to the pros? Like are all those players just done? Like
31:21
what's happening? You know? There's the World Juniors for boys at you twenty,
31:26
and we don't. We just we don't have sort of development. And
31:30
so the idea that like we know at sixteen whether a woman's going to be
31:33
a national team player or not seems crazy to me. And she's either in
31:36
that pipeline or she's not. And so where what's the gap of developing and
31:40
and sort of scouting that talent between ages, you know, eighteen and twenty
31:45
four kind of thing, so and nurturing and growing that talent. Some people
31:48
just don't. And this is where I think to some of the difference on
31:52
the men's side, right, like the collegiate players on the medside tend to
31:55
be a couple of years older. They don't, you know, with junior
31:57
hockey and things like that, so that the pipeline is very different. And
32:00
I think at the moment where two generally we get too hung up on making
32:06
women's hockey look like men's hockey, like that the pathway has to look the
32:08
exact same, and I don't know that it does. And I think that's
32:12
probably a bigger discussion that we've got time here for today, but I think
32:15
it is something we're thinking about, like what does what happens in the pipeline
32:19
for these women that you know, we said there's eleven hundred collegiate players this
32:23
year, so what what does it look like that they can do maybe after
32:28
their collegiate career is done, or if they you know, they have a
32:31
standout junior and senior year, Like are they are they getting those looks?
32:35
Are they getting those opportunities to continue to grow and develop their program or their
32:38
their game. A lot of that in previous year, says happened through going
32:44
to Europe and playing right because that's what they are club teams in Europe,
32:49
Whereas you know that the pro structure here in North America has been unsettled.
32:54
Maybe a kind way of saying that, I think there's a lot of hope
33:01
that there will be more settling with the p w h L starting this season,
33:08
as you mentioned, but there are options for players who don't play here
33:15
in North America to go over and play in Europe after they're done to which
33:20
has always been a I think a pretty cool way for starting your post college
33:25
life too. Is you know, for sure a couple of years ago play
33:29
hockey and live in Europe. Is a couple of players I've talked to and
33:34
said, you know, you can understand the appeal there absolutely of having that
33:37
option. I think too, we're gonna see I think we might still see
33:42
some of that in that they can maybe do some partial seasons. You know,
33:44
some of the girls that went to play in that DHL and Sweden are
33:47
still going to come back and play in the p w h L. So
33:51
depending on how those seasons can continue to align, we might get a chance
33:54
to see that. We definitely sort of went maybe in a be a bit
34:00
of a downer in terms of focusing on some of this stuff, and I
34:02
just I do want to say that, like the point of being excited about
34:06
the international players is that, like you can pay about ten dollars max on
34:10
a ticket to go see a collegiate women's game, and that's usually like at
34:14
Wisconsin or Minnesota as that much. Other places are free five dollars or less.
34:19
What is a season ticket at Madison like seventy five this year's it's pretty
34:23
ridiculously inexpensive. And when you see Wisconsin play a team like Minnesota, or
34:29
you see Ohio State, or you see Colgate or you see Clarkson, you're
34:32
talking about paying less than ten dollars to see multiple Olympians or multiple World Championship
34:40
roster players on the ice at any given time. So you know, if
34:45
you talk Wisconsin, Minnesota, Abbey Murphy, Britta Curl, Layla Edwards,
34:51
Lacey Eden, Kk Harvey, all of these players are currently in their national
34:57
team poll and they're still collegiate players. So when they're they're going head to
35:00
head, and like when you talk sort of some of them were the East
35:04
Coast schools ECAC were. Now like I said, Clarkson, Colgate, you'll
35:07
see a lot of the Canadian national team players. And so the part where
35:12
this is an international driver and you're seeing these women come play for these programs
35:15
is that you get to go watch them in arenas that hold you know,
35:20
a couple thousand people and sit really close and watch for a couple of dollars
35:22
some of the best hockey happening in the world. And uh, that's pretty
35:27
priceless and pretty cool. And what I always try to remind people of when
35:29
they're when they're you're trying to tell them to give it a shot, because
35:32
I just think, like the fact that that these women play in small arenas
35:37
for a couple bucks is kind of blows my mind. But now that we've
35:40
talked about the international game, why don't we come back for segment three.
35:44
We will tell you a little bit about the structure of the NCAA, some
35:46
of the conferences, what the postseason looks like, how the NCAA tournament has
35:51
changed, and uh, get you ready to become fans of this season.
35:55
That's not too far in that you can't start following this year. Welcome back
36:04
to the podcast. I'm Todd Maleski. Nicole Hase is with me. As
36:07
always, this week, we're talking about the details of what NCAA hockey is
36:14
all about. We've talked about some of the history, we've talked about the
36:16
awards, We've talked about where players come from and where they go. Now,
36:21
let's talk about what a season is actually like five Division one conferences spread
36:27
around you know, the Northeast and into the Midwest, and I guess it's
36:32
kind of, you know, stretching a little bit the borders in some directions
36:37
there, but that's mostly where it is. Nicole, Do you want to
36:40
talk about where the teams are, what kind of seasons they play, and
36:46
how some of that is laid out just from of a high end perspective there,
36:52
Sure, So there's the five conferences. The women's hockey season generally lasts
36:57
from the end of September till mid March, so it's a nice long season.
37:01
That early September October period will usually be some non conference games, meaning
37:07
teams that don't normally face each other travel and give us some head to head
37:13
and excitement. You know. The opening weekend of this year, we saw
37:16
Ohio State play Colgate, which was you know, two top ranked teams,
37:20
top five teams, which was really awesome. And so that's a fun time
37:23
because the players the teams haven't gotten a lot of time on the ice prior
37:28
to playing those games because of NCAA rules. And then we move into conference
37:31
matchups. Where the teams play head to head and the point of that is
37:37
within each conference they earn points. At the end of the season, those
37:42
conferences each have their own conference tournament. Those are seeded based on the standings
37:47
that are crew over the course of the season. The winner of the conference
37:52
tournament of each of the five conferences receives an automatic bid into the NCAA Tournament.
37:57
The NCAA Tournament now consists of eleven teams. We will come back round
38:04
to that, but so that means that there are also six at large bids.
38:07
So are those come from the other teams the other top drink teams over
38:12
the course of the season that don't win their respective conference championships. So we
38:17
have Hockey East, College Hockey America which is the cha ECAC, which is
38:25
mostly teams out in the Northeast, and New how which is the New England
38:30
Women's Hockey Alliance. That's the newest conference. They earned their first auto bid
38:34
last season. And see rules requires you to have at least six teams in
38:38
your conference in order to earn an auto bid. That new conference had to
38:42
sort of build up and then there's two years that you have to play before
38:45
you can get it. So yeah, and then the WHA, which is
38:49
the Western Collegiate Hockey Association. So the conference is obviously if you are not
38:53
super familiar with college hockey, don't align with sort of more traditional sports conferences.
39:00
Uh nearly all of these schools are Division one. There are a couple
39:02
of Division two as Assumption just joined as a Division two school. You will
39:07
find some smaller schools here that are D one in hockey. NC rules have
39:13
changed his house, so that needs to be But you know, you'll find
39:16
a school the size of Saint Cloud State, Saint Thomas, Midgie State play
39:21
against Minnesota, Wisconsin, Ohio State, and the w c h A.
39:23
So that's really always interesting in how those different size programs support and build their
39:31
programs. So yeah, there's the five conferences, and Todd, do you
39:36
want to talk a little bit maybe about the postseason and how that how we
39:39
how those five conference germans lead us into a national tournament. Yeah. The
39:44
you know, I guess one of the uh defining features of college sports is
39:49
that there's usually a second chance for you no matter you know, how your
39:53
season has gone. It is, this isn't one hundred percent, but you
39:58
usually get a chance to get in your conference tournament and play for a chance,
40:04
like you said, at that automatic bid to the NCAA tournament to keep
40:07
your season going. Now, like I said, it's not one hundred percent
40:10
thing where in every college you know sport, every team gets into their conference
40:16
tournament. That's not the way it goes. There is something get cut out,
40:20
But in general that that's the I'm not sure if that's the way it
40:28
is in every league, but I'm pretty sure it is where everyone gets in
40:30
in women's hockey to their conference tournament. You would know that better than I
40:34
would. It is not currently the situation, but the leagues are working on
40:38
fixing some of that. Let's put that away. So what it comes down
40:44
to is that the conference tournament happens. You get you get seeded by how
40:46
you finished in the regular season, uh, and then you go into In
40:52
some leagues it's a it's a one shot all the way through. In some
40:57
leagues you're playing best of three series is in the first round, and then
41:00
you go into a semi final and a championship championship game that are single elimination.
41:07
It depends some The WHA, for instance, has a pre set location
41:13
for its conference championship tournament, the semi finals and finals right now, that
41:17
is in Minneapolis at Rhetor Arena where Minnesota plays, and there are other setups
41:25
that are more dependent on going with the higher seed hosting in those semi final
41:32
in championship rounds and so the you know, that happens over the course of
41:39
two or three weekends, two weekends usually, but it spreads into a third
41:45
sometimes, I think where they're actually maybe not even weekends. Happens midweek for
41:51
some games and goes into a weekend for the rest, and out of that
41:57
we get like Nicole said, we have five automatic qualifiers for the NCAA tournament,
42:04
which is a standard part of any NCAA tournament. There's automatic qualifiers,
42:07
and there are at large bids. Uh. And then that leaves right now
42:12
six at large bids to be decided by the pairwise rankings, which the mathematical
42:21
formula by which each team is compared to every other team in Division one,
42:25
So forty four teams you're gonna each team is considered is compared to all forty
42:32
three others in some criteria that involve you know, head to head matchups,
42:38
and we can we could have a whole podcast about this. We're not going
42:43
to uh it's it's there's an explainer on our on the U s HI website
42:46
if you really want to get into it. But that sets the rankings that
42:52
are used for picking those six at large teams, the top six that aren't
42:58
already automatic qualifiers, and then for also for seating the NCAA tournament. And
43:02
I'm going to throw it back to you for saving NCAA tournament because I know
43:06
this has been something that has changed recently when we have talked about, you
43:13
know, priorities of the NCAAs because it also should we should note that the
43:20
tournament started as four teams way back when it started, expanded to eight and
43:27
is now eleven. Along the way, there have been some bumps in determining
43:31
how teams get seated for the NCAA tournament. This is also something we could
43:35
probably spend an entire podcast on, and maybe we will when it comes to
43:38
that this season. But there are there are different ways now of laying out
43:45
the NCAA tournament format, and you could probably get into that. I can
43:51
some of it, but frankly, explaining how an eleven team tournament lays out
43:55
on a bracket is more mind bending than I think anybody is really capable of.
44:00
The moral of the story is the tournament expanded from eight teams to eleven
44:06
teams. I have some personal thoughts on that, but I will I'll say
44:09
some of that for at the end of the season, when there's an even
44:13
number right there, right right above it, that would make it a lot
44:16
cleaner. Right there. It was a forum. I maintain its malicious compliance
44:24
the NCAA. So backing up a little bit. During COVID, the nca
44:30
women's basketball tournament was held in some pretty poor conditions, and the players took
44:37
to social media to show you know that men's basketball tournament versus the women's basketball
44:43
tournam and these women were given like like a whole quadrant of the bracket was
44:50
in one stadium because of COVID, and there was like seven dumbbells for all
44:52
of them to share. And so equity became a very big focus. There
44:58
was a lot of pressure on the NCAA to look at some of those things.
45:00
Women's basketball got their own sort of breakdown and investigation. There was an
45:05
investigation into to all sports. The hockey part of this investigation just showed a
45:12
lot of inequity in terms of the money spent, the marketing done, the
45:17
really every every way you compare men's and women's NCAA hockey head to head,
45:22
Women's hockey came out behind everything from how many signs were up in the host
45:27
city for the Frozen four down to like what swag the students got as part
45:34
of making the tournament. And so this really there was already a group of
45:39
coaches and administrators and program directors that were pushing to expand the women's tournament from
45:45
eight teams. Again, we are up to forty four teams. We have
45:49
been somewhere between thirty six and that number for quite a few years at this
45:53
point, and so it was a pretty small percentage of the teams that made
45:57
the national tournament, and so they were pushing for it. They you know,
46:00
had taken it to NCAA meetings, they were told no, it was
46:05
tabled. This equity conversation came up at the same time, fortuitous for them,
46:09
so it was no longer tabled. It was brought up almost kind of
46:13
like in a special session. And after all the discussion, instead of upping
46:19
it to twelve teams, they said this percentage of there are. I don't
46:22
know the numbers, Todd you would know, member. There are. However,
46:23
many men's collegiate hockey teams. The men's tournament is sixteen teams. That
46:30
is x percent of that, and so they made they used that percentage to
46:35
decide how many women should make an NCAA tournament women's teams. That's how we
46:38
ended up at eleven. It's quite silly. They're not going to change the
46:44
men's number to like fifteen if if a program closes, They're not going to
46:47
up it to seventeen if more programs get added. It's a very silly thing
46:52
to have chosen to adhere to in terms of the numbers. I mean,
46:55
we would all like to see them in here to things like the amount of
46:58
money spent, But those numbers apparently aren't important. This percentage number is.
47:01
That's how we got to eleven. We seed the top four teams again based
47:07
on pairwise, those four teams become the host sites. They at each of
47:14
those sites where I think we've decided to call them regionals. This is never
47:16
this was never an issue till two years ago. This the tournament structure changed.
47:21
I think we're still trying to figure out how to how are what to
47:22
call some of this and it changed without like some of these critical things being
47:27
decided. I think, like what these are all called or what we should
47:30
be naming them. Yeah, it happened, and it was and I should
47:35
put on it happened mid season. Yeah, the teams that were top ranked,
47:39
that were you know, sort of thinking that they would be the ones
47:43
to host NCA quarterfinals were suddenly finding out that they were actually gonna host a
47:47
game earlier in the weekend that they didn't know about. So what happened now
47:52
is we have two teams at three of the four host sites. There are
47:55
two teams that play usually like on a Thursday. The winner of that region
48:00
we're calling them regional semifinals then goes on to play the host team of that
48:07
regional So then that is the actual quarterfinal, and the winners of those four
48:13
games go to the frozen four at the third site, which is what is
48:16
it the five to six I believe matchup. There is no four or five.
48:22
There is no regional semi final. There's only one game at that host
48:25
site. It's how the structure of the bracket and bracket integrity, you know,
48:31
one the option that would be like one would get to play eleven if
48:37
everything went the way that it was, that the top teams still have an
48:39
advantage for being the top teams. I don't know if anybody followed that.
48:45
Bless your heart. I promise we will come back to some of this,
48:46
and I will also make sure that we include visuals the links to those sorts
48:51
of things. You can check that out on the us CHO site. Bracket.
48:55
I believe last year's practice still will change that over to this year's once
49:00
we get a little bit closer to actually putting teams into the twenty twenty four
49:04
tournament bracket. But it's yeah, it it just how much we had to
49:12
talk about that, it should probably tell you that it's not a great setup.
49:16
So the one of the exciting changes, however, that happened, is
49:20
that a few was that two years ago, the words bracket integrity never existed
49:25
anywhere in the Women's Championship manual. The selection committee was told to avoid flights
49:31
if possible. Travel was sort of the premier thing that was used to decide
49:37
which teams would play, so it often meant that the top seeds again those
49:42
top four host teams. It wasn't necessarily that one was hosting the lews seed
49:47
at this time, it would have been eight. It wasn't necessarily that two
49:50
was hosting seven. So particularly because nationally we have this sort of break of
49:55
Western teams and Eastern teams, right like, you've got a couple, Ohiopen
50:00
Slovenia schools in the middle, but mostly you have Wisconsin, Minnesota, and
50:02
then you have the East Coast, and so unlike in I think any other
50:07
sports championship manual that I could find, I did some research of this.
50:12
At the time, the primary criteria was to avoid spending money essentially, so
50:16
there was no bracket integrity to the women's hockey tournament, which was just really
50:22
so frustrating to watch year after year. And so finally the rules committee decided
50:30
to take away that requirement, which is just a huge win for the sport
50:34
and for you know, the integrity of the game and making sure that the
50:37
very best teams are playing at the end of the season. So that's a
50:42
huge change that happened recently and that we're very excited about it. There is
50:45
one other part to it though, too, that it's not necessarily that the
50:49
bracket is fixed to you know, one play is the eight to eleven that
50:58
one, two, three, four through eleven are lined up by how they
51:00
finish in the pair wise. There are there are conditions where they will try
51:07
to avoid matchups of conference teams in the first round if they if that's how
51:14
they line up in some circumstances. So it is. It's not just like
51:19
the the selection committee has no leeway whatsoever in changing the how the bracket looks,
51:29
but it is fairly limited. They're not, you know, they're told
51:36
now to stick more toward keeping the integrity of the bracket in place as opposed
51:43
to trying to save a few bucks, which is yes, was a a
51:46
big win for everyone in the sport when that came through. Yeah, it's
51:52
so huge. I mean that, Like I said, the fact that those
51:53
words, the words bracket integrity never showed up just really showed where the priorities
51:59
were. So yeah, that was a huge win. As Todd said,
52:01
the committee still has sim leeway and that's always going to lead to some interesting
52:07
discussions, but it does, I think make the whole thing a little more
52:12
transparent in terms of if a team finishes ranked somewhere in the pairwise that we
52:17
are going to see them pretty much placed in the bracket based on that number.
52:23
Again, as Tod mentioned, there's some mandates in that first round avoiding
52:29
intra conference matchups, and we might see some swap some swaps because of that,
52:32
but overall, it's just a much more clear picture of what the team's
52:38
heading into the selection show, knowing where what teams should be playing where.
52:44
Yep, and if you followed along with all that, it's still with us,
52:47
Yeah, thanks for hanging around. But so that leads into, you
52:52
know, after that first week of the NCAA tourney, you get to the
52:55
Frozen Four, which is the semi finals. The way the schedule is set
53:00
up now, a semifinals on a Friday, championship game on a Sunday,
53:05
and like Nicole mentioned earlier, the Patty Casmier Awards ceremony being the day in
53:09
between those. It has become a you know, a destination event for women's
53:16
hockey at least that's that's the way I've looked at it, right, And
53:22
it's because it is in a set location. Every year, we know this,
53:27
They set them four or five years in advance, sometimes four years.
53:30
Yeah, yeah, so that you know where it's going to be. You
53:34
know what date it is. You don't know if your team, if you
53:37
will follow one team, you don't need to know if they're going to be
53:38
there. But for a lot of people that doesn't necessarily matter. They want
53:43
to be there to support women's hockey. And I think that's a pretty cool
53:47
statement about you know, the fandom of women's hockey is that they're they're turning
53:53
out to Frozen Fours, and you see the jerseys of teams that in the
53:59
crowd, teams that aren't there. And this is a one of those neat
54:04
elements of the game that I thought we should bring up here too. That's
54:09
the Frozen Four is really a destination weekend for a lot of people. Yeah,
54:15
I think there's you know, I would say there's a long way to
54:16
go on that the men's Frozen Four has long been that way, that there's
54:20
fan fest and that people just plan to go every year regardless of who's playing.
54:24
They know they're going to see high level hockey, they know they're going
54:27
to see their friends from different conferences, and the second those tickets go on
54:30
sale, they purchase them. And I think we are working our way towards
54:34
that on the women's side, which is great, but I think there's a
54:36
way to go in terms of what's being offered as a fan experience. Again,
54:39
like I said, making the pattykaz An open ceremony is really awesome.
54:44
That's one of the things that that's really cool. The other sort of mitigating
54:47
circumstance on this is that the so the men's conference tournament is usually happening at
54:53
the same time as the women's Frozen Four. There are also rules as to
54:58
the size of the stadium that can host to a women's Frozen Four. For
55:01
example, Wisconsin's Lavon Arena is too small, so there's only a handful of
55:07
arenas that are sort of I guess the right size for this until it rows
55:13
more right. We don't want to put it in a big, cavernous arena,
55:15
and so there is a limited number of places that the tournament can be,
55:22
which does limit some of this. Right, last year we were in
55:23
Duluth. Two years ago we were at Penn State, which is a gorgeous
55:29
facility but is real hard to get to. Yeah, that challenge with some
55:32
of them is that you've got a nice place to do it, but not
55:35
exactly an easy place for fans to get to. And then, as I
55:38
said, with the men's conference tournaments, you're you're battling for ice space,
55:43
you are battling for This is also usually happening during March Madness, so you're
55:47
battling for press coverage and all those sorts of things. But yes, at
55:52
Todd's point of it should be a destination. I mean, you know,
55:54
regardless of if your team is there or not, you know you're going to
55:58
see top tier hockey. I think is the reason why it should be circled
56:01
on everybody's calendar, like you know what weekends is going to be. As
56:05
you said, like the I think we'll announce the next four probably this year,
56:07
right, because I hope we're doing so next year always stuff to think
56:13
that next year we back at Penn State. That sounds right, yep,
56:16
and then the following year in Minneapolis. This season in twenty four it's at
56:21
New Hampshire. Yes, it's in Durhmaw, Hampshire, at the University of
56:23
New Hampshire. I already have my tickets and my hotel book, as I
56:28
would suggest to everybody else, because a real small town. But yeah,
56:35
it's a it's a really fun weekend. You're gonna see, there will be
56:37
represents from USA Hockey, there, there will be you know, former players
56:42
there there. It's it's just a really fun and exciting atmosphere and it's the
56:45
celebration of this game that we love, which is I think probably the coolest
56:49
part. And honestly, it's just as fun to cheer on to like pick
56:52
a team that's not your team if your team's not there and cheer them on.
56:55
And also the low stakes of not being on the edge of your seats.
57:00
As my friends often tell me, like they really enjoyed a couple of
57:02
years ago at Penn State just going and getting to enjoy watching the game without
57:07
sort of having, you know, a fighter in the game kind of thing.
57:13
They really just enjoyed being able to watch and really appreciate the individual style
57:16
without hanging on on hook wondering what's going to happen. Yep, there's one
57:22
last thing I think we should touch on here before we uh, you know,
57:29
finish things off. And that's what the NCAA Women's Hockey how how maybe
57:36
different gameplay wise, and you you'd written down a couple of things for us,
57:42
your nicole, I think maybe if you want to touch on those,
57:45
what that what what's different about women's hockey in the NCAA versus other levels,
57:52
or what's different about women's hockey versus men's hockey, and some of that too,
57:58
sure, So I think it's really important to point out is that there
58:00
is literally one rule in the NCAA Ice Hockey Manual that differentiates women's talking from
58:06
men's hoki. So for all that people like to talk about the different sense,
58:10
it's literally this one rule. It's about body checking. There is no
58:14
checking in women's hockey. I think it's important to note that it does not
58:17
mean that there is not content, that it is not physical. It just
58:22
means that there are not open ice hits. While there are, they're legal,
58:27
but generally you are going to see you are not going to see those
58:30
open iceed hits that and for me, what that means that it really affects
58:34
the style and the flow of play. You're going to see a lot less
58:37
stoppage of a women's game. It's going to flow much more because instead of
58:43
sort of knocking your opponent off the puck, you ere either going to see
58:47
the person possessing the puck need to work their way around the defense via defense
58:51
or puck handling and vice versa. You are going to see the defense need
58:53
to steal that puck away. So it really lends to a sort of I
58:59
really don't want to get I always want to call it like pure hockey,
59:01
and I don't mean that as like a value judgment, but just in that
59:05
like kind of hockey that you learned when when you were learning the game,
59:08
in terms of passing work, teamwork, movement on the ice. So just
59:14
this sort of really the fundamentals, but at this really elevated level, so
59:19
that you're seeing some of the prettiest puck handling, the best ice vision in
59:23
terms of being able to thread passes and feed players and you know, send
59:28
them through the neutrals out things like that. And so to me that so
59:30
the biggest difference obviously is that there's no checking, But to me, the
59:34
different that is what that leads to is the difference in the style of play.
59:37
And generally I would say it's just it's there's more flow and there's more
59:40
finesse. How do you like, do you have a different way of describing
59:45
it? Well, I just think it's been It's interesting to me that the
59:47
NCAA think it was before last season before the twenty twenty two to twenty three
59:52
season, had to clarify that contact is not necessarily a penalty in women's hockey
1:00:00
because it had been started to be called that way, that any any meeting
1:00:05
of two bodies when it was caused by one of them was kind of being
1:00:12
looked at as well, that's got to be a penalty because it was a
1:00:15
collision. Well, no, that's not how the rules written. It's it's
1:00:17
written that there's a level there. And this is sometimes hard to distinguish what
1:00:24
uh that what the line is and whether someone's crossed it. But there are
1:00:30
there are definitely games that are more physical than others and involving you know,
1:00:37
teams. Some teams are play a little bit more of a physical style.
1:00:40
Some teams play a more wide open uh, want to move the pucking more,
1:00:45
want to let their skilled players have as much room as possible kind of
1:00:51
game. When you when you see two of those different styles come against each
1:00:57
other, that rarely kind of makes that interesting. We've seen a few of
1:00:59
those season, I think. But that's the uh for me is that I
1:01:04
I understand you know, the that body checking is a penalty, but that
1:01:10
doesn't necessarily mean that every collision is a body check. Uh, and that's
1:01:16
uh, it's something that does take a little bit to get used to.
1:01:20
I think when you're watching a game and you're told that you know, well
1:01:22
checking is illegal, Well that there are degrees to that, and uh,
1:01:28
that's that's something that players test and sometimes they go to the box for it
1:01:31
and then we you know, they'll test keep testing it because that's just a
1:01:37
part of the game. And uh, that's we are in a collision sport,
1:01:43
as I've heard coach say, And that's just some of what you have
1:01:47
to kind of filter through as as part of the game. What's what's right
1:01:52
and what's wrong. Yeah, I think what once you start watching games,
1:01:57
particularly across different conferences, you'll notice both that the styles do change from conference
1:02:02
to conference. And some of that, I think is because the officiating is
1:02:07
different from conference to conference. It shouldn't be, but it is, and
1:02:13
those rules are called differently, and so then you get when those teams play
1:02:15
each other, the feeling out of how the officials are going to call the
1:02:21
game. But I also, I mean it has been a little different in
1:02:23
the last year or two, but you used to be able to look at
1:02:27
the teams that were most penalized, and it was almost always all the CHA
1:02:30
teams at the top, which just tells you that if it's all of them
1:02:34
and not just one of them, that it's how their game is being called.
1:02:37
And so I think it's just really important to look and notice those differences.
1:02:43
It's just a really inconsistent thing, as Tud said, because not all
1:02:46
contact is body checking. It's very interesting to me because I personally think it's
1:02:51
There is one rule in that book. It's rule for ninety four at least
1:02:53
it was last I looked, and it was like rules for women's hockey,
1:02:57
the following rules are to be used. Ninety four point two. Body checking
1:03:01
is not permitted. Body checking occurs when a player's intent is to gain possession
1:03:06
of the puck by separating the puck carrier from the puck with a distinct and
1:03:08
definable movement moment of impact. That's it. That's the description. And so
1:03:15
there's right, incidental contact may occur, and angling's permissible. Those are the
1:03:22
three things that the entire NCAA Ice Hockey Manual says about women's hockey different from
1:03:28
men's hockey. So yeah, I think we could again, we could spend
1:03:32
a whole separate podcast just talking about the different ways that this is called,
1:03:36
the different ways that it's used. But I think what's important from a spectator
1:03:39
standpoint is to look at how a team that would prefer to be wide open
1:03:45
would prefer to be, you know, using speed and transition, how teams
1:03:49
defend against that, and how teams can slow down teams like Wisconsin, who
1:03:52
are you know, trying to move through the neutral zone? And so then
1:03:55
you watch what like Saint Cloud State does as a lower ranked team, a
1:04:00
team is sort of like less you know, US national team players, things
1:04:03
like that. Look at what is making a team like Saint Cloud's six vessel
1:04:09
against you know, the number one, two, three teams in the country
1:04:12
when they play Minnesota, Wisconsin, Ohio State and the ECAC. You can
1:04:15
look at like Colgate, you know, their their style is they say we
1:04:17
play free. They really put an emphasis on allowing their players to be really
1:04:24
creative with the puck. So what do the teams they play against do try
1:04:29
to try and interrupt that flow? And that's where I think some of this
1:04:32
comes in. And how you what we always talk about, like you know,
1:04:38
some of the best hockey you can see is like Wisconsin versus Minnesota,
1:04:41
right, and I think on the ECACA it's probably like COVID versus Cornell or
1:04:44
Clerkson. But ultimately those games aren't pretty games of hockey. US and Canada
1:04:48
aren't pretty games of hockey. And it's because those two teams interrupt each other
1:04:55
so well. Right, it's about pope checking, and it's about you know,
1:04:59
getting in the way of pass and sort of all of the little,
1:05:01
tiny, sort of nippicky things you can do to try and slow down your
1:05:04
opponents. So when we're talking like reflowing hockey, that's not happening in the
1:05:10
best contested women's hockey games, because I mean those moments of brilliance, right
1:05:15
and where where it does all come together, but it's so rare that it
1:05:17
does. Right. They're gonna contest every inch of the ice, they are
1:05:21
gonna you know, use the boards, they're gonna dig in the corners,
1:05:26
all of those sorts of things, and so the the when those top teams
1:05:30
are playing each other, it's about, like you said, finding those those
1:05:32
little moments where the perfect pass is threaded or the perfect sort of drive into
1:05:40
the back post for a possible rebound. It's a lot of those really small
1:05:44
moments that when you see those top teams playing each other, which is I
1:05:47
think what's so fun to watch. And I think that comes it like with
1:05:50
this the you know, there is a lot of body contact, There is
1:05:55
a lot of you know, sort of smushing a girl up against the boards
1:05:58
and really trying to slow down, like not get let those teams get into
1:06:02
their flow and if they are able to pass like they want to and move
1:06:08
down the iceless speed like you're in trouble. So uh, I think that's
1:06:13
that's what's fun to watch in terms of of sort of that part of the
1:06:16
game. Well, that's pretty much. That's not all we know about women,
1:06:23
I hope not. No, There's there's a lot more out there.
1:06:26
But uh, that's what we wanted to bring you today in terms of this,
1:06:29
uh this edition of the podcast and and the primer and the the the
1:06:34
the top issues that we wanted to mention to you. So, Nicole,
1:06:41
do you want to wrap things up here for us this week? Yeah?
1:06:43
Absolutely. I'd say if anybody has questions that we didn't cover in terms of
1:06:46
fundamentals, things you're trying to understand to get into being a fan of the
1:06:50
college game. Definitely reach out to We are both on Twitter, both at
1:06:55
our full names, so I'm at Nicole Hasey, He's at Tamala. You
1:07:00
can also email me through the WS or I'm sorry through the us CHO website.
1:07:06
There's a fan forum on there as well, so definitely if there's stuff
1:07:10
that we haven't covered or you still have confusion about, let us know.
1:07:13
But otherwise, thanks for listening. We hope this cleared things up and we
1:07:15
will be back next week with another episode of podcasts, the Usaho Women's Talk
1:07:20
Podcast. Thanks for listening.