5 things to know about the 2024-25 UMD men's hockey schedule – Duluth News Tribune

DULUTH The 2024-25 Minnesota Duluth men's hockey schedule is out and features 20 home games, including series against Minnesota, North Dakota, St. Cloud State and defending NCAA champion Denver at Amsoil Arena.

The release of the Bulldogs' men's schedule came in conjunction with the NCHC's Tuesday, April 23 announcement of the 2024-25 conference schedule. The UMD women's hockey team will not release its schedule until the WCHA releases its league schedule. That is tentatively scheduled for May.

Below is the complete 2024-25 Bulldogs men's hockey schedule, plus five things to know about the unique roster.

Times to be determined later
Home games in CAPS
* indicates NCHC series
Saturday October 5 BEMIDJI STATE
Sunday October 6 MANITOBA (exhibition)
October 11-12 at UMass-Lowell
October 18-19 MINNESOTA
October 25-26 STEENHILL
November 8-9 NORTH DAKOTA*
November 15-16 in Miami*
November 22-23 WESTERN MICHIGAN
December 6-7 in the state of Arizona*
Tuesday, December 31 in Bemidji State
January 3-4 ALASKA
January 10-11 ST. CLOUD STATE*
January 17-18 at Colorado College*
January 24-25 DENVER*
February 7-8 at Omaha*
February 14-15 STATE OF ARIZONA*
February 21-22 in North Dakota*
February 28 – March 1 MIAMI*
March 7-8 at St. Cloud State*
12 March NCHC No. 8 vs. No. 9 play-in game
March 14-16 NCHC best-of-three quarterfinal series
March 21-22 NCHC Frozen Faceoff at Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul
March 27-30 NCAA Regionals (Allentown, Penn./Fargo, ND/Manchester, NH/Toledo, Ohio)
April 10-12 NCAA Frozen Four in St. Louis

October's series between the Bulldogs and Gophers men's teams will be the first two-game series in Duluth between the two in-system, but now non-conference, rivals since Oct. 14-15, 2011, when both were members. from the WCHA.

The 2011-2012 season was the penultimate season for the UMD and Minnesota men in the WCHA. They played a two-game conference series in Minneapolis during their final season as WCHA rivals in 2012-2013 and another non-conference series in Minneapolis in 2013-2014, the first season of Big 10 and NCHC hockey.

Over the past ten seasons, the Bulldogs and Gophers have played six home-and-home series, meaning one game of a weekend series takes place in Minneapolis and the other in Duluth. The Gophers were also in Duluth to start the 2017-18 season for the Icebreaker Tournament at Amsoil Arena.

Since the realignment, the Bulldogs are 12-4-2 against the Gophers, including 5-0-2 at Amsoil Arena.

The Bulldogs will play NCAA Division I men's hockey newcomer Stonehill College next season for the first time in program history. The Skyhawks, an independent club, just completed their first full season in NCAA Division I in 2023-2024, going 1-33. The only win came on February 10 at home against Lindenwood.

The Skyhawks were a Division II program that competed in Division III. Former Holy Cross head coach David Berard took over as head coach in April from David Borges, who guided the program in its transition to Division I.

Stonehill College is a private Catholic school with 2,500 students located outside Boston in Easton, Massachusetts. The school's athletic department transitioned to Division I in 2022.

Arizona State will become the ninth member of the NCHC in 2024-25, and the Bulldogs were fortunate enough to play a road game against the Sun Devils at Mullett Arena in Tempe, Arizona, in December.

UMD and ASU have played just once before. That was at the start of the 2022-2023 season. This will be UMD's first series against the Arizona Sun Devils since ASU upgraded from club to varsity status and to the NCAA Division I level in 2015-16.

The Sun Devils opened Mullett Arena on the Tempe campus in the fall of 2022. It seats about 5,000 people and until recently was the temporary home of the NHL's now-dormant Arizona Coyotes franchise.

The Bulldogs were last in the Phoenix metro area during the holidays in 2018-19 for ASU's Desert Hockey Classic at the Coyotes' old home, Gila River Arena in Glendale, but the Bulldogs and Sun Devils did not meet during the tournament.

Arizona States' admission to the NCHC means the league will use a new three-year scheduling rotation beginning in 2024-2025, with teams grouped into a trio of three-team pods. The league will stick to a 24-match schedule.

The Bulldogs will be in a capsule with St. Cloud State, its rivalry partner for the previous eleven seasons of NCHC play, and North Dakota. The Bulldogs, Huskies and Fighting Hawks play four games (two home, two away) against each other each season.

The NCHC's other two pods consist of Arizona State, Colorado College and Denver; while Omaha joins Miami and Western Michigan.

The Bulldogs will play just two games each this season against Denver, Colorado College, Western Michigan and Omaha, while playing four games, two at home and two away against Arizona State and Miami. Denver and Western visit Duluth while UMD travels to CC and Omaha.

Under the scheduling rotation, each non-pod team will visit Duluth twice every three years and UMD will visit each non-pod team twice every three years.

As for the league's postseason format, all nine teams qualify. The No. 8 and No. 9 seeds will compete in a play-in game on Wednesday, March 12 at the home of the No. 1 seed. The winner will stay in town to face the top seeds in a best-of-three quarterfinal series.

The Bulldogs' 2024-25 schedule marks the third time in four years that the men will play 19 regular-season games at Amsoil Arena. Add in the exhibitions and it's the second time in three years that the Bulldogs men have had 20 guaranteed home dates at Amsoil Arena.

Seven of the 10 non-conference games are at home this season, meaning the Bulldogs will be in Duluth a lot to start the year. They will play six of their first eight games, seven non-conference games and an exhibition game, and ten of their first fourteen games in October and November at Amsoil Arena.

On the other hand, UMD is on the road for 11 of its last 21 games. After playing six of eight games at Amsoil Arena to start 2025 in January, six of the Bulldogs' final 10 games to conclude NCHC play between Feb. 7 and March 8 are on the road.