Victory Press: Women's World Championships: Team Canada and Team USA →
We know who we'll expect in the gold medal game this year at Worlds, and also what's at stake for both groups.
USCHO: USA Hockey finds women all united in support of national team →
At this writing, at least 37 current, former or future college hockey players have used Twitter to announce that they had been contacted by USA Hockey (USAH) to compete as part of a replacement team in the Women’s World Championships (WWC), which begin March 31, and they had turned them down. In addition, four more players who were a part of the last U-18 squad used Twitter to voice support, but had not explicitly said they had turned down USAH.
Read MoreUSCHO: Mercer scores pair, Tiley stops all 41 as Clarkson blanks Wisconsin for women’s D-I national title →
ST. CHARLES, Mo. — Clarkson won its second women’s national championship Sunday afternoon with a 3-0 win over Wisconsin.
The Golden Knights last won the title in 2014 and still remain the only team outside of the WCHA to have won the national crown.
Read MoreMilwaukee Journal-Sentinel: Clarkson 3, UW 0: Badgers lose women's hockey title game →
ST. CHARLES, MO – The University of Wisconsin women’s hockey team lost to Clarkson University, 3-0, Sunday afternoon in the NCAA Division 1 championship game, ending the Badgers' attempt to complete a wire-to-wire run as the nation's top-ranked team.
Read MoreUSCHO: Patty Kazmaier winner Desbiens: Coming to Wisconsin ‘a pretty good decision I made’ →
ST. CHARLES, Mo. — Wisconsin senior goalie Ann-Renée Desbiens was named the 2017 Patty Kazmaier Memorial Award winner Saturday, winning the award that is presented annually to the top player in women’s NCAA Division I hockey.
She is the third goaltender to win the award and the fifth player from Wisconsin. She joins Badgers legends Sara Bauer (2006), Jessie Vetter (2009), Meghan Duggan (2011) and Brianna Decker (2012). Vetter and Brown’s Ali Brewer are the only other netminders to have earned the honor.
Read MoreMilwaukee Journal-Sentinel: UW goaltender Desbiens wins Patty Kazmaier Award →
ST. CHARLES, Mo. - Wisconsin senior goaltender Ann-Renée Desbiens was named Saturday as winner of the 2017 Patty Kazmaier Memorial Award, which is presented annually to the top player in women’s NCAA Division I hockey.
Desbiens is the third goaltender and the fifth player from UW to win the award. Sara Bauer (2006), Jessie Vetter (2009), Meghan Duggan (2011) and Brianna Decker (2012) all won the Patty Kazmaier while with the Badgers.
Read MoreUSCHO: Top-ranked Wisconsin gets by Boston College on last-second goal to advance to women’s title game →
ST. CHARLES, Mo. — The No. 1 Wisconsin women’s hockey team advanced to its first national championship game since 2012 by defeating No. 4 Boston College 1-0 Friday night in the first semifinal at the women’s Frozen Four.
Senior defenseman Mellissa Channell netted the game-winner with just 16.2 seconds left in the third period. Junior Annie Pankowski was down low and pushed it back to Channell at the point.
Read MoreNCAA: Sidney Peters Is a Backup No More →
Sidney Peters is living a lot of young goalies' dreams. She's the starting goalie for the University of Minnesota women's hockey team, and she's about to play in the Frozen Four with a chance at another national championship.
But it's been a long road to happiness and success. Beyond the regular struggles, both mental and physical, Peters has had difficulty adjusting to life in college -- not just because of the elevated level of play, but because she found herself in an unfamiliar role as a backup.
Read MoreNCAA Hockey: The Mind of a Goalie with Three of the Best in the Game →
With six schools atop the strength of schedule rankings for 2017, goaltending in the WCHA may be more difficult than in any other conference in the country. Four of the seven forwards named to the Patty Kazmaier top-ten list in 2017 were from the WCHA.
Wisconsin's Ann-Renée Desbiens, Minnesota-Duluth's Maddie Rooney, and Minnesota's Sidney Peter backstop three of the top five teams in the country.
Read MoreThe 99ers left a bitter taste in some mouths (but not for reasons you’d think) →
I should have been thrilled that people were finally recognizing not just soccer, but women’s soccer, as a viable and interesting sport. But I couldn’t help but be bitter about the whole thing.
Read MoreBeyond 'League of Their Own': Living the legacy of some groundbreaking athletes →
"I found our league by accident and joined about five minutes after watching a game in a Milwaukee suburb a few summers ago. At first, I joined for the truly awesome uniform, but my participation in this league has come to mean so much more."
Read MoreNCAA: The Graduates →
However, the graduating class of 2016 may be the most talented group of players to ever leave the game at once, on either the men’s or women’s side.
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NCAA: The Graduates →
Women’s college hockey is cyclical. Women come in, play for four years, and move on. Unlike the men’s side, players don’t leave early. They play their four seasons of eligibility and end their careers.
The biggest bump in that routine comes when women take a season off to prepare for an upcoming Olympics. Even still, every year teams experience loss and graduate players. It’s a part of the game.
However, the graduating class of 2016 may be the most talented group of players to ever leave the game at once, on either the men’s or women’s side.
Kendall Coyne: Once-in-a-generation player wins the Patty Kazmaier Award →
“It’s a special moment for Kendall and her family, but also for Northeastern women’s hockey,” said Huskies coach Dave Flint. “She’s helped us achieve some milestones during her time and she’s put us back in the national spotlight."
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Badgers can't hang on against Gophers in national semifinal →
Friday night's national semifinal meeting between Wisconsin and Minnesota was the sixth time the Western Collegiate Hockey Association rivals met this season. Three of those games — including Friday's — went into overtime.
WCHA Final Faceoff: Spotlight on International Talent →
There were 11 women on the rosters of the four teams playing in this past weekend’s WCHA Final Faceoff who are scheduled to compete for their countries in the IIHF Women’s World Championships in Kamloops, British Columbia in late March and early April.
A Guide to the NCAA Women's Hockey Post-Season →
We're in the thick of the women's college hockey post-season, so let's make sure everyone understands how it works.
There are four conferences -- CHA, ECAC, Hockey East, and WCHA -- and each of them have a conference tournament. In the the CHA, the top two teams have a bye into the final weekend and the bottom four teams play the first weekend. In the WCHA, all eight teams make the tournament and play 1 vs 8, 2 vs 7, etc... In the ECAC and Hockey East, the top eight teams make the tournament and play the same format as the WCHA. All the conference tournaments take place over two weekends:
- The first weekend features best-of-three series (these were last weekend) with the higher seeds hosting the games and getting home-ice advantage.
- The following weekend, the winners of those games head to a pre-determined host location and play both a semifinal and final to decide the conference's tournament winner.
The winner of each conference tournament earns an auto-bid into the NCAA tournament.
Wisconsin women's hockey: Defenseman Jenny Ryan shining in junior campaign →
She should take pride in her blocks. Despite her small stature -- she’s listed at 5’4 -- Ryan can make herself big when it counts. That includes racking up 31 blocks in 26 games played so far this season.
Read MoreGrowing the game, parity and catchphrases in women's college hockey →
After “grow the game,” there’s no other word more often used when talking about women’s hockey than “parity.” Whether it’s talking about unseating perennial favorites in the NCAA, or teams challenging USA and Canada on the international scene, finding a way to lessen the gap between the haves and have-nots in women’s hockey is a priority. It's not possible to grow the game without it.
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U-18 Women's World Championships: Meet Team USA →
The Team USA U-18 team will head to St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada this week to defend their IIHF Women's World Championship gold medal.
The United States' U-18 team has played in the gold medal final each of the eight times this tournament has been contested, and has won four of them. They have not won two consecutive gold medals since 2008 and 2009, which were the first two years of the tournament.