First off, congratulations to Joe Grossman and the Assumption Greyhounds for their first non-conference win in program history (via shoot out) against UNH this past weekend. Joe predicted that the team might surprise some folks during our podcast.
Last season, I wrote about the NEWHA conference in relation to playing DIII women’s hockey. As a follow-up, I wanted to track how the NEWHA teams competed at the start of the season when playing their non-conference games. Clearly, St Michael’s is not competitive with Top 20 teams like Clarkson and Providence. As for the others, you can judge for yourself the overall level of play of the NEWHA against the other conferences. In my opinion, these results reinforce the takeaways from the previous post about making a thoughtful decision when considering NEWHA vs. DIII women’s hockey. Hopefully, some of the NEWHA teams with the necessary resources can continue to raise the level of play of the conference over the next few years to be truly competitive out-of-conference.
Updated 10/26/2024
As of the end of October, the NEWHA teams have been outscored by a 10:1 ratio. Even scoring a single goal has been a challenge in many games. These match-ups pad the stats of their opponents and help the NEWHA goalies set records for saves. However, it seems that playing non-competitive games where teams are winning by 7 or more goals does not encourage attracting top talent to the conference.