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(Updated June 29, 2024)
Since the end of this past season, at the NCAA DI women’s hockey level, there have been nine head coaching changes, along with the announcement of Allison Coomey as the first Head Coach at Delaware.
| School | Old Coach | New Coach |
| Assumption | Jack Sweeney | Joe Grossman |
| Bemidji State | Jim Scanlan | Amber Frykland |
| Colgate | Greg Fargo | Stefan Decosse |
| Dartmouth | Liz Keady Norton | Maura Crowell |
| Delaware | N/A | Allison Coomey |
| Minnesota-Duluth | Maura Crowell | Laura Schuler |
| Minnesota State | John Harrington | Shari Dickerman |
| Post | Gretchen Silverman | Pat Bingham |
| St Michael’s | Chris Donovan | Meghan Sweezey |
| Union | Josh Sciba | TBD |
Coaching changes can occur for various reasons—positive, neutral, or negative. These may include retirement (e.g., Bemidji State, Minnesota State), a coach moving on to a new opportunity (e.g., Colgate, UMD), or a coach’s contract not being renewed due to on-ice performance or program dynamics. Often, it may be a combination of these reasons. When there is a change at the top, it can have multiple implications for potential recruits, current commits, and existing players.
If you are a player interested in a school undergoing a head coaching change, you could be directly affected. You might have built a relationship with the previous coaching staff over several years at showcases or camps, which influenced your interest in the school. With a new coach, you may need to establish new relationships and reassess your interest.
For players from the Class of 2026 who are now eligible to speak with the school, conversations might be delayed or paused due to the transition. Currently, there are a few top schools without head coaches (e.g., Colgate, Minnesota Duluth, Union), and it’s unlikely that players will commit until a new head coach is appointed.
Additionally, a “New Sheriff in Town” head coach may have their own list of potential recruits, which could exclude you. Thus, having backup options is advisable.
Data from recent years suggests that most of the time, incoming and future commits remain unaffected by a new head coach; both the coaching staff and the recruits stay committed to each other. However, there have been instances where a new head coach implements a different recruiting strategy, resulting in commits being told they no longer have a spot. Depending on the situation, a de-committed player may have limited options for the 2024 or 2025 seasons.
Conversely, NCAA rules allow players to de-commit and seek another school if they do not favor the new coach. Essentially, both parties have the opportunity to re-evaluate the relationship and decide if they want to stay together or move one from each other.
When a coaching change occurs, existing players have the option, under NCAA rules, to enter the transfer portal and find a different school. The NCAA grants a 30-day immediate portal window for players whose head coach departs. Recently, I spoke with a parent of a first-year player at a top DI women’s team who expressed concerns about uncertainty. The player loved the previous coaching staff and culture, and there is nervousness about whether the same philosophies will continue under the new staff.
Similar to minor hockey, any time a player gets a new coach, they must adjust. Most players will need to re-establish their role on the team, which could affect their ice time. Each student-athlete should evaluate their situation and decide whether to stay or explore options in the transfer portal. Ideally, new coaches will take the time to get to know their team and communicate their plans for each player, allowing players to make informed decisions.
One final point to consider is that assistant coaches are also affected by a change in head coaches. They too can experience positive or negative impacts under new leadership. In some situations, most of the staff is retained, while in others, the incumbent assistants do not return, and the new head coach assembles their own team.
What percent of players of DI women’s college commits come from Canada vs. the U.S. and why does it matter? Well, if you are a female player who aspires to play at the highest level of college hockey, it is important to recognize that you aren’t only competing with the top players who play for a USA Hockey National Championship. You are also being compared to the top Canadian and European players.
In analyzing our new and improved database of women’s college hockey commits, we have been tracking where every publicly announced commit is from and where they play. As you can see below, almost 40% of all Division I players are from Canada.
Source: Elite Prospects, College Commits, Champs App analysis (as of May 21, 2024)
There are 45 Division I college women’s hockey teams. Assuming 25 players on each team, with 25% graduating every year (once the Covid extra year expires after this year), then there should be about 280 openings each year (assuming no DIII transfers to DI).
With 54% of players coming from the U.S., that means an American player needs to be one of the best 150 players in the U.S. for their graduation year. And if your goal is to play for a Top 25 team it means you basically need to be one of the best 80 players in the U.S.
Thus to be a DI player, you would need to be one of the:
• Top 18 goalies in the US.
• Top 42 D in the U.S.
• Top 90 forwards in the U.S.
With ~40% percent of players coming from Canada, that means a Canadian player needs to be one of the best 112 players in the Canada for their graduation year.
Drilling down a little more, at the position level, it means:
• Top 14 goalies in the Canada
• Top 31 D in the Canada
• Top 67 forwards in the Canada
It is also important to note that a large majority of Canadian players primarily go to the top 25 DI U.S. schools, otherwise they could easily stay in Canada and be closer to home. For example they could play for Julie Chu or Caroline Ouellette at Concordia University. So the competition for these top schools is probably a little higher from Canadian players, thus lower the number spots for U.S. players at these high-ranking schools.
If your choice is between going to a NEWHA team and a top-rated DIII team, you should seriously weigh a number of factors into your decision rather than just being able to say “I play DI hockey”.
Before discussing the inputs to your decision between a NEWHA and a top DIII hockey school, let’s first set some context comparing the NEWHA conference and the top programs in DIII women’s hockey.
A while ago, I interviewed Kerstin Matthews back when she was the Head Coach at St Anselm College and she discussed how her team was really a DII team but played a DI schedule. She also explained how there are some DII and DI schools in the NEWHA. She gives a great explanation on how the NEWHA conference is now able to compete for the NCAA Women’s Hockey National Championship:
The NEWHA conference is very competitive and pretty well-balanced. Assumption and Stonehill were added over the past two seasons and they both had some success right away. There hasn’t been a single dominant team in recent years, with different conference champions the past few seasons. So within the NEWHA, players will experience a good level of competition throughout the season. In addition, as the programs mature at the DI level, one would hope that the level of play continues to elevate year-after-year.
However, the reality is that the NEWHA conference as a whole doesn’t fare very well against the rest of the DI women’s teams right now. This past season, the NEWHA Conference went 1-44 in their non-conference games. The one win was a 1-goal mid-week game in early January at the end of Christmas Break by Franklin Pierce against Dartmouth.
It’s great that the winner of the NEWHA Conference gets an automatic spot in the NCAA Women’s College Hockey playoffs. Every conference winner should get a berth. But the numbers show they aren’t even close to having one of the top 11 teams in the country to compete in the NCAA Playoffs. According to MyHockeyRankings, all 8 NEWHA teams were rated at the bottom of the DI Women’s Hockey rankings this past season. Thus, it is no surprise that the team representing NEWHA in the NCAA Playoffs has been outscored a combined 16-2 in the two games of the opening round the past two seasons.
Note: The NCAA just announced they will move from 11 to 12 teams in their NCAA Women’s DIII Hockey Playoff tournament.
Beyond the level of play, potential recruits should also be factoring in roster size and athletic scholarship money. Half the NEWHA teams had 27 or more rostered players, with Sacred Heart carrying 33 players. Given a maximum of 18 athletic scholarships per program, many student-athletes are paying there own way. And with a team only able to dress 20 or 21 players per game, several are being healthy scratched each game.
This post doesn’t cover the quality of academics at the schools being discussed because I don’t really know all the details of each school. However I have heard many times that the New England Small College Athletic Conference (NESCAC) schools are top-notch. The NESCAC includes top rated teams like Amherst, Middlebury, Colby College and Hamilton College. At the same time, every NEWHA and DIII school has disciplines that they are strong in that may line up with a potential recruits intended major. Doing your research and seeing if there is a good match is critical when looking at your options.
All of this should weigh into the decision of playing NEWHA vs high-level DIII.
Let’s now compare the level of hockey between the 8 NEWHA teams and the Top 8 DIII women’s hockey teams this past season.
As you can see, the top 8 DIII ratings are very similar to the NEWHA ratings – implying they are comparable in levels of play and would have competitive games between them. This is also likely why you hear some DIII coaches say that they could beat a DI team.
Rather than just focusing on just DI vs DIII, the following factors should really be prioritized before making a decision:
Depending on your expected role on the team, it seems that all else being equal, the school/academics should be the most important factor in your decision.
At Champs App, we have discussed at length all the attributes to consider when deciding on a women’s college hockey program, but this specific choice of alternatives seems to really highlight the need to figure out your personal priorities and the importance of selecting the right academic opportunity for you.
Since the NCAA DI women’s hockey season ended for each team, individual players have been adding their name to the transfer portal seeking a new school to play for next season. 139 players entered the portal since it reopened last summer. 40 out 44 schools have at least one player in the portal.
There are many reasons a student-athlete would choose to go into the transfer portal. Here are the most common:
Analyzing the actual the list of 139 players, here is how they breakout by remaining years of eligibility. It is no surprise that most only have one year left:
NCAA Women’s Ice Hockey Transfer Portal
Depending on how many years of eligibility a transfer player has, it will either impact the number of recruits for 2026 or it may impact the slot where incoming 2024/2025 recruits fit in the lineup.
For example over the last few days, Ohio State added a F from Clarkson, a D from Boston University and a G from Minnesota Duluth, all with two years of eligibility left. Thus current and future OSU commits may be impacted by these signings for the 2024/25 and the 2025/26 seasons.
On the flip side, this creates an opening in 2024 or 2025 at Clarkson, BU and UMD, depending on how many existing recruits there are for these schools.
For 2026 recruits, if a player with 3 or 4 years of eligibility transfers to a school your were interested in and plays your position, there may be one less spot available on that team on June 15th.
While at USA Hockey Nationals last week, I spoke with a couple of coaches who mentioned they are hosting transfer portal students this month for visits. So I would suspect that we will see many more announcement of players changing schools over the coming weeks.
Champs App Messaging cuts the time to send emails to coaches by over 50%, ensures key information is included and reduces common errors.
You can easily select a coach & email template and the message automatically populates the coach’s info, school and your personal information from your Champs App profile. Pick the Upcoming Events template and the Messaging tool with magically insert your upcoming games or events into the message.
Watch the demo (Desktop Version) (Mobile Version) and try it out today!
The Champs App Messaging tool ensures the coach’s name, email and school are correct without the need to look online and find each coach’s contact information.
With the Champs App Messaging tool you can choose from a variety of email templates to send. For example, one template informs coaches about upcoming events or tournaments and another lets a coach know about new videos added to your Champs profile. Each template automatically populates the message with the coach’s name and school and inserts personal information from your Champs App profile. This way you can be sure the emails does not have an errors.
Personalize each message further to make it uniquely yours. Experience the convenience of the Champs App Messaging yourself by logging into your Champs App account. Or click here to learn more about how it works.
For a limited time, we are offering the Champs App Messaging tool at a low introductory price for an annual subscription. As we add more amazing features to the Messaging tool over the coming weeks and months, these new features will be included in your annual subscription. So, get started today by logging into your Champs App account to try out the new Champs App Messaging Tool and easily send error-free emails to coaches. Subscribe today before the price goes up.
We currently have 3 sets of coaches that you can send emails to:
· Division I Women’s Hockey Coaches (all coaches)
· Division III Women’s Hockey Coaches (all head coaches and several assistants
· U Sports (Canada) Women’s Hockey Coaches (head coaches only)
Champs App Messaging sends real emails to coaches (regardless of whether or not they have an active Champs account). Coaches will receive the emails at their regular school email address (not within Champs App).
You have the ability to send messages by email address. So if you want to test the tool by sending an email to yourself you can. Or if you want to send an email to a non-college coach, you just need to put in their email address in the Step 1 box.
There are currently 4 templates that you can use to send emails to coaches. Just pick the template that is right for your situation. We will be adding more templates and features in the near future.
Note: The Subject line and the contents of the email can all be customized even after you select a template. This way you can ensure sending a unique message to a coach.
Every template automatically populates with information from your Player Profile into the email. So if you want to save yourself time from entering the same information multiple times, make sure your current team, graduation year, jersey #, upcoming schedule etc. are up-to-date.
Please note that the actual email gets sent via Champs App on a player’s behalf (with your name appearing as the Sender). Specifically, it is sent from a generic Champs email address. BUT, the “reply-to” email address is your own email address. In addition, your email address is included in the template by default. Most coaches probably won’t notice where it is sent from (they will focus on the name not the sender’s email address), but it is important for users to know exactly how it works.
This is Part II about the analysis of USA Hockey 2024 Nationals Girls Tier I Hockey playoffs taking place in Wesley Chapel, Florida. Here is Part I – Girls Tier I 14U
This analysis look at the teams selected for the Girls Tier I U16 playoffs. Given the importance of being seen at Nationals from recruiting perspective, I examined the at-large team selections and the seedings.
As a reminder: If you are heading to the Tier 2 girls playoffs, you can still be scouted by DI coaches. This week I spoke with a DI coach who will be in East Lansing and will be looking for the top players from smaller regions that can’t easily play for a Tier I team.
Below you can see the ranking of the 16 teams who will be playing at the 16U Tier I Nationals. The 3 highlighted teams (Minnesota Magazine, Massachusetts Spitfires and Minnesota Hardware) are the at-large invitations, then there is the host team (Florida Alliance) and the other 12 are the district champions.
The USA Hockey 2024 National Guidebook provides the following description for how they decide on the at-large teams and seedings:
Unlike the U14 Tier 1 Selections, all of the at-large teams made sense since they were the 3 highest ranked teams on My Hockey Rankings that didn’t win their district. The only thing which is confusing to me is that lack of consistency of Minnesota Elite League teams accepting at-large invitations. It seems that some highly ranked teams do and some don’t attend nationals. I will need to research this further.
As far as the last team to miss the playoffs, the Mid Fairfield CT Stars had a 95.57 which was 0.93 below the last at-large team, Minnesota Hardware. Similar to the U14s, that is a pretty large difference in ratings (in other age groups I’ve seen a rating difference of only 0.01 or 0.02 between bubble teams) and thus there shouldn’t be much concern about the Stars not being selected based on their rating.
For the U16 age groups, the seedings are non-controversial. They match identically to the MyHockeyRankings sorting of the 16 qualified teams.
However, if the selection committee looked at the last 10 games for each of the top 10 teams (as they appear to do in other age groups), there is a reasonable argument to be made for a re-arranging of the Top 8 teams. Specifically, two of the at-large teams could have been seeded higher. The same for Belle Tire. Especially since those teams’ full-year ratings were so close to the teams above them in the rankings.
The next posts will discuss the USA Hockey Nationals Girls U19 selections and seedings.
Let NCAA coaches know you’ll be at Nationals and your game schedule. The Champs App Messaging tool is the fast, easy way to send error-free messages to coaches before and during the event.
You can easily select a coach & email template and the message automatically populates the coach’s info, school and your personal information from your Champs App profile. Pick the Upcoming Events template and the Messaging tool with magically insert your upcoming games at Nationals into the message.
Watch the demo (Desktop Version) (Mobile Version) and try it out today!
This is Part III about the analysis of USA Hockey 2024 Nationals Girls Tier I Hockey playoffs taking place in Wesley Chapel, Florida. Here is Part I for U14 and Part II for U16
This analysis look at the teams selected for the Girls Tier I U19 playoffs. Given the importance of being seen at Nationals from recruiting perspective, I examined the at-large team selections and the seedings.
As a reminder: If you are heading to the Tier 2 girls playoffs, you can still be scouted by DI coaches. This week I spoke with a DI coach who will be in East Lansing and will be looking for the top players from smaller regions that can’t easily play for a Tier I team.
Below you can see the ranking of the 16 teams who will be playing at the 19U Tier I Nationals. The 4 highlighted teams (East Coast Wizards, NAHA, Team Wisconsin and the Connecticut Polar Bears) are the at-large invitations. Unlike other age groups, there is no U19 team from the Northern Plains district – thus the 4th at-large team. Then there is the host team (Florida Alliance) and the other 11 are the district champions.
The USA Hockey 2024 National Guidebook provides the following description for how they decide on the at-large teams and seedings:
Similar to the the U14 Tier 1 at-large Selections, it is unclear why the Minnesota Empowers and Tradition teams are not at-large teams. Maybe they opted out due to the higher priority of the Minnesota High School hockey playoffs. There is a lack of consistency of Minnesota Elite League teams accepting at-large invitations.
As far as the last team to miss the playoffs, the Pittsburgh Pens Elite has a 95.20 rating which is only 0.24 below the last at-large team, the Connecticut Polar Bears. But it seems this is large enough to make the Polar Bears the at-large selection.
For the U19 age groups, the seedings do not match the rankings. Shattuck St Mary’s is ranked #1, but seeded #2 behind Bishop Kearney Selects. East Coast Wizards are ranked higher, but seeded lower than the Boston Jr Eagles. And NAHA is ranked higher than the Mid Fairfield Stars, but seeded lower. As described in the USA Hockey Guide above, it is likely a combination of head-to-head and Last 10 Games that were factors in these seedings.
Specifically, BK Selects beat Shattuck in their only game back in October, and but Shattuck still had a much higher rank in their last 10 games (see below). In addition, S-SM has a 0.65 higher rating than BK, which is quite large. So it seems the head-to-head was the primary factor in the flipping of positions. I suspect this will have impact the motivations of both teams should they meet in the playoff round.
The Boston Jr Eagles won the Massachusetts district, so it seems to make sense that they would be higher than the Boston Jr Eagles.
For NAHA and Mid Fairfield, being seeded #8 vs #9 doesn’t really make a material difference, since they will be in the same division. It just impacts the order of games and who is the home team when they play each other. The two teams never played each other during the season, but Mid Fairfield has the higher rating over the last 10 games.
Here are the links to Part I – Tier I Girls 14U and Part II – Tier I Girls 16U
Let NCAA coaches know you’ll be at Nationals and your game schedule. The Champs App Messaging tool is the fast, easy way to send error-free messages to coaches before and during the event.
You can easily select a coach & email template and the message automatically populates the coach’s info, school and your personal information from your Champs App profile. Pick the Upcoming Events template and the Messaging tool with magically insert your upcoming games at Nationals into the message.
Watch the demo (Desktop Version) (Mobile Version) and try it out today!
Being selected to go to Tier I Nationals is a big deal beyond just competing in the national playoffs to win a championship. Almost every NCAA DI women’s hockey program sends at least one coach to scout players and watch the best teams compete against each other. It gives U.S. players another great opportunity to be seen. While there are many elite players that play for teams that don’t end up qualifying for Nationals – it isn’t the end of the world for them, there are still many other opportunities to be seen (e.g. showcases, USA Hockey camps etc.). However, playing at Nationals is an excellent opportunity and timing to get seen. While the process to make Nationals for District winners and the host team is clear, the at-large selection process is a little murkier. This analysis looks at the at-large selections and how the teams were seeded.
I recently wrote about the selections for the NCAA Women’s Ice Hockey playoffs and how the selections and seedings compared to their MyHockeyRankings ratings. Unlike the NCAA, the USA Hockey National Playoffs actually uses MyHockeyRankings to help select the at-large teams for both youth and girls divisions. On the youth side, in addition to the 12 district winners, there are typically 4 at-large teams selected for Tier I (AAA). On the girl’s side, they also have 12 district winners. However, this is the final year where the girls host team gets an automatic spot in addition to that districts winner. So there are two teams from the Southeast district this year. Next year there will also be 4 at-large teams for Tier I girls.
Candidly, I haven’t taken the time to learn how the Tier II selections are made for Nationals. And I certainly don’t understand how the High School Girls teams are selected – because the last couple of winners have not really played high school hockey teams for their regular schedule, but mostly against other Tier I (AAA) classified teams. So this 3-part analysis will focus solely on the 14U, 16U and 19U Girls Tier I selection and seeds for next week’s USA Hockey 2024 Nationals taking place in Wesley Chapel, Florida.
Note: If you are heading to the Tier 2 girls playoffs, you can still be scouted by DI coaches. This week I spoke with a DI coach who will be in East Lansing and will be looking for the top players from smaller regions that can’t easily play for a Tier I team.
Below you can see the ranking of the 16 teams who will be playing at the 14U Tier I Nationals. The 3 highlighted teams (Minnestota Walleye, Assabet Valley and Chicago Mission) are the at-large invitations, then there is the host team (Florida Alliance) and the other 12 are the district champions.
The USA Hockey 2024 National Guidebook provides the following description for how they decide on the at-large teams and seedings:
From a selection standpoint, the only team which is not clear is the Minnesota Lakers not being selected for an at-large spot. The two reasons I can think of are a) the first at-large spot already went to a Minnesota district team (Walleye) so maybe the committee didn’t want to take two at-large teams from the same district. The other might be that I have heard Minnesota players care more about their High School playoffs than USA Nationals, therefore getting re-organized (after their High School season ends_ and the cost to play in Florida may not be appealing to some teams. If someone has more information on these decisions, please feel free to provide more information.
As far as the last team to miss the playoffs (excluding the Lakers), the Bay State Breakers were had a 95.48 which was 0.77 below the last at-large team, Chicago Mission. In my experience, that is a pretty large difference in ratings (in other age groups I’ve seen a rating difference of only 0.01 or 0.02 between bubble teams) and thus there shouldn’t be much concern about the Breakers not being selected based on their rating.
Pretty much all the seedings make sense with 2 exceptions:
2. The Minnesota Green Giants and Philadelphia Jr Flyers were ranked #5 and #6 respectively according to MHR. But the Jr Flyers were given the higher seed. But looking closer, both teams had an identical 95.81 rating. And the Jr Flyers had a 0.3 higher rating over their last 10 games – so this could likely be the determining factor for promoting the Jr Flyers.
The next posts will discuss the USA Hockey Nationals Girls U16 and U19 selections and seedings.
Let NCAA coaches know you’ll be at Nationals and your game schedule. The Champs App Messaging tool is the fast, easy way to send error-free messages to coaches before and during the event.
You can easily select a coach & email template and the message automatically populates the coach’s info, school and your personal information from your Champs App profile. Pick the Upcoming Events template and the Messaging tool with magically insert your upcoming games at Nationals into the message.
Watch the demo (Desktop Version) (Mobile Version) and try it out today!
