Tag: WCHA

WCHA announces delay to start of women’s hockey season

The Ohio State women’s hockey club will be delayed to start the 2020-2021 season as announced by the Women’s League of the WCHA.

The Ohio State women’s hockey team will be delayed to start the hockey season in 2020-20021. That’s because the Women’s League of the Western Collegiate Hockey Association (WCHA) has announced the pause in starting the season on Thursday. The move was expected but announced officially after approval by the Women’s League Board of Directors.

“From day one, our discussions have centered around providing our student-athletes safe, meaningful competition opportunities,” League Commissioner Jennifer Flowers said. “While our desire was to begin the season as scheduled, our Board and the leadership at our member institutions recognize that is not an option given the current climate.”

“Our primary focus continues to be the health, safety and wellness of our student-athletes, coaches, support staffs, officials and fans. We are actively engaged in the crafting and implementation of a return to play model that includes a new start date, addresses the diverse guidelines our member institutions are operating under and recognizes today’s ever-evolving medical and safety environments.”

 “This decision comes as our member institutions, which have only recently seen students return to campus, are concentrating on fulfilling their educational mission in the current landscape. Their success in tracking and meeting those challenges, coupled with rapid advances in COVID-19 testing, provide new data that inform our efforts. The League office and membership are working tirelessly to develop protocols allowing us to safely drop the puck on our season. We look forward to announcing a start date as soon as it is reasonable to do so.”

We’ll keep you posted here at Buckeyes Wire as a start date becomes available, including a schedule that is also being worked on by league representatives.

 

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Former Notre Dame Defenseman Lucia Named CCHA Commissioner

In 1971, the Central Collegiate Hockey Association began play.

In 1971, the Central Collegiate Hockey Association began play. It thrived until massive realignment throughout college hockey led to its demise in 2013. Now, a new CCHA is set to begin play for the 2021-22 season. Someone needs to run it, and that someone is Don Lucia.

Lucia, a Notre Dame defenseman from 1977 to 1981, has been named commissioner of the new CCHA. As a player, he tabulated 23 of his 30 points for assists while playing under Lefty Smith. Immediately after graduating, he went into a coaching career, starting as an assistant at Alaska-Fairbanks and then Alaska-Anchorage before returning to Fairbanks to serve as head coach from 1987 to 1993. After taking the reins at Colorado College from 1993 to 1999, he went to coach at Minnesota and had his greatest achievements, becoming the winningest coach in program history and leading the Gophers to back-to-back national championships and five Frozen Fours before his retirement from coaching in 2018.

In 31 seasons as a head coach, Lucia went 736-403-102. He was the 1994 national coach of the year, the WCHA Coach of the Year three times and the 2014 Big Ten Coach of the Year. Now, he begins the next chapter of his hockey life. Best wishes to him for continued success.

Ohio State women’s hockey wins first ever WCHA Tournament

With a 1-0 overtime win, the Ohio State women’s ice hockey team took home its first ever WCHA Tournament championship.

The Ohio State women’s hockey team is WCHA Tournament Champs for the first time in program history, but it sure didn’t come easy.

The Buckeyes have been in position to hoist a trophy before, but after 12 WCHA Final Faceoff appearances and two Championship appearances, they can finally put some hardware in the trophy case.

OSU needed one whale of a game from its netminder as Wisconsin had more shots on goal through 60 minutes of a scoreless contest that had to be settled in overtime. Goalie Andrea Braendli stopped a whopping 40 saves in regulation, a season high. But she wasn’t the only goalie stonewalling opponents.

Wisconsin goalie Kristen Campbell was also fantastic, making 26 saves through regulation, and both teams had to take their chances with sudden-death overtime.

The Badgers controlled large portions of the game, outshooting and outskating OSU for a lot of the contest, but this night would have a familiar hero emerge at an opportune time.

For the second-straight night, Ohio State’s Tatum Skaggs managed to get the game-winner just 4:24 into OT, propelling the Buckeyes to the 1-0 win and title.

Congrats to the lady Buckeyes. They now await their fate in the NCAA Women’s Ice Hockey Tournament.