The Western Collegiate Hockey Association released its composite league schedule for the 2025-26 season on Wednesday, May 21. The schedule has 112 conference games as the WCHA enters its 27th season of women’s hockey competition.
  
Game days and times of each two-game series will be determined by the host institution, with the WCHA online composite schedule being updated accordingly. While the weekends are assigned, teams may opt to play Thursday, Friday, Saturday, or Sunday, or for an agreed-upon home-and-home series.

Nonconference games will also be updated on the composite schedule upon announcements from each WCHA member. The WCHA league schedule features 28 games for each of its eight teams, playing in two, two-game series against each of the other seven member institutions.

The WCHA has won 22 national championships since 2000. Wisconsin won the WCHA’s 21st NCAA championship title in March with a 4-3 overtime victory over WCHA foe Ohio State.
 
The battle for the Julianne Bye Cup (regular season champion) begins on the fourth weekend Sept. 26 when reigning WCHA regular season champion, WCHA Final Faceoff champion, and NCAA champion Wisconsin travels to Bemidji State.

The first full weekend of WCHA competition takes place the weekend of Oct. 10-11 as Ohio State hosts Bemidji State, Minnesota welcomes St. Cloud State to Minneapolis, Minnesota State faces St. Thomas and Minnesota Duluth travels to Wisconsin.

The final weekend of the regular season takes place the weekend of Feb. 20-21 as Bemidji State hosts Ohio State, Minnesota Duluth is at Minnesota on the road, Minnesota State is at St. Thomas and St. Cloud State is at Wisconsin.
 
Fans can watch all WCHA home games via the B1G+ on-demand streaming service. To subscribe to B1G+ for the 2025-26 season, visit

www.bigtenplus.com

Clint Austin / Duluth Media Group

As a Sophomore (2024): BIG EAST All-Tournament Team. Played in 18 matches and made four starts. Scored BIG EAST Championship clinching goal in second overtime against Xavier (11/10). Made first career start in BIG EAST Semifinals vs. Georgetown (11/7). Played career-high 74 minutes in BIG EAST Championship game (11/10). Tallied season-high four shots at Villanova (10/20). Registered three shots in NCAA First Round at Rutgers (11/16). Recorded 72 minutes in NCAA Second Round vs. Stanford (11/22). 

As a Freshman (2023): Played in five games in her debut season with the Huskies. Made her collegiate debut against Boston University (8/20). Scored her first career goal vs. Marist (9/6). 

Before UConn: Played club at Farmington Sports Arena ECNL. Lettered four years for Mark Landers at Glastonbury High School. Helped lead her Glastonbury squad to the 2019 Class LL State Championship. During her time at Glastonbury her team posted 1 56-6-6. Named an All-Conference performer in 2021 and 2022. Also was an All-State performer in indoor track. She won States in the Sprint Medley Relay.

Why UConn: I chose UConn because it has been my dream school to play soccer at since I was young and the second I stepped on campus I knew it was the perfect place for me. UConn offers everything I love about a college, especially the competitive soccer program with an outstanding coaching staff. I’m very excited to be a part of this talented team.

With the new PWHL Seattle expansion franchise just two weeks away from being able to sign free agents, they needed someone to do the signings. Now they have her.

The league, which owns all of its teams, has appointed Meghan Turner as PWHL Seattle general manager. Turner, who’s 30, spent the past two seasons as assistant GM with the Boston Fleet. She played in college for Quinnipiac University and professionally in two prior women’s leagues.

Fleet general manager Danielle Marmer predicted this advancement back in 2024, when she named good friend Turner as her second in command. “She’s going to take my job one day,” Marmer said to the New Hampshire Union Leader. “She’s going to be so good at this. I won’t be surprised if she’s the GM of an NHL team at some point in the future.”

Marmer once told Boston Bruins GM Don Sweeney she would trust her life to Turner. “Even through college, we cared about being successful in the classroom, cared about being successful on the ice and cared about being good teammates and good friends. She was always someone I went to for advice in college. When I moved in with her, every day we would talk about everything and I got to watch her work ethic first hand.”

Smart players are often lauded for having “high hockey IQ.” Turner has high IQ, period. She used an MBA from Quinnipiac in her consultant’s role at PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC).

For Turner, moving into a hockey front office meant not only leaving a successful career, but one that paid more, too. “It’s really hard to have (hockey) be a big part of your identity and move on from it,” Turner said. “With everything happening in women’s sports in general, I think it was a tough transition away at first but I knew this (PWHL) league was coming and I was always hopeful that I would be able to have some role in supporting it – whatever that looked like – but I could not have envisioned this role, for sure.”

Jayna Hefford, PWHL executive VP of hockey operations, lauded Turner in a press release as a “big-picture thinker who quickly earned the respect of players and staff alike.”

From Associated Press: “Turner enjoyed a glimpse of Seattle’s support for women’s hockey in the Fleet’s 3-2 shootout win over Montreal on Jan. 5 at Climate Pledge Arena, which will serve as the PWHL team’s home. The game was the PWHL’s first of nine ‘Takeover Tour’ games this season and attracted a crowd of 12,608.”

Her latest challenge is building a new team in a new city from the ground up. And there’s a whole lot to do in the next month. In addition to the June 4 opening window for expansion teams in Seattle and Vancouver to sign free agents, other key dates for Turner are the PWHL Expansion Draft on June 9 and the 2025 PWHL Draft on June 24.

The Washington Capitals have begun preparations for their 2025 development camp, inviting a couple of undrafted college free agents to the typically week-long summer event at MedStar Capitals Iceplex.

According to New England Hockey Journal reporter Mark Divver, one of those college players has a very familiar last name and a familial connection to a Hockey Hall of Famer. Ryan St. Louis, a forward from Brown University, is the son of legendary NHL winger and current Montreal Canadiens head coach Martin St. Louis and will be among the attendees.

Ryan, 21, was previously part of the US National Development Team Program before heading to Northeastern University for the 2021-22 season. He then spent the 2022-23 campaign with the USHL’s Dubuque Fighting Saints before playing at Brown the last two years.

The 5-foot-10, 180-pound forward has led the Brown University Bears in scoring in both seasons at the school. He recorded 29 points (11g, 18a) this past year in 23 games, was an honorable mention on the All-Ivy League Team, and was a semifinalist for the Walter Brown Award, handed out to New England’s best American-born college hockey player.

Divver also reports that Michigan State forward Daniel Russell will join St. Louis at the Capitals’ camp. Russell has played on the Spartans’ top line for the past two seasons, recording 50 points (26g, 24a) in 75 games.

The Michigan native finished the 2024-25 season third in the nation in game-winning goals (7) and assisted on Isaac Howard’s double-OT game winner in the Big Ten Championship game against Ohio State.

The Capitals usually hold their development camp after the draft each year. The 2025 NHL Draft is scheduled for June 27-28 in Los Angeles, California.

Members of the Capitals’ newest draft class will join college free agents and other previously drafted prospects at the camp.

Lane Kiffin is an unparalleled figure in college football. The sixth-year Ole Miss head coach is known as much for his wit and occasional social media trolling as his wins on the field.

Still, it’s Kiffin’s uncompromising authenticity and affable personality that has made him arguably college football’s most entertaining head coach. It’s also what makes him someone Georgia Bulldogs alum David Pollack would follow into the heat of battle, on or off the field.

“Lane don’t give a crap what you think. And my favorite thing about Lane is Lane is a little bit socially awkward. Like he’s a different person,” Pollack said recently on his podcast, See Ball Get Ball with David Pollack, when discussing football’s best motivators. “Lane doesn’t like crowds. But when he goes back to Knoxville as an Ole Miss coach, and it’s the first time he’s been back to Knoxville and people are throwing things at him, he was like, ‘I guess they don’t like me very much.’ But just so real.”

As Pollack recalled, Kiffin — who infamously left Tennessee in the dead of night after just one season as head coach to take the USC job in January 2010 — has occasionally embraced the villain role at times, especially with regards to Volunteers fans. That particular conflict reached its climax in 2021 when Kiffin returned to Neyland Stadium for the first time as an opposing coach. The game, which ended in a 31-26 victory for Kiffin and Ole Miss, was even briefly halted when Tennessee fans threw everything from golf balls to mustard bottles onto the field, many in his direction.

Since that game, Kiffin rarely misses an opportunity to poke fun at the Vols and their fans on social media, including once suggesting Tennessee ink a corporate sponsorship with French’s mustard and put their logo on the Neyland Stadium field. For Pollack, Kiffin’s social media trolling is just another reason for his Ole Miss players to love playing for him.

“His social media comes into play, because he’ll take shots. … He’ll say exactly what he thinks. … And I think you appreciate that as a player, as a person, you always appreciate the realness,” Pollack added. “I’m not following any of these guys, or anybody, unless I believe that you believe what you’re saying. It might look different, Kirby (Smart) doesn’t have the same personality as Lane by any stretch, but I know it’s authentic to him and he’s going to say what he believes.

“I think the same thing with Lane, which makes it really fun and unique and different. That’s why you’re just thankful that personalities are so different in this world.”