Every year we have to wait quite a long time for the Boston College men’s hockey team to announce their full schedule, usually deep into August. But with basically every Hockey East and non-conference opponent having already announced their own schedule, we can piece together what the Eagles’ 2025-26 slate will look like. Plus, CHN has made it very easy to access on their website anyway. So let’s take a look!

October

• Friday 10/3 vs Quinnipiac
• Thursday 10/9 @ Minnesota
• Friday 10/10 @ Minnesota
• Friday 10/17 @ Rensselaer
• Friday 10/24 vs Denver
• Thursday 10/30 vs Northeastern
• Friday 10/31 @ Northeastern

The season does not start out easy for the Eagles. They begin 2025 just like they begun both 2022 and 2023, with a solo match-up against Quinnipiac. QU beat BC in the first of these season openers on their way to the program’s first ever national title in 2023. BC then came back the next season and ruined QU’s banner night in overtime, and then later beat them again in the NCAA Tournament on the way to the 2024 Frozen Four. The Bobcats are always a tough opponent these days and are expected to be a top-20 team in the country yet again this season.

Then comes a road trip to face the Minnesota Golden Gophers in the State of Hockey (ew). Minny will have their usual high-flying Big Ten offense and should be a very difficult team to beat at their home rink, Mariucci. If BC can manage even just one win out of that weekend then I’d be very happy.

After a pit stop in upstate New York against RPI, BC will then host the evil Denver Pioneers. Thankfully the despicable Matt Davis has moved on to the NHL, but DU should still be a national title contender and will be a very tough team to beat. Then the Eagles will have their first series against a local rival when they take on Northeastern during Halloweekend.

This is pretty much a murderer’s row in non-conference to start the season. Plus, BC is expected to take a step back in the fall after losing their top scorers, elite goaltender, and team captain on defense. That being said, though, I still believe this team can compete for an NCAA Tournament spot and won’t just roll over at the first sign of trouble. 4 games against Quinnipiac, Minnesota, and Denver might be a slog to get through to start this new era, but we will at least get an idea of what these guys can do very early on.

November

• Friday 11/7 @ Vermont
• Saturday 11/8 @ Vermont
• Friday 11/14 vs Massachusetts
• Saturday 11/15 @ Massachusetts
• Friday 11/21 vs Maine
• Saturday 11/22 vs Maine
• Friday 11/28 vs Notre Dame

Hockey East play starts in earnest in November. After those early games against Northeastern and @ UVM, BC will get right into the thick of things against UMass and Maine, both of whom finished as top-10 teams nationally last season. The Eagles will already be battle-tested when they enter these important series, and luckily they get Maine at home for the second year in a row. And then a rivalry game against Notre Dame on the day after Thanksgiving should be a treat to watch.

December

• Friday 12/5 @ Mass.-Lowell
• Saturday 12/6 vs Mass.-Lowell
• Sunday 12/28 vs TBD (Kwik Trip Holiday Face-Off)
• Monday 12/29 vs TBD (Kwik Trip Holiday Face-Off)

Fall semester will end with a home-and-home against UMass Lowell. Then BC will end the calendar year in Milwaukee when they compete in the Kwik Trip Holiday Face-Off against Wisconsin, Lake Superior State, and reigning national champions Western Michigan. WMU will obviously be a formidable opponent, but Wisconsin is pretty much a wild card in any given year and LSSU hasn’t had a winning season in since 2021.

January

• Friday 1/16 vs Providence
• Saturday 1/17 @ Providence
• Friday 1/23 vs New Hampshire
• Saturday 1/24 @ New Hampshire
• Friday 1/30 @ Boston University

Early January may see an exhibition match-up against Stonehill during the winter break. Then we get a nice set of home-and-homes against PC and UNH to kick off the spring semester. PC is always difficult to play and UNH has had a real resurgence these past few seasons, so the Eagles won’t be getting much of a break as they roll into the new year. Hopefully we’ll see some excitement start to pick up here as BC enters the most crucial part of the regular season.

The real jewel of January is that first match-up against BU at Agganis. The Terriers are bringing in a slew of good prospects, including four freshmen who played for the USNTDP last season. They also saw sophomore defenseman Sascha Boumedienne taken in the first round of this year’s NHL Draft, making him the fourth first rounder on BU’s roster, adding to the likes of Cole Eiserman, Sacha Boisvert, and Tom Willander. BC will have their hands full with their archrivals this season.

February

• Monday 2/2 vs Harvard (Beanpot Round 1)
• Friday 2/6 vs Vermont
• Monday 2/9 vs TBD (Beanpot Round 2)
• Friday 2/13 @ Merrimack
• Saturday 2/14 vs Merrimack
• Friday 2/20 vs Connecticut
• Saturday 2/21 @ Connecticut
• Friday 2/27 @ Boston University
• Saturday 2/28 vs Boston University

February. February is where it will all come together or it will all fall apart. This is the home stretch for BC to push for a good pairwise ranking and a spot in the NCAA Tournament. It also will feature the Beanpot (which they haven’t win since 2016) and the hotly anticipated home-and-home series with archrival Boston University. These are the games that will matter the most to fans before we reach the postseason.

The Eagles will also have to face the UConn Huskies, who nearly made the Frozen Four last season and have Greg Brown’s old BC benchmate Mike Cavanaugh as their head coach. February should be a difficult stretch that could make or break BC’s season.

March

• Thursday 3/5 @ Massachusetts
• Saturday 3/7 vs Northeastern

Boston College will wrap up their season with standalone games against UMass and Northeastern in early March. By then, we’ll have a good idea if the Eagles will be competitive for a Hockey East title and exactly what they need to do to get into the NCAA Tournament, whether it’s through a conference tournament autobid or an at-large.

Big Picture

It’s good that Hockey East is such a talented conference these days. But when BC falls off of the pedestal they’ve been perched upon for the last two seasons, those tough conference opponents start to look a little more daunting. As Boston College finds their footing in what may end up being a transition year, I’m expecting (and hoping) that they are able to stay competitive with their peers and win some meaningful games. Or at least a Beanpot, for god’s sake.

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Associated Press

LAS VEGAS (AP) — Next week, college football coaches can put the recruiting promises they have made to high school seniors on paper.

Then the question becomes whether they can keep them.

Uncertainty over a key element of the $2.8 billion NCAA antitrust settlement that is reshaping college sports has placed recruiters on a tightrope.

They need clarity about whether the third-party collectives that were closely affiliated with their schools and that ruled name, image, likeness payments over the first four years of the NIL era can be used to exceed the $20.5 million annual cap on what each school can now pay players directly. Or, whether those collectives will simply become a cog in the new system.

Only until that issue is resolved will many coaches know if the offers they’ve made, and that can become official on Aug. 1, will conform to the new rules governing college sports.

“You don’t want to put agreements on the table about things that we might have to claw back,” Ohio State coach Ryan Day explained at this week’s Big Ten media days. “Because that’s not a great look.”

No coach, of course, is going to fess up to making an offer he can’t back up.

“All we can do is be open and honest about what we do know, and be great communicators from that standpoint,” Oregon’s Dan Lanning said.

Aug. 1 is key because it marks the day football programs can start sending written offers for scholarships to high school prospects starting their senior year.

This process essentially replaces what used to be the signing of a national letter of intent. It symbolizes the changes taking hold in a new era in which players aren’t just signing for a scholarship, but for a paycheck, too.

Paying them is not a straightforward business. Among the gray areas comes from guidance issued earlier this month by the newly formed College Sports Commission in charge of enforcing rules involved with paying players, both through the $20.5 million revenue share with schools and through third-party collectives.

The CSC is in charge of clearing all third-party deals worth $600 or more.

It created uncertainty earlier this month when it announced, in essence, that the collectives did not have a “valid business purpose.” if their only reason to exist was ultimately to pay players. Lawyers for the players barked back and said that is what a collective was always met to be, and if it sells a product for a profit, it qualifies as legit.

The parties are working on a compromise, but if they don’t reach one they will take this in front of a judge to decide.

With Aug. 1 coming up fast, oaches are eager to lock in commitments they’ve spent months, sometimes years, locking down from high school recruits.

“Recruiting never shuts off, so we do need clarity as soon as we can,” Buckeyes athletic director Ross Bjork said. “The sooner we can have clarity, the better. I think the term ‘collective’ has obviously taken on a life of its own. But it’s really not what it’s called, it’s what they do.”

In anticipating the future, some schools have disbanded their collectives while others, such as Ohio State, have brought them in-house. It is all a bit of a gamble. If the agreement that comes out of these negotiations doesn’t restrict collectives, they could be viewed as an easy way to get around the salary cap. Either way, schools eyeing ways for players to earn money outside the cap amid reports that big programs have football rosters worth more than $30 million in terms of overall player payments.

“It’s a lot to catch up, and there’s a lot for coaches and administrators to deal with,” Big Ten Commissioner Tony Petitti said, noting the terms only went into play on July 1. “But I don’t think it’s unusual when you have something this different that there’s going to be some bumps in the road to get to the right place. I think everybody is committed to get there.”

Indiana coach Curt Cignetti, whose program tapped into the transfer portal and NIL to make the most remarkable turnaround in college football last season, acknowledged “the landscape is still changing, changing as we speak today.”

“You’ve got to be light on your feet and nimble,” he said. “At some point, hopefully down the road, this thing will settle down and we’ll have clear rules and regulations on how we operate.”

At stake at Oregon is what is widely regarded as a top-10 recruiting class for a team that finished first in the Big Ten and made the College Football Playoff last year along with three other teams from the league.

“It’s an interpretation that has to be figured out, and anytime there’s a new rule, it’s how does that rule adjust, how does it adapt, how does it change what we have to do here,” Lanning said. “But one thing we’ve been able to do here is — what we say we’ll do, we do.”

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AP college sports: https://apnews.com/hub/college-sports