View 2013-14 Hockey Schedule


The game hasn't changed, but the college hockey landscape and geography is new and different and full of a variety of challenges for a UMass Lowell team looking to make its third straight NCAA tournament appearance.

Conference membership has changed, even the number of conferences, and the names have undergone a transformation and the 34-game UMass Lowell hockey schedule released today reflects, at least, some of those changes. And oh yes, there is an outdoor game.

UMass Lowell Hockey Head Coach Norm Bazin describes the schedule as "one of the most challenging schedules that we have ever played."

"We realize this schedule will present some adversity," said Bazin. "However we feel our players will be ready."

The defending Hockey East Champion River Hawks will play 16 games in the Tsongas Center, where they went 11-5-1 a year ago; 18 on the road including two neutral site games as part of the Catamount Cup in Burlington, Vermont and a third against Hockey East rival Northeastern, at Red Sox Nation baseball shrine Fenway Park. UMass Lowell was 17-5-1 away from the Tsongas Center, the second best road record in the country and the most road wins of any team in the nation during the 2012-13 campaign.

The outdoor game is part of Frozen Fenway 2014 event that will include four Hockey East conference games over a span of two weekends.

"It will be an unbelievable experience for everyone involved," says Bazin. The coach remembers playing outdoors on a pond as a youngster, "but not many of our guys have had that experience."

Nine of the games, five at the Tsongas Center, will match UMass Lowell with teams that participated in the 2013 NCAA Tournament: Notre Dame (twice), Quinnipiac, Boston College and New Hampshire will all visit the home of the River Hawks. UMass Lowell will also visit Quinnipiac, Boston College and New Hampshire. They will face Atlantic Hockey Association member Canisius College as part of the Catamount Cup.

Only twenty of the 34 games are Hockey East contests, the fewest in league history, reflecting the addition of perennial power Notre Dame which brings league membership to eleven schools. The River Hawks will play each of their league brethren twice in conference play.

League play begins in November and intensifies shortly after the arrival of the new year. UMass Lowell will wrap up the regular season with six of their final eight contests on the road concluding with a pair of games at Vermont, February 28^th and March 1^st.

UMass Lowell and University System cousin/Hockey East member, Massachusetts will play three times. The first meeting, a non-conference contest in October, will allow for three games to determine possession of the Alumni Cup. The River Hawks have won the Cup a dozen times since its inception with the 1994-95 season.

The fourteen game non-conference schedule is the largest in school history and reflects many of the changes altering the college hockey landscape and includes some traditional powers and one of the teams that dominated the college hockey headlines a year ago.

UMass Lowell and ECAC member Quinnipiac play home-and-home October 18 and 19. The Bobcats won 30 games in 2012-13 before losing in the National Championship game. UMass Lowell won the one previous meeting in 2008.

The following weekend UMass Lowell journeys to middle America and the Big Ten Hockey Conference playing games against Michigan State, Oct. 25^th, and the University of Michigan, Oct. 26^th. The two opponents have combined for an even dozen National Championship titles.

The schedule also includes three first time Division I opponents; Notre Dame, now a member of Hockey East, Atlantic Hockey's Sacred Heart and Penn State.

The Fighting Irish will travel to the Tsongas Center twice in November, the 22^nd and 23^rd.

The River Hawks and Sacred Heart square off in the season/home opener on Oct. 11^th.

UMass Lowell will visit Penn State's brand new Pegula Ice Arena for games Nov. 14 and 15. The second year Nittany Lion hockey program is a member of the brand new Big Ten Hockey Conference.

The Penn State visit wraps up a three game in four-day road trip that starts with a game at Princeton on Nov. 12^th.

The River Hawks also play American International College for the first time as Division I opponents. UMass Lowell and AIC do have a history. The two met 15 times in Division II, but have not played since December of 1981 when ULowell defeated the Yellow Jackets, 22-0, in the most lopsided win in UMass Lowell Hockey History. AIC leads the all time series, 8-7-0.

The River Hawks return from the mid-winter break with their first in-season tournament appearance in three years. UMass Lowell takes part in the University of Vermont-hosted Catamount Cup in Burlington, Vt., facing Canisius and Clarkson University, but not the host school.

UMass Lowell and Clarkson will also meet twice at the Tsongas Center, the final non-conference games of the season, in early January.

The River Hawks play six of eight games at home in the month of January before finishing out the regular season with six of eight on the road.

"We don't control the Hockey East scheduling piece," says Bazin, "so we don't waste energy thinking about it."

The Hockey East playoffs, now an expanded three round affair, begin on Mar. 7^th with the semifinal and championship games scheduled for Mar. 21^st and 22^nd.