LOWELL, Mass. – The UMass Lowell ice hockey team's full 2025-26 slate has been revealed, with the season kicking off against Hockey East foe, Merrimack, on Friday, October 3.
The schedule will consist of 34 total regular-season games with opponents from five different athletic conferences, including the Hockey East.
The new slate will also feature 15 home games, including the addition of a home exhibition against Bentley on Dec. 28. The remaining 20 games will be played on the road on opposing ice or at neutral sites. This is a change of pace from last year, which featured 17 games at home at the Tsongas Center.
Following opening night against Merrimack, the River Hawks will hit the road to take on the Warriors again on Oct. 10, before hosting the defending national champions, Western Michigan, on Oct. 17 and 18.
That brings the team to a three-game stretch of away games, beginning in Erie, Pennsylvania for a two-game set at Mercyhurst on Oct. 24 and 25, and returning to Hockey East action with an away-and-home series with Providence to close out the month (Oct. 31 & Nov. 1).
November will continue with more conference play, as the River Hawks take on New Hampshire on Nov. 7 and 8, before another road trip to New York the next week (Nov. 14 & 15). The squad will play Union to begin the weekend, before a matchup with RPI the next day.
The team will then get off their feet for a bye week after the trip to prepare for a return to New York for the Adirondack Winter Invitational in Lake Placid on Nov. 28 and 29, where they will look to take home the title for the second consecutive year. They will face off against Clarkson on Friday, with St. Lawrence waiting for them on Saturday afternoon.
UMass Lowell takes on two conference opponents during the month of December, as a home-and-away series with Boston College is in the cards for Dec. 5 and 6, following by a solo game with Maine in Portland on Wednesday, Dec. 10 to finish off the month's games. However, the exhibition with Bentley at home on December 28 will warm the River Hawks back up after a break, preparing them for an action-packed second half of the season.
The new year will be rung in at the 2026 Cactus Cup, a tournament that will be hosted by UMass Lowell for the second consecutive year in Palm Springs, California at Acrisure Arena on Jan. 2 and 3. The River Hawks will be joined by Minnesota State University, Mankato, St. Cloud State and Yale and will open up the tournament against Minnesota State on day one. The tournament format calls for the losers of the first-round games to square off first on night two, followed by the championship game between the two round-one winners on Saturday evening. The River Hawks will look to repeat their tournament success from last season.
UMass Lowell will then be prepared for conference play the rest of the way, beginning with a two-game set with Connecticut on Jan. 9 and 10, followed by two series against Boston University (Jan. 16 & 17) and Maine (Jan. 23 & 24) to bring them into February.
It will be a battle of the UMass schools to kick off February, as the River Hawks will take on the Massachusetts Minutemen three consecutive times, first with a solo daytime matchup on Sunday, Feb. 1, before a two-game set the next weekend on Feb. 6 and 7. The River Hawks then follow that up with a two-game road trip to Vermont (Feb. 13 & 14) and an away-and-home series with Northeastern (Feb. 20 & 21), as a bye week rounds out the month.
March begins with another road matchup with Merrimack on March 6, before hosting Boston University the next night (March 7) for the regular season finale. The Hockey East Playoffs are set for March 11-21.
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