At this hour, all Hockey East teams except for Boston College have disclosed their full 2010-11 season schedules. Most every matchup for the coming year has been confirmed, thus now is the time to highlight, in alphabetical order, each member school’s most jutting itinerary item:
Saturday, November 20: On this date, the BC Eagles, re-equipped with their U.S. Olympic ambassadors Molly Schaus and Kelli Stack, will hold their first of four scheduled bouts with rival Boston University, whose freshman class features two Canadian gold medalists in Marie-Philip Poulin and Catherine White. The Terriers are slated to pay an additional two visits to Conte Forum in 2010-11, playing another Hockey East game on January 15 and then Round I of the Beanpot on February 8.
Saturday, February 5: Wildcat-turned-Terrier Jenn Wakefield pays her first visit to the Whittemore Center with her new BU allies. This after New Hampshire drops in twice on the Terriers (November 7 and February 3), who put a halt to their WHEA pennant dynasty last winter.
Saturday/Sunday, October 23-24: Connecticut’s outdoor game versus Providence is too easy a choice and frankly belongs on a list of its own. Furthermore, engagements between Hockey East and WCHA teams will be alarmingly scarce this winter. All that considered, be sure to whet your canine teeth for this two-night dog fight between Heather Linstad’s pupils and the defending NCAA champion UMD Bulldogs in Duluth. Their performance in this series could ultimately be a reliable barometer as to whether or not the Huskies are finally primed to crash the Elite Eight bracket.
Saturday/Sunday October 8-9: Ho hum. Maine will once again commence its itinerary by providing two nights worth of hospitality to the comparatively plebeian Sacred Heart team over the final weekend of September. And they will, yet again, proceed to swap roles for their next intercollegiate contest, which happens to be against Mercyhurst. If you need any more intrigue there, first-year head coach Maria Lewis will face her first reckonable test against the program she helped cultivate and enrich as an assistant to Michael Sisti.
Tuesday, January 18: When they were last seen in action, there was cause to believe that New Hampshire had lost some significant sizzle. Conversely, not unlike their intrastate rivals from UConn, the Quinnipiac Bobcats flaunted the look of an emerging power in the ECAC. In what kind of a state will the Wildcats and Bobcats be when they converge on the TD Bank Sports Center? Please stand by…
Saturday, January 1: Not unlike the 2010-11 chapters of the Green Line Rivalry, the nonconference, neutral-site, New Year’s Day bout between Northeastern and Wisconsin packs its own Olympic reunion. Huskies skipper Dave Flint will engage his former Team USA higher-up, Mark Johnson, in a chess match between a certified powerhouse and a hungry middleweight. Oh yeah, there will be two Swiss starlets (Julia Marty, Florence Schelling) on NU’s side and two New Englanders who wore the Star-Spangled Sweater (Meghan Duggan, Hilary Knight) coming back to the Badgers.
Saturday, November 27: If a lack of a decent interleague record has not been the sole obstructionist keeping Providence away from serious NCAA playoff contention these last, oh, five years, it has certainly been the most visible. But by the time they engage Brown University in the Mayor’s Cup game post-Thanksgiving, the 2010-11 Friars will have consumed 10 of their 12 nonconference games. Translation: depending on how they build up to and perform in this game, raising the civic hardware could also be symbolic of a more assertive stretch drive to come.
Sunday, February 20: The reasoning behind this selection could not be simpler. Everyone in Catamount Country will be eager to find out if, come the regular season finale in Providence, Vermont will be playing for pride yet again or if Tim Bothwell’s pupils will actually have a postseason game to either earn or tune up for.
Al Daniel is the Hockey East content contributor for Beyond The Dashers
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