↑ Penn State's Tessa Janecke – After setting a new women's hockey program record for career points last week, Janecke became the all-time Penn State leader (men's or women's) in career points in less than three full seasons played.
↓ Ranked teams against lower or unranked opponents – Blame the long season, students going back to classes or overlooking perceived weaker opponents - whatever the reason, there were quite a few blunders and near blunders from top-10 teams this week as #1 Wisconsin was lucky to have a tie against #11 St. Cloud State, #4 UMD was swept by St. Thomas, #5 Colgate eked out an overtime win against Harvard, #6 Cornell tied Dartmouth and #10 Quinnipiac tied Brown.
↑ St. Thomas – It was a program-defining weekend for the relatively-new-to-DI Tommies. After taking five of six points from #4 Minnesota Duluth with a regulation and overtime win - their first win over a top-5 team and their first sweep of a ranked opponent - the university announced they were officially hiring Bethany Brausen as head coach of the team, removing the interim tag that she'd had since Joel Johnson left the team under inauspicious circumstances in November.
↓ Broadcasters not correcting themselves – With the continued growth of women's hockey specifically and women's sports overall, there's an influx of new fans. I don't need broadcasters to be perfect. In women's college hockey, often the broadcasts are student-run, so there's an even steeper learning curve. But what is getting increasingly frustrating is broadcasts that consistently say a player's name wrong, call a team by the wrong name or dole out "facts" that aren't true. Play by play is hard work and again, mistakes happen. But what's frustrating is hearing the same mistakes over and over and over again. Oddly in the student broadcasting space, there doesn't seem to be any oversight or instruction for the students, meaning they aren't learning what they're doing wrong or improving. This rant brought to you by a stream this weekend where a broadcaster called a team the wrong mascot a good 2/3 of the game.
↑ NHL milestone – History was made Thursday when the Seattle Kraken played the Washington Capitals as Jessica Campbell and Emily Engel-Natzke to become first women to compete as coaches in the NHL. Engel-Natzke became the first women to hold a full-time coaching job in the NHL when the Capitals brought her to Washington as a video coach in 2022. This season, Campbell became the first woman to coach from an NHL bench, serving as an assistant coach for the Kraken.
↓ But then This Guy –
Women have no place in mens hockey.
— CigaretteSmokingMan (@Real_SmokingMan) January 24, 2025
Part of me didn't want to give this guy more attention but also I love a reason to be petty and I've got plenty of anger lately that needs an outlet, so I'll be happily working to help women prove this idiot wrong. Support women's sports, yes, but also support women in sports.
↑ Milestones – Wisconsin's Kirsten Simms and Lacey Eden each reached 150 career points and Minnesota Duluth's Clara Van Wieren scored her 50th career goal. Congrats to Cornell on securing their 17th Ivy League Championship, as well.
↑ Gorgeous renovations at Boston University's Walter Brown Arena – Women's-only hockey facilities are few and far between in the NCAA so it has been nice to see the upgrades and renovations that were unveiled at Boston University this week. Assistant coach Reagan Rust has some videos on her IG (and I assume TikTok, but I am an old and have never had a TikTok) that show off player reactions and some of the new digs.
(Photo: Flickr/Justaprairieboy)
