Nicole's NCAA Notebook: October 20, 2025

• After what was a relatively clean series between #2 Ohio State and #3 Minnesota (thanks in good part to some very proactive officiating throughout the first game), things began to unravel towards the end of Sunday's game and that boiled over at the final buzzer. There was some crosschecking and physicality at the faceoff in the final seconds and that brought quite a few players together for some pushy shovey. The officials were focused on that and forgot about the players in the penalty box - one from each team - who'd been sent off for roughing just seconds before. At the final whistle, they left the box and fully went after each other. Bluesky limits mean I could only post the final play with no audio, but here's how it was shown on BTN+.

This has likely been brewing for longer than this one game. I'll direct folks to the last series these two played in Minneapolis last February, when Ohio State won the second game 7-3 and there were 20 penalties. I have a question in to the league to clarify the penalties that all came after the buzzer. If I'm understanding correctly, Gracie Graham and Kassidy Carmichael received disqualifications and will have to sit out the next game. There were seven game misconducts handed out, as well.

• Aside from the extracurriculars, this series was fascinating in how differently the two games went. The note I wrote on Friday was "It turns out that it doesn’t matter how high flying your offense is if you can’t get out of the defensive zone" because goodness did Ohio State have the pressure on. They took away all time and space and it left Minnesota flustered and basically had the effect of neutralizing any hockey smarts. They rushed things, made bad passes, turned over the puck and when they did get offensive chances, they mostly shot them right at the goalie.
• That being said, kudos to Minnesota for recovering on Sunday. It was a fully different game in part because the Gophers scored early and often. It takes a lot to get so thoroughly pushed out of your rhythm and be able to come back stronger the next day.
• OSU goalie Hailey MacLeod had one of the best games from a winning goalie I've seen yet this season on Saturday and then was pulled after giving up four goals on Sunday. Truly this series turned on a dime. But I still want to give props because MacLeod had the read on Abbey Murphy. Murphy has scored at will this season and made basically everyone else on the ice look silly, but MacLeod was so prepared she was willing to go to a knee and put a stick on the ground because she knew where Murphy was going to try to beat her. Anyway, I don't know what flipped on Sunday and it'll be interesting to see how she responds.
• Ok, enough about that series, but speaking of flipping on a dime, the third period of the Union/Saint Anselm game on Friday was a ride. Union carried a 4-0 lead into the third and then added two more in the first half of the third to make it 6-0. The Garnet Chargers were on a roll - three of their goals were unassisted. And then Saint Anselm scored four goals in under three minutes and added another with about 90 seconds left. In all, they scored five goals on six shots in the third. Union held on to win 7-5, but truly some of the weirdest nine or so minutes.
• The St. Cloud/St. Thomas series was also a blast with the teams splitting, each earning a 4-3 win in OT. SCSU had a goal called back in the final minute of the first game and then went out and scored again to force OT. The game-winner in each of the two games were both bangers.
• St. Cloud seemed to do nothing but take off on odd-player rushes. That'll be something for future opponents of both teams to look out for.
• There were so many upsets this weekend! We had RIT over #14 St. Lawrence, Broan over #13 Boston University, St. Thomas over #10 St. Cloud State, Providence over #9 Clarkson and Maine over #8 Colgate plus Assumption over LIU.
• (Some of the) Goals of the Week:

Actual textbook snipe from Joy Dunne on the faceoff

Loved the puck handling in close by Livvy Dewar and the patience from Kyla Josefovic to not give up on this one

You could almost hear the cartoon yoink sound effect as Raegan Wurm got this turnover

St. Cloud forgot about the player coming out of the box and Jenessa Gazdik took advantage to give St. Thomas the win in OT

I promise we'll talk more about Kahlen Lamarche tomorrow, but in the meantime, here's one of her goals from this weekend

This one also needed a sound effect. Nice stick from Taylor Otremba

I would suggest not losing track of Tessa Janecke

Snipe from Claire Murdoch

Reichen Kirchmair, bar down

With a second angle for good measure

rei