Nicole's NCAA Notebook: February , 2026

• Happy end of the regular season! With traveling to Nova Scotia for U18 Worlds and the Olympics, the first two months of the year have absolutely flown by for me, so it's completely nuts that we're already in the playoffs! The AHA and ECAC started off their tournaments already while the other three conferences closed out the regular season.
• Wisconsin vs. St. Cloud State was the only game on Sunday and the Badgers clinched the WCHA regular season title.
• Franklin Pierce also wrapped up the conference title this weekend, earning top spot in NEWHA. They join UW, Penn State, Northeastern, Princeton and Yale as regular season conference champs in their respective leagues.
• I had some incomplete thoughts this weekend about the Patty Kaz and Player of the Year conversations around Olympic absences. We've been told not to hold the time away against players who were in Milan, but I realized I have no idea what to do about the players that have thrived in their absence. The most obvious example is Lacey Eden, who has had eight goals and 11 assists in eight games since being left off the US Olympic team. She now leads the country in scoring, seven points ahead of Abbey Murphy. Eden was already among the top scorers, so it's not like this came out of nowhere. But I am realizing these conversations are going to be even more difficult than I thought.
• If this final weekend is told us anything, it's that the playoffs are going to be wild. There were so many overtime games and we've already had a big upset, with Union effectively ending Clarkson's season by taking the Golden Knights out in the opening round.
• The WCHA regular season trophy, the Julianne Bye Cup, is in a word, HUGE. Like Commissioner Michelle McAteer had to use her wife's car, put all the seats down and drive the trophy to Madison Sunday morning big.
• While two of the conferences were wrapped up early, the others came down to the final week. Three teams finished within a point of one another atop the ECAC, while both NEWHA and WCHA were won by two points. Literally every result matters.
• Goals of the week theme: OT game-winners

Breaking the rules right off the bat with a save. But this from Union's Emma Rhéaume should be seen by everyone.

Love the vision and patience of this OT game-winner for Vermont

UMD defender had not one but two overtime game-winners over #3 Minnesota this weekend

Some nice moves from Northeastern's Morgan Jackson for her own OT game winner

Oona Havana's between-the-legs overtime game winner

This absolutely bonkers ECAC tournament game winner from Harvard's Kaley MacDonald