With full appreciation to the efforts of the WCHA league office and its member institutions, a full league schedule was played. It’s a remarkable achievement considering that this hockey season was defined by its uncertainty. 

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Unlike its NCAA brethren hoops, baseball, and football, settling tie games in “sudden death” is a fixture in college hockey. The more appropriate moniker would be “sudden joy,” the raw emotion of 15 teammates hopping the boards for a dog-pile celebration on one end of the rink. Three such skate-off explosions occurred on WCHA ice this past weekend, as Huntsville, Bemidji, and Lake Superior State gained victories by working overtime. Each contest had its own poignant story-line; each ended in an instant.

The WCHA’s men’s media day on Wednesday was business as usual in the new world order of COVID-19, meaning that it was unlike any in the eight-year history of the league’s rebirth. It was two months delayed, took place via Zoom, and was bursting with short-term and long-term news headlines.