Two WCHA bigwigs combined to hone 10 of Team USA’s gold medalists at the 2018 Winter Olympics. For America’s previous victory in 1998, a pair of pioneering women’s college hockey superpowers from New England produced 11 players.
In both cases, it was life imitating art after art imitated life. It is a remake of one of Miracle’s themes. One-time quintessential rivals in the college ranks unite in a Star-Spangled sweater and consummate the big-game prowess they helped each other hone.
Now in the afterglow of PyeongChang 2018, scores of stateside student-athletes dreaming of a Beijing 2022 passport will pursue postseason trophies. Many storied campus feuds are liable to recur this month.
Since women’s hockey attained NCAA auspices in 2000, regionalism has run rampant. An unofficial, implicit WCHA-versus-everyone-else rivalry stems from that dominant circuit’s 15 triumphs in the first 17 Frozen Fours.
But before the NCAA — and even before its short-lived precursor, the American Women’s College Hockey Alliance — East Coast forces blazed the trail. Accordingly, while the three combinations of perennial bigwigs Minnesota, Minnesota-Duluth and Wisconsin have more modern quality, several New England and New York schools have uniquely quantitative crisscrossing chronicles.
With some pairings dating back to the mid-’70s, here are the 10 richest rivalries in U.S. women’s college hockey history.
10. Cornell vs. Harvard
Historically speaking, Harvard-Dartmouth is the most contested Ivy League matchup. The all-time results are so neck-and-neck that not even objective data agrees on who has the edge. According to Dartmouth’s record book, the series entered 2017-18 at a deadlocked 46-46-4, whereas Harvard’s read 45-43-3 in the Crimson’s favor.
But in terms of postseason bragging rights, the Crimson and Big Red have forged a more compelling chronicle. Each program has won or shared 11 Ivy League titles. And while Harvard has met both Dartmouth and Cornell in eight ECAC playoffs and one NCAA regional since 1998, the Red have given those annals more balance.
Since losing five straight ECAC quarterfinal meetings from 1999 to 2009, the Big Red have blossomed. They announced that without fail at the turn of the decade, upsetting Harvard, 6-2, on the road in the 2010 national quarterfinal.
They subsequently started a dynasty of four conference pennants in five years. None other than the Crimson disrupted that in the 2015 final, avenging 2013 championship and 2014 semifinal losses.
9. Mercyhurst vs. Cornell
Still without an NCAA championship banner, the Lakers have yet to shake off their two-sided competitive persona. For the better part of their 19-year run, they have mortified their own conference, but fallen flat against the rest of the nation.
Among Mercyhurst’s interleague matchups that have occurred more than 10 times, the ECAC yields the most balanced results. The Lakers have shared reasonable back-and-forth fortunes with Clarkson, Cornell and St. Lawrence.
But by virtue of repeating itself in the national tournament, the Big Red stand out the most. Mercyhurst and Cornell have met three times in the postseason, with each game ending in a one-goal difference, including two in overtime. With a 3-2 regulation victory in the 2014 regionals, the Lakers currently hold the all-time advantage where it matters most.
8. Boston College vs. Harvard
This is the only pair of Beanpot schools to have crossed paths in more than one NCAA tournament. The Eagles (who also edged Northeastern in the 2016 regionals) once had a 34-3-2 thrill ride crash in a 2-1 squeaker. Katey Stone’s Crimson were the culprits in that 2015 Frozen Four semifinal upset.
Two years earlier, BC had edged Harvard, 3-1, in the national quarterfinals. That milestone of two Boston-area programs meeting in the national bracket assuaged many appetites whet during the Beanpot.
One of BC’s first means of declaring itself a reckonable force was its 2-0 triumph in the February classic’s 2006 final. That ended Harvard’s seven-year run of civic bragging rights — on Cambridge ice, no less. As a 2007 encore, the Eagles dealt the Crimson their first Beanpot semifinal loss in 11 years with a 4-3 triple-overtime triumph.
But later, in the 2015 Beanpot, Harvard broke up BC’s season-long 28-game unbeaten streak.
7. New Hampshire vs. Northeastern
This was the chosen card for the first-ever outdoor women’s college hockey game. In Part I of the Jan. 8, 2010 Frozen Fenway doubleheader, the four-time defending Hockey East champions surmounted a 3-1 deficit to top the Huskies, 5-3.
NU was regaining its relevance at the time, but was implicitly selected as the obligatory Boston school on the docket due to its history. It has fielded its modern women’s hockey program 14 years longer than BC and 21 years longer than BU.
But before the Commonwealth Avenue programs crashed the party, NU tangled with UNH in 11 ECAC playoff games, including four finals. The Huskies met the Wildcats again in the 2004 HEA semifinal, then edged them in a 2015 best-of-three quarterfinal series. Adding to the latter’s intrigue, it cut off the debut season of UNH head coach Hilary Witt, Northeastern’s all-time leading scorer.
6. Northeastern vs. Providence
Since NU’s 1980 debut, the Huskies and Friars have never gone longer than a decade without a playoff encounter. They ended their longest gap in that department just in time for world-class goaltenders Florence Schelling and Genevieve Lacasse to square off in a postseason tilt.
Already a two-time Swiss Olympian at that point, Schelling blinked but once in that 2012 Hockey East semifinal. It was once too many, as Lacasse’s mates added an empty-net goal for a 2-0 victory. Nonetheless, Schelling finished her head-to-head college career with a 5-4-2 edge over the future two-time Canadian Olympian.
In a prior era as ECAC rivals, the Huskies had won seven of 10 conference tournament tilts. But the Friars won each of their showdowns in the championship game, 5-2 in 1994 and 1-0 in 2002. More recently, in Kendall Coyne’s senior year, NU moved the pendulum back its way with a best-of-three 2016 quarterfinal sweep.
5. Minnesota-Duluth vs. Wisconsin
UMD-Wisconsin is one of three final matchups to have occurred more than once in Women’s Frozen Four history. The Badgers bumped the Bulldogs in 2007 to repeat as champions, then lost the rematch in 2008.
But the Badgers have dominated the last decade. Since that 2008 rematch, they have gone 30-8-8 head-to-head. That hot streak envelopes a six-game win streak in postseason encounters.
Nonetheless, a more balanced history preceded that period. Between 2001 and 2008, Duluth won five national titles and four of seven WCHA or NCAA tournament bouts with the Badgers. In the two-year coaching reign of Trina Bourget, they set an early tone by pushing UMD to overtime in the 2001 conference semis. They won the same matchup on the same stage the next year, and again under Mark Johnson in 2005.
4. Clarkson vs. Cornell
The 14-year-old Golden Knights program has enjoyed the most rapid ascent of any team east of the Great Lakes. Among its storied ECAC peers, the Big Red have been Clarkson’s most frequent postseason obstacle.
In their sixth year on the varsity scene, the Knights secured their first bid to the NCAA tournament. They nearly had their first ECAC postseason title to go with it, having erased a 3-0 deficit to force overtime in the final. But the Big Red recovered and scored on their first sudden-death shot.
Cornell went on to make its first NCAA championship appearance in that 2010 saga. The rivalry reconvened on the same ECAC final stage in 2014, with the Big Red claiming another squeaker, 1-0. The subsequent national tournament, however, saw Clarkson reach and win its first Frozen Four.
With meetings in the 2015 ECAC semifinals, 2016 conference quarterfinals, 2017 conference final and 2017 NCAA regionals, the Clarkson-Cornell card has only intensified. The Knights’ two victories last spring precipitated their second national crown. They also barred the Big Red from winning their fifth ECAC pennant in this calendar decade.
3. Minnesota vs. Minnesota-Duluth
The Minnesota and UMD programs’ sophomore season culminated in the semifinals of the last pre-NCAA national tournament. In a rapid rematch of the Bulldogs’ 2-0 triumph in the 2000 WCHA final, the Gophers bit back, 3-2. From there, they edged Brown, 4-2, for the national banner.
Since then, the intrastate foes have accrued 10 conference tournament encounters. They have split four additional matchups in the championship, including one apiece in each other’s arena.
Likewise, Duluth bumped the Gophers out of the 2010 national semifinals en route to its latest national title in Minneapolis. Another seven years passed before their first NCAA tournament meeting, which Minnesota won in the regionals. But that was not before the Bulldogs claimed a 2-1 double-overtime victory at Ridder Arena in their fifth all-time WCHA semifinal showdown.
2. Providence vs. New Hampshire
Before the AWCHA tournament debuted in 1998, the ECAC final was the de facto national championship. In the 14 seasons between 1983-84 and 1996-97, PC and UNH met on that stage eight times.
Five of those title tilts went to the Friars, three to the Wildcats and four to overtime. The 1996 edition required five bonus periods, and remains the longest game in women’s college hockey history. Two years later, seven PC products and four UNH connections won gold at Nagano.
Providence then won each of the first three Hockey East titles, beating UNH in the final twice. The Wildcats returned the favor by winning the next four, including two at the Friars’ direct expense.
When they last met in the postseason in 2013, it marked 20 such encounters in the rivalry’s chronicles. The Cats entered that Hockey East quarterfinal with a 10-9 all-time edge, but the visiting Friars pulled even, overcoming 3-0 and 4-2 deficits to claim a 5-4 sudden-death victory.
1. Minnesota vs. Wisconsin
The 2018 Olympic final featured six Gophers (all American) and nine Badgers (four American, five Canadian). It reflected the big-game pedigree those programs perpetually build and bring out against one another.
With seven encounters between 2002 and 2016, Minnesota-Wisconsin has been the most frequent matchup in the WCHA final. Add three semifinal bouts, and the Border Battle has happened in 10 of the first 19 Final Faceoffs.
Through their respective cycles of slight superiority, the Gophers and Badgers have split those 10 conference tournament bouts. In the national bracket, Minnesota holds a 4-2 edge, winning each of the last four.
The Gophers started that streak in the 2012 national final, then stretched it to four with an overtime triumph in the 2016 semifinals.
But a decade prior, the Badgers won their first title in 2006, directly denying Minnesota a three-peat. They have claimed their two head-to-head NCAA victories plus three WCHA games on Minnesota’s campus. No one else has handled the hostile atmospheres of Mariucci or Ridder Arena that well.
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