WIAC Announces Late January Start for Winter Sports Season
The UWS men's hockey team will open their season with an exhibition series against Northland College on January 27th, and then begin conference play the following week against the Lumberjacks.
SUPERIOR, Wis. – While college hockey is in full swing on the Division I level, some conferences in Divisions II and III are still waiting to hear about their plans for winter sports. And Friday, we got a surprise announcement from the Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference.
The WIAC has decided that they will be moving forward with their winter sports season, with competition scheduled to take place in the final week of January. This will impact the UWS and Northland College men’s and women’s hockey teams. Yellowjackets men’s head coach Rich McKenna says the timing of the announcement is great so that his team can hit the ground running with preparation.
“Obviously we were on the ice before a little bit in the fall. We were able to get some work in and do some things. But that was very much skill-based oriented. Now, we’re able to kind of dive in and lock in and start doing videos, start doing all the things that kind of make us coaches tick. And allow us to kind of provide that environment, provide that development and learning for our players,” McKenna said.
The biggest change in the schedule is that each series will take place on Wednesdays and Fridays, instead of the traditional Friday-Saturday. But Coach McKenna knows that even with a schedule, nothing is guaranteed.
“I think the biggest thing that we’ve talked about is let’s control the controllables. Let’s control how we act, how we behave, how we handle ourselves. What are we doing to put ourselves in the best situation to compete? If a team cancels because something happened, we’re testing at the NCAA threshold and everything else. We’ll probably be able to go play somebody else then,” said McKenna.
The UWS men’s hockey team will open their season with an exhibition series against Northland College on January 27th, and then begin conference play the following week against the Lumberjacks.
