Of the 20 teams in Monday’s
USCHO Division 1 Men’s hockey poll, five are from the NCHC, the lone college hockey conference to start the season inside a bubble. Or, a pod, as they called it.
With Omaha’a 3-0 shutout of Colorado College, the NCHC pod comes to an end, completing 38 games in 21 days.
“There's certainly a sense of relief, a sense of excitement that we were able to accomplish our goal and our goal was pretty simple and that was to provide a competitive experience and a safe environment to about 280 student-athletes across eight institutions and I think we were able to accomplish that goal,” said NCHC commissioner John Fenton.
“A lot of us are feeling a huge sense of pride right now and excitement that we were able to execute the pod.”
Of the scheduled 40 games to be played in the pod, only two were canceled. Those cancelations came as Colorado College got a late arrival into the pod after positive tests back in Colorado delayed their departure.
Once all eight teams safely arrived in the pod, nearly 3,000 COVID-19 tests were given, not one came back positive.
"We believe, in all honestly, and I believe if I had the doctors and medical consultants sitting next to me, that we had absolutely zero active infection across all Tier I personnel for the entire duration of the Pod," Fenton said.
With the exception of fans in the stands, everything you saw inside Baxter Arena in Omaha was what you’ve seen in pervious years inside the NCHC, home to the last four national champions.
The hockey was entertaining, and the games were tight, it was nice to see hockey back in any portion.
North Dakota leaves the POD as the NCHC leader with 22 points. Trailing the Fighting Hawks is Omaha with 20 points, St. Cloud State with 18, Minnesota Duluth with 18, Denver with 11, Colorado College with 8 and Miami with 7.
The NCHC pod brought a lot offense to the table, led by Carter Savoie and Riese Gaber with seven goals each. Shane Pinto and Jordan Kawaguchi—both of North Dakota—led the pod in points with 13.
For the student athletes of the eight NCHC school, the pod presented them with a safe opportunity to focus on school and hockey and equally as important, the pod provided them a way to interact and grow with their teammates in way that outside the bubble, would be impossible from a safety standpoint.
“It was awesome, really unique hanging with the guys, being a hockey player in the hotel for 21 days,” said Minnesota Duluth captain Noah Cates. “A great experience here in Omaha. They had a great setup for us and a lot of fun playing nine games in such a short window.”
For North Dakota, it was a memorable experience both on and off the ice.
“Going through something that nobody’s ever experienced—and by the way the NCHC, Josh Fenton and Michael Weisman did an outstanding job here putting on a controlled environment, professionally done. Everybody adhered to the protocol and it was a great experience,” North Dakota head coach Brad Berry said.
“Our guys handled it well. They tried to maximize their energy from day-to-day to give them the best chance to play. I thought, for the most part we played a consistent game, game in and game out in the pod.”
Now that the pod is over with, the eight NCHC teams return home for the holiday, jumping right back into action with games on New Year’s Eve as well as New Year’s Day.
But now with student-athletes back on campus and no longer inside the safe confines of the pod, the risk of exposure to COVID-19, and COVID related postponements increase.
“We put together a protocol that went back into the summer months just preparing ourselves for the entire season. Obviously then we got focused on preparations for the pod. I think we’re the only conference that put together two medical protocols—one for the season and one specific to the pod,” said Fenton.
“We believe in the protocol; we believe the protocol will help us continue to have safe environments to have competition.”
For leagues playing outside of the bubble, we’ve seen issues across sports. From college hockey conferences like Hockey East to the National Football League, COVID has already caused headaches as games have been postponed across the nation.
Fenton and the NCHC expect a things to be difficult in the months ahead. But even with those expectations, they're confident in the protocols they have in place.
“We certainly expect disruptions, we know that the waters will be fairly choppy, we all are seeing what’s going on across collegiate athletics or sports in general with postponements or cancelations,” said Fenton. “We certainly hope that it won’t be the case, but we believe we have a protocol ready to handle those things as they come.”
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