GRAND FORKS, N.D. — Enjoy the 250ish-mile trek to Grand Forks on Halloween, kids. It won’t be this way very often going forward.
Starting next season, UMD and North Dakota will be protected rivals in the new ten-team NCHC. That means they are guaranteed to meet four times, two home and two away, every season.
(The other protected rivals? Glad you asked (I know you probably didn’t)! St. Cloud State is paired with St. Thomas, Denver with Colorado College, Miami with Western Michigan, and Omaha gets Arizona State.)
When this starts next season, the NCHC is planning to return to having the protected rivals meet in the final weekend of the regular season. This cuts down on travel concerns with the postseason starting the following weekend. And it means that UMD will make a late February/early March trek to Grand Forks every other season starting in 2026-27 (the rotation will start next year with UMD at home, barring a change in the schedule).
Anyway, you never know when the injury bug is going to bite. You just know it will. For North Dakota, it bit in a significant way on Thursday, when freshman forward Josh Zakreski, who was off to a promising start and was recently elevated to the Fighting Hawks’ top line, went down with a lower body injury on the final drill of practice. UND says Zakreski is “month to month,” and we wish him the speediest recovery possible.
Matchups will be fascinating. First-year UND coach Dane Jackson, as the home coach, has his choice. It seems reasonable that top pair Bennett Zmolek and Jake Livanavage will see a lot of the Plante line for UMD, but what forward combination gets the call? Ellis Rickwood and Cole Reschny are both good on the dot, but Rickwood brings more size to the middle against a line that, well, isn’t very big. Zakreski’s spot on the Rickwood line is being taken by Jack Kernan, another freshman.
No changes from last weekend for UMD, not that you would have expected any.
Adam Gajan vs Gibson Homer.
Lines?
Lines.
UMD forwards
Plante (Max) – Plante (Zam) – Shaugabay
Truman – Gaffney – Arnott
Zaremba – Shlaine – Anderson
Bibby – Kovich – Bechen
UMD defense
Hanson – Kleber
Pionk – Pierce
Cleveland – Siepmann
Bodnarchuk
UMD goalies
Gajan – Dahlmeir – Sheffield
North Dakota forwards
Swanson – Rickwood – Kernan
James – Reschny – Zellers
Croal – Josephson – Young
Menghini – Klee – Strinden
North Dakota defense
Livanavage – Zmolek
Wiebe – Verhoeff
Laurila – Emery
Jubenvill
North Dakota goalies
Homer – Spunar – Sandy
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