OMAHA, Neb. – The Omaha hockey team will play seven participants in this year's NCAA tournament as part of its 2017-18 schedule. The schedule was released today in conjunction with the National Collegiate Hockey Conference's full slate of conference games for the upcoming season.
"The NCHC provides the toughest test in college hockey each night, and we saw that this year with two NCHC teams, Denver and Minnesota Duluth, in the national championship game," said associate athletic director
Mike Kemp who oversees hockey. "That will be no different next season. We will play 14 conference games against teams that made the NCAA tournament and finished the season in the top 10.
"Our non-conference schedule features three more teams who also made the tournament so there will be no shortage of top-notch competition for us this upcoming season."
The Mavericks will open their first season under new head coach
Mike Gabinet with an exhibition game at home against a Canadian college on Oct. 6 and begin the NCAA schedule the following week when they travel to NCAA tourney participant UMass-Lowell of Hockey East on Oct. 13-14.
Omaha opens its home schedule the following weekend when it hosts Arizona State on Oct. 20-21. That precedes three straight weeks on the road. The Mavericks will take on another NCAA tournament team, Notre Dame, on Thursday and Friday, Oct. 26-27 in South Bend, Ind. Following a week off, they'll open NCHC play with back-to-back road weekends at Colorado College (Nov. 10-11) and Western Michigan (Nov. 17-18).
The Mavericks then will return home for four straight weeks at Baxter Arena. They'll welcome Northern Michigan of the WCHA on Nov. 24-25 and then finish the pre-Christmas break portion of their schedule with NCHC series against St. Cloud State (Dec. 1-2) and NCAA runner-up Minnesota Duluth (Dec. 8-9).
UNO finishes its non-conference schedule with a home series against NCAA tournament team Union of the ECAC on Dec. 29-30 at Baxter Arena before finishing the season with 16 straight NCHC games.
The balance of the Mavericks' home schedule features series against Miami (Jan. 12-13), Western Michigan (Jan. 26-27), North Dakota (Feb. 16-17) and Colorado College (Feb. 23-24). They also will travel to North Dakota (Jan. 5-6), defending national champion Denver (Jan. 19-20), St. Cloud State (Feb. 2-3) and Minnesota Duluth (March 2-3) in the second half of the season.
Due to the NCHC's scheduling metric, the Mavericks will not host Denver and will not travel to Miami next season.
All games at Baxter Arena will begin at 7:07 p.m. CT.
Ticket renewal information will be sent to Maverick hockey season ticket members on April 15. New season tickets will go on sale to the general public on May 1 with single-game ticket sales going on sale August 1. For more information on tickets, fans are encouraged to call (402) 554-MAVS.
