ICYMI: B1G Announces Hockey Start Date

The Big Ten Conference announced on Tuesday afternoon that the 2020-21 hockey season will begin in November.

It will start on the weekend of November 13-14 and each of the seven Big Ten schools in hockey will play a complete 24 game conference schedule, plus 4 non-conference games against Arizona State for a total of 28 games.

The Big Ten Tournament, which had been a three-week tournament in the last few years, will return to a one-week format this coming March.

Michigan State University has not announced its hockey schedule for 2020-21, but that is expected to happen soon.  The Spartans, under now fourth-year head coach Danton Cole, were 15-19-2 last season and were eliminated by Michigan in the opening round of the Big Ten Tournament (the week before the Covid-19 pandemic hit).