North Michigan News

The Northern Michigan Wildcats men's ice hockey team is set to host its first home games of the 2025-26 season at the Berry Events Center, facing off against the No. 19/20 ranked Colorado College Tigers. The games are scheduled for Friday at 7:07 p.m. and Saturday at 6:07 p.m., with broadcasts available on MidcoSports+ and the Radio Results Network (100.3 The Point).

The Wildcats, who currently hold a record of 0-4-0, are looking to rebound after two challenging road trips to start the season. Head coach Dave Shyiak commented on the team's recent losses to No. 16 Ohio State, where the Wildcats were outshot in both contests but remained competitive. "You can look at the shot count, that's one thing, but if you look at the quality of play and the number of quality chances, it was a little tighter than you think. Playing on the road in our first game on a regulation ice sheet, I liked four of our six periods... We're one of the youngest teams in the CCHA and all of college hockey, so there are going to be some ups and downs and growing pains. [As a coach], all you're asking is habits and systems and to do it with effort and competitiveness, and I thought our guys did a really good job against some really good teams."

Discipline has been an area of focus for the Wildcats, who have accumulated 44 penalty minutes over four games compared to their opponents' 20 minutes. "Discipline was number one; we talked about that as a team. And then we need to find a way to create a little more offense when we have the puck, and that takes time as a young team. It's not easy to score at our level. You have to get to the interior part of the ice, have to get bodies to the hard areas. That's something we discussed yesterday, and [we] had a really good practice with that," Shyiak said.

Despite recent results, Shyiak noted positive developments, especially from players making their first starts last weekend. Four players—Landon MacDonald, Tyler Stern, Evan Johnson, and Oliver Auyeung-Ashton—saw their first career starts against Ohio State. MacDonald scored his first collegiate goal, Johnson nearly tied the game before his goal was overturned after review, and Auyeung-Ashton made 45 saves in his debut.

"You absolutely want to win, but it's about the process of continually getting better. [Our non-conference] schedule is tough, but it's only going to make us better in the end. As we use these games to continue to get better and grow, it's really going to help us… [UMass and Ohio State] are good teams, they play hard and play the right way, and we're right there," Shyiak said.

Goaltending has been a highlight for NMU early in the season. William Gramme set program records against UMass and received CCHA Goaltender of the Week honors; Auyeung-Ashton earned CCHA Rookie of the Week recognition following his performance versus Ohio State. Shyiak praised his goaltenders: "It's another indicator that I think our staff did a great job of recruiting… We have guys coming in right now performing at a high level, and I think [Oliver] did that. He set himself up for success by how hard he works in practice, along with the other goaltenders."

"When I pulled [Gramme], it was more of a mental break; he's stopped a lot of rubber," said Shyiak regarding Gramme's 136 saves so far this season—a mark among the highest in college hockey this year. "[Oliver] went in [on Friday], stopped all eight shots and looked good, and I thought he earned the opportunity to start [on Saturday]. He went in and played outstanding. He gave us a chance to win, and didn't look like a rookie; he was calm, cool, collected, and he was really good at puck-handling. He made some big saves to keep the game tight, and I think that is an example of giving an opportunity to a kid who deserved it… It's going to give us a hard decision to make on Friday, but it's nice as coaches for us to have two goalies performing at a high level this early in the season."

The Wildcats return home after opening last season at Colorado College's rink for their opponent's home opener; this year they hope home ice will provide an advantage against CC's fast roster.

"Our guys are really excited about it. Our focus is to learn and move on to the next game, and yesterday's practice was highly energized and highly competitive. I think we know [Colorado College] well after playing them last year… they're fast, they're big, they've got some younger guys up front, but we're going to plan for us to get better. Obviously we'll have a plan in place for how we approach playing them, but overall we're still concentrating on how do we get better," Shyiak stated.

Reflecting on last season under his leadership—when NMU took Colorado College into overtime before securing their own home-opening win over Alaska Anchorage—Shyiak outlined goals for this weekend: "We want to be a tough team to play against: not making it easy on the opponent, we want to be on the attack and defend hard, and as always we want to be good on special teams. If you do those that should give us a better chance to win some hockey games… We have to come out with a good start and put a complete 60 minutes together."

The Blue Line Luncheon event will also take place Friday at noon at Ramada of Marquette ahead of Friday night's game.