BGSU hockey (18-9-7, 15-7-4) wrapped up the 2025-26 regular season by sweeping No. 16 Michigan Tech (21-12-3, 16-7-3) while on the road in Houghton, Michigan.
With the regular season meeting its conclusion, it’s a good time to reflect on some of the highs and lows of Bowling Green’s hockey season before they begin play in the CCHA Mason Cup Playoffs.
The Highs:
Ohio State: BGSU entered their nonconference home and home series against the Buckeyes (12-18-2, 8-13-1) on Jan. 2 and 3, having lost the previous eight matches against the Buckeyes. On Friday night, Bowling Green and Ohio State skated to a 2-2 draw before OSU claimed the shootout victory.
While the draw was impressive and broke the streak of defeats against OSU for the Falcons, Saturday night was the true highlight of the weekend as the Orange and Brown defeated the Buckeyes 5-3 for their first victory over Ohio State since the 2018-19 season. On top of defeating the Scarlet and Grey for the first time in eight seasons, the Falcons also did so in front of a sold-out Slater Family Ice Arena.
This series, along with the later series against Notre Dame (7-22-5, 3-17-2), stood as evidence that Bowling Green could not only compete with teams from the Big 10, but could beat them.
Princeton: BGSU hosted Princeton (15-12-3, 11-9-2) of the ECAC at the Slater Family Ice Arena during Thanksgiving weekend, having not played the Tigers since the 2010-11 season. The reunion of the two teams was very successful for the Falcons as they swept the Tigers by scorelines of 4-1 and 4-3. Similar to the Ohio State series, this series stood as proof that Bowling Green was able to compete with and defeat teams from the ECAC.
Ferris State: The Orange and Brown played two series against the Ferris State Bulldogs (7-25-2, 6-18-2) and claimed sweeps in both series for the Falcons’ only four-game season sweep of the season. Across the four games, BG outscored FSU 22-9, including scoring nine goals in a 9-5 victory on Nov. 14, which saw freshman forwards Noah Morneau and Dominik Rymon both record four-point nights while Morneau scored his first career collegiate hat trick.
Over the four games, Emerson led the team in scoring as the senior forward recorded nine points across the four games, including a four-point performance on Jan. 10.
The Lows:
Northern Michigan: After sweeping Princeton the previous weekend, expectations were high as BG hosted Northern Michigan (3-29-2, 2-21-2) as the Wildcats were winless going into the series and were one of only two teams in the NCAA who had not claimed a victory up to that point in the season.
The Falcons did not live up to those expectations as they would give NMU their first victory on Friday and were able to grab a 4-3 overtime victory on Saturday to claim only two out of a possible six points towards the CCHA standings in a series against the bottom team of the conference.
In hindsight, had Bowling Green claimed just one more point out of this series, it could have clinched home ice for the first round of the CCHA standings.
Minnesota State: BGSU played Minnesota State (18-9-7, 14-7-5) twice throughout the season, with the first series between the two teams seeing the Falcons earn a respectable three points after back-to-back draws, including a shootout victory. However, this same performance did not carry over to the second series between the two teams as BG could only claim one point across two games during their senior weekend at the Slater Family Ice Arena.
On top of only being able to claim a single point towards the standings, Bowling Green was unable to claim a victory in any fashion during their senior weekend, which, in hindsight, was likely the final home games of the season and the final time BG’s seniors would play at the Slater Family Ice Arena in their careers.
The Future:
This weekend, BG will face No. 20 Michigan Tech at MTU’s John MacInnes Student Ice Arena for a best-of-three series to kick off play in the CCHA Mason Cup Playoffs.
Falcon Media Sports Network’s Ben Corak will have the call of all the weekend’s action live from Houghton, Michigan, on WBGU 88.1 FM.
