On Oct. 20th, the newest college hockey rankings were released, and it looked like it was only talking about college hockey in the state of Michigan. But that wasn’t a typo or error on the rankings, which featured Michigan State, Michigan and the defending champs Western Michigan as the top three ranked in the entire nation. Ferris State and Michigan Tech were also mentioned in the rankings, but as receiving votes and not in the top 25. How did this happen?
How did schools in Michigan become such a powerhouse of a sport that has traditionally been dominated by schools in Minnesota and in the northeast.
The answer is that the State of Michigan has always been good at hockey; every year at least one school in the Mitten is a top contender for the National title or at least makes the NCAA tournament, but why does this year have three schools in the top five?
It could be because of how schools can get their players now.
For Michigan State, their top leader in scoring is Porter Martone, an NHL draft pick for the Philadelphia Flyers.
Martone is a freshman from Ontario, but before he played in the NCAA, he played in the CHL, a highly skilled league for 16-20 year olds.
This year through, the CHL gave the option for players to join the NCAA. This led to all the top-rated prospects to change leagues in order to play higher competition, have a better chance of getting drafted higher in the NHL draft, and also get paid by colleges by NIL money.
For example, the consensus future number one pick for the 2026 NHL draft is a player named Gavin McKenna, who was playing in the CHL, but this year with the new rule change, Mckenna saw his opportunity and went to Penn State, and his CHL teammate Cayden Lindstrom also went to the NCAA, but joined Michigan State instead.
With the new change in CHL players being able to join, it caused many teams that were already powerful, to get stronger by using NIL to attract these top talented players. This helped teams like Michigan State, Michigan, and Western Michigan because all the CHL players want to go to those schools because they get the most recognition, but also have the most success in recent years. This leads to the second point: consistency.
Every school in the state of Michigan had one period of time where they could have said that they were the best team in the state.
Northern Michigan had it in the early 90’s, Ferris State had it in the early 2010’s, Lake Superior State was a powerhouse in the 70’s and Michigan Tech was great in the late 60’s. But for the schools that are right now in the top three, they have always been a consistent program that has won in recent years.
Western Michigan won the National Championship last year, but in the years before that, they made the NCAA playoffs for the past three years in a row.
Michigan State has made it two years in a row, and even though Michigan fell short last year in making the NCAA playoffs, they made it in the NCAA five years in a row before that, and made it to the Frozen Four in three of those years.
With three of the schools in the Mitten being the best in the nation, it’s a great time to start watching college hockey, and if you don’t want to watch the big schools right now, you can still can find great hockey in schools like Ferris State, Michigan Tech, Northern Michigan and Lake Superior State.
Hopefully one of the teams in Michigan can win it all in April again in Las Vegas, making the state of Michigan the state that runs hockey.