Babson Hockey enters their first season in the new Little East Conference. (Photo via Babson Athletics)
Our season previews continue as the 2025-2026 Men’s & Women’s Division III hockey regular season nears closer. Today, we look at the men’s side of a league in its inaugural season as a league in the post-NEHC era, the Little East Conference (LEC).
The Little East Conference has been around for some time now, but this season will be the first year ever that the conference sponsors Men’s & Women’s Division III Ice Hockey. The men will receive an auto bid this year, while the women will have to wait until at least next year. If you would like to read about the entire conference realignment on the men’s & women’s side, click the hyperlinks on each respective side and you can learn all about it.
The LEC features:
Babson
Castleton
Keene State
New England College
Norwich
Plymouth State
Southern Maine
UMass-Boston
UMass-Dartmouth
Western Connecticut State (Inaugural season)
2025-2026 Preview
Since this is the inaugural season for the Little East, there’s no history to look back on other than how these teams performed in their respective leagues. If you would like to read about the realignment and a mini “preview”, please refer to our 2025-26 Men’s D-III Hockey Conference Realignment: An in-depth analysis & per-league breakdown article where we go through everything to do with the new league and realignment that took place.
Returning Production
Looking at the league and the returning production via our guy Scott Huston, we find some interesting results:
The big three of the league will return a fair amount of production, with Plymouth State returning 56.36% of goals, 68.23% of assists, & 63.91% of points, Babson returning 77.78% of goals, 74.11% of assists, & 75.54% of points, while Norwich returns the least of the three with 52% of goals, 61.5% of assists, & 57.89% total points.
The potential conference POTY Will Redick returns for his senior year at Plymouth State, the senior has put up 31, 58, & 34 points (55G, 68A) in each of his years respectively. Norwich loses their star player due to graduation Clark Kerner.
As we’ll discuss below in the ‘Dark Horses’ section, Keene State returns the most of anyone (95%), while UMass-Dartmouth returns a fair amount, sitting with 79.41% of total points returning to the Corsairs this season, look for them to potentially shake things up in the middle of the pack.
Southern Maine bottoms out the league with a mere 51.45% of points from last season, including three new freshman goaltenders, not ideal on paper. However, considering how mauled by injuries the Huskies were last season, we may be seeing a misinterpreted returning production total considering so many potential key pieces were sidelined.
This league will be intriguing in terms of returning production because programs such as New England College have been making some noise in recent years with some impressive wins and we may potentially see them surprise some people as they were a fairly youthful group last season, they’ll have (assuming 50% of the roster didn’t change) four seniors and 13 juniors… lots of veterans in this locker room and that’ll be a huge piece to the puzzle if the Pilgrims want to make a loud entrance in year one to the league.
Dark Horses
My main ‘dark horse’ here is Keene State and I said this in our Men’s D-III Preseason Podcast episode. They were voted 9th in the LEC Coaches Preseason Poll and I get it, second year program, but they finished 13-10-1 last season, granted, a weaker schedule as an independent, but nevertheless, 13 wins for a former club team isn’t half bad. They have one of the highest attendance averages in D-III and return 93.9% of scoring, 95.8% of assists, & 95.02% of total points…. The highest of anyone in D-III. Now I get it, they’re still a newer program and they’re not going undefeated or anything, but I think a lot of people are sleeping on Head Coach Bobby Rodrigue’s Owls and they’ll be introduced to them this season.
Southern Maine Men’s Hockey – #6 Cole Brennan (Photo by Mike Anquillare, Ath Comm Student Employee)
The other ‘dark horse’ I see in this league could be Southern Maine, tied for 6th in the LEC Coaches Preseason Poll. The Huskies were littered with injuries last season including some key players, finishing the year a poor 7-17-1, missing the NEHC playoffs. Head Coach Matt Pinchevsky enters his third year at the helm of the Huskies, finishing 10-14-3 in his first season, the most wins from any Southern Maine coach since 2011 under longtime Head Coach Jeff Beaney. The Huskies will be led by Senior Captain Defenseman Cole Brennan and Junior Forward Ethan MacDuff. 10 juniors and 5 seniors for the Huskies, however the interesting spot is goalie… USM enters the season with three freshman goaltenders and it was rumored they would be landing a D-I transfer in net, but as of now he is not listed on their roster, so we’ll assume not… Goaltending will be the wildcard if the Huskies are going to succeed this year, and staying healthy of course.
Final Thoughts
Overall, I echo what my thoughts were in the realignment article. Personally, this league makes way more sense geographically and logically. Elmira and Hobart aren’t traveling to Maine and Vermont anymore, vice-versa. Meanwhile, we have fun matchups between a new group of teams we really didn’t see square off unless it was the rare non-conference game.
Norwich University Men’s Hockey (Photo by Jasmine Olson ’24)
This season the three favorites are obvious, Babson, Norwich, & Plymouth State, with the Panthers being picked #1 in the coaches’ poll, followed by the Cadets & the Beavers, fourth place UMass-Boston was 17 points behind third. I don’t see anyone in the league knocking one of these three teams out of the top three final standings, they’re simply too good, but that’s why we play the games…
In terms of the auto bid, I’m intrigued because we may get to see some teams who haven’t made an NCAA tournament appearance in a hot minute get their shot again at a national title. Plymouth State as we all know ran the MASCAC, but after getting upset last year, they’ll be back and ready. Norwich, with their alum and former ‘founding’ Head Coach Dominick Dawes will be looking to be back in the dance and on the national stage where historically, Norwich is no stranger to. Finally, Head Coach Jamie Rice and his Babson Beaver team always puts together solid seasons, but hasn’t seen the NCAA tournament since the 2021-22 season, I’d like to see them back in the mix as he’ll always get whatever he can out of his rosters.
