Hamilton College Continentals (Photo by Scott Kinville – CNYHockeyReport.com)
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 the New England Small Colleges Conference (NESCAC), also known as the league who starts a month later than everyone else due to league rules.
Also, for those of you that may not be aware: Another restriction the league has is their total amount of games of 24 (one less than everyone else) also applies to exhibition contests, hence why we rarely ever see a NESCAC exhibition game. For example, the NCHA has their 25-game limit, but it’s only for the regular season D-III games. They can play exhibitions, travel internationally, play USA NTDP teams etc… but the NESCAC strictly limits the teams to 24 total games regardless of status. I imagine there’s an academic justification behind this, but as a cheap-tuition state school grad, I can’t relate…
The NESCAC features:
Amherst
Bowdoin
Colby
Connecticut College
Hamilton
Middlebury
Trinity
Tufts
Wesleyan
Williams
2024-2025 Overview
Last season we saw a first-time winner in the NESCAC with 13th year Head Coach Rob Haberbusch taking home the conference title with his Hamilton Continentals (21-7-1) led primarily by their elite defense and goaltending all season long. The Continentals would defeat University of New England (18-8-1) 4-2 in round one of the NCAA tournament but fall to Curry (25-4-0) 4-1 in the quarterfinals. It was the second ever NCAA tournament appearance for Hamilton (other coming in 2016-17).
Hamilton was the lone NCAA bid as no teams from the league qualified for an at-large bid via the NPI.
The most notable offseason moves made by anyone was following the retirement of legendary Head Coach Jack Arena at Amherst College, Eddie Effinger, the former St. Olaf head coach, returns to his alma mater where he played from 2008-2012, Effinger was also a team captain for two seasons. At St. Olaf, Effinger led the Ole’s to a pair of NCAA tournaments in his five seasons (incl. covid) and in classic MIAC fashion, showed up to the MIAC tournament with a below .500 record, but managed win when it mattered. A below .500 team winning the league would be considered an upset in most leagues, but it’s just another day in the MIAC… Look for Amherst to pick up right where they left off and likely reach new highs under Coach Effinger.
Former St. Olaf (MIAC) Head Coach Eddie Effinger returns to his alma mater Amherst College as their new Men’s Hockey Head Coach (Photo by Hannah, Robb, St. Olaf College Athletics)
Regarding the conference as a whole, we saw (as we tend to) a tight jumble of teams in the middle of the conference standings. Five points separated #3 Colby (28) from #8 Connecticut College (23) … and only eight points separated #3 Colby from #9 Williams (20) … Hamilton and Trinity ran away from the pack during the regular season, Hamilton compiling 41 points while the Bantams were close behind with 38.
Our last note, for the second straight season, Tufts (12-13-1) very nonchalantly made a run in the conference tournament, making the finals for the second straight season, but lost via shutout on both occasions (4-0 vs Trinity ’24 & 3-0 vs Hamilton ’25).
Returning Production
Looking at the league and the returning production via our guy Scott Huston, we find some interesting results:
Hamilton returns the most of anyone in the league with 89% of goals and 78% of assists, not bad for the defending conference champs…
The team returning the least will be Trinity at 65% of points, which relatively speaking, isn’t bad by any means, but compared to the rest of the league, it sits at the bottom.
I’m a little intrigued with Williams, finishing a poor 8-13-3 last season (5-11-2 conference), they return approximately 82% of their production last season, maybe longtime HC Bill Kangas can pull some upsets and string some wins together. The Ephs have never won a NESCAC title and made one NCAA tournament appearance in 2016.
With the NESCAC there isn’t really any ‘glaring’ returning production numbers as everyone’s relatively similar outside of Hamilton.
Dark Horses
As Scott Huston & I discussed on our Men’s D-III Hockey Preseason Podcast, personally, I see a few ‘dark horses’ coming from the league. I like Amherst a lot due to their hire of Eddie Effinger, but I also like Middlebury to make some noise in the league and I’m not saying we’re back to the Bill Beaney days, but I think Head Coach Jack Ceglarski has them headed in the right direction headed into his third season with the program following the departure of Neil Sinclair, Beaney’s predecessor. Another thing to note, the Panthers’ recently hired Oswego State alum Trent Grimshaw for their assistant coach role after Jack Fitzgerald accepted the Saint Michael’s Men’s Hockey (Northeast-10, D-II / D-III) head coaching job during the offseason.
Middlebury College Men’s Hockey (Photo by Will Costello)
We’ll get to see Middlebury against some great non-conference competition as early on they’ll face Plattsburgh in the LayerEight Shootout and then Stevenson/Norwich in game two. We’ll also see them play this program known as Hobart, I’m pretty sure they’ve been a pretty decent program as of late, along with Norwich on the road in Kreitzberg Arena.
The term ‘dark horses’ in this league is tough because while I don’t believe the league has as much parity as the MIAC, I think it’s very similar in the sense of it’s one of the only leagues where you can see the bottom teams reach the conference final and not be falling over shocked like we would for most all other leagues. Most recently, we saw the two-bottom seeds in the conference Bowdoin & Williams make the title game in 2023 with Bowdoin winning 3-2 in overtime in newly hired HC Ben Guité’s first season at the helm of the Polar Bears.
Hey… Maybe the Jumbos of Tufts make another conference final when no one seems to expect it! Stay tuned, we’re getting closer!
Final Thoughts
My final thoughts are similar to my thoughts I had during our podcast, I like Hamilton a lot to repeat for the first time since Trinity did it in 2016 & 2017 and think their style fits the winning formula perfectly in this league, it also helps they return a lot of ammunition to make another run at it. Coach Haberbusch has been building something special in Hamilton, NY and he chose a good time to do it as the school is currently in the middle of their Sage Rink Renovation Project, many great things to look forward to in Continental land.
Trinity will always be Trinity as long as Head Coach Matt Greason is running things. Solid season after solid season and as of late, they’ve completely run the NESCAC. The Bantams have won five of the last nine conference titles dating back to 2016 and hold the second most titles (7) behind Middlebury (8). Greason, in his thirteen years at the helm, has made the NCAA tournament six times (incl. covid season) and has won more NESCAC titles (5) than every other team besides Middlebury in the history of the league dating back to 2000. I myself am a big fan of Coach Greason, as are many. It goes without saying don’t be surprised if his dominance continues and the Bantams find themselves atop the NESCAC again for the sixth time in ten years (excl. covid).
Final note: I personally got to watch Amherst @ Hamilton in the NESCAC playoffs last season… If the referee’s let the teams play the way they did during the playoffs (this includes other leagues too), the NESCAC would be an even better product than it already is. One of the most fast paced and physical hockey games I’ve gotten to see out East and it’s unfortunate we can’t see that style on a weekly basis…
