Wisconsin-Eau Claire wins the 2025 WIAC Commissioner’s Cup (Photo by Bill Hoepner, UW-Eau Claire)
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 Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (WIAC).
The WIAC features:
Beloit
Wisconsin-Eau Claire
Wisconsin-River Falls
Wisconsin-Stevens Point
Wisconsin-Stout
Wisconsin-Superior
2024-2025 Overview
Oh, the WIAC, my favorite league in D-III hockey. Last season, we saw quite the shocker come WIAC tournament time, including a pair of upsets in the semifinal round. UW-Superior finished the regular season with the #1 seed after defeating UW-Stevens Point in a shootout in the final game of the season, which put them up against the 4-seed UW-River Falls in the semifinals. UW-Stevens Point hosted the rival Blugolds of Eau Claire, who entered as the 3-seed.
Superior won game one handily 4-1, River Falls took game two, which gave us the famous ‘mini-game’ which has been eliminated for the 2025-26 season and beyond. The Falcons would end up shocking the Yellowjackets and finding their way into the WIAC title game after winning the one-period mini game:
“In the mini game, River Falls got on the board early, scoring at (1:41) was Dylan Smith, which would be cancelled out late in the period at (16:58) by Reed Stark of RF. Exactly two minutes later, River Falls scored the winner, it was Cole Teleki with the golden goal…”
Moving on to Stevens Point, the Blugolds won game one 4-3 in a tight one, meanwhile the Pointers tied the series up the next night, winning handily 5-1. We would then need a mini game with three overtimes to settle it…
“In the mini game, we would see chaos on many occasions… too many to count. It looked like the Pointers could’ve won it about 20 times in the opening overtime and then the Blugolds looked like they could win it 20 times in the final overtime… but on a goal call where the light was flashed ON and then back OFF, it was determined at the (11;51) mark of the 3rd overtime period of the mini game, that a Stevens Point player covered the puck illegally in the crease, in which the referee declared a penalty shot for Eau Claire, the correct call, just a horrible way to end a hockey game such as this one, but again, the right call.”
This left us with the 3-seeded Blugolds (12-14-1) and the 4-seeded Falcons (16-10-1) in the title game, absolutely crazy. In the end, Eau Claire would defeat River Falls, earning them an NCAA bid for the first time since 2020. The Blugolds would play #5 Aurora close in Chicago but ultimately fell in the first round 3-2 to the Spartans.
An ending like this is only right as the ‘mini game’ has now been eliminated from the WIAC tournament.
Returning Production
Looking at the league and the returning production via our guy Scott Huston, we find some interesting results:
Starting with the defending champions Wisconsin-Eau Claire, they do return a fair amount considering the movement they had last season, just about 60% across the board for goals, assists, and points percentage. They’ll return their solid goaltender Max Gutjahr, who enters his senior season. They only lose six seniors, return eight juniors, plus whoever they bring in which I’m sure includes a lot of transfers as Head Coach Matt Loen tends to do, especially as of late.
Fletcher Anderson – Wisconsin-Stevens Point (Photo via UW-Stevens Point Athletics)
Stevens Point loses their star forward and three-time WIAC Player of the Year (two co-POTY), the first to ever accomplish this feat in history, Fletcher Anderson. In his four years with the Pointers, Anderson racked up 111 points (47G, 64A). The Pointers graduated seven senior defensemen in 2024, which hurt them mightily in the beginning and first half of the season last year as the defense was so young and inexperienced, it took a while to get up to speed. This year that group comes back with another year under their belts, but the scoring and leadership will have to come from someone new with Anderson’s historic career coming to an end.
The highest returning points percentage in the league and almost all of D-III is River Falls… They return a staggering 96% of goals and 87% of assists. They also get back their D-I Minnesota transfer Brennan Boynton in net who had a solid year last season with the Falcons. This to me, is the most eye-opening stat for the WIAC’s preseason because if things work out, they come in with a huge advantage. Their first WIAC game is an away contest at K.B. Willett Arena against Stevens Point, lookout for November 21st.
Superior returns just about 70% of their production this season, it just adds to this league’s depth as it’s extremely hard to separate these teams outside of Beloit and as of late, Stout. Superior, Stevens Point, Eau Claire, & River Falls all return a fair amount and have so much firepower where it’s extremely difficult to predict where anyone will finish…
Dark Horses
River Falls comes to mind for me and I don’t know how they can’t for everyone when thinking of a ‘dark horse’… They haven’t made the NCAA tournament since 2007, finishing 17-12-1 last season (includes postseason), the most wins since 2015 when they went 20-7-1, I believe they’ll make a run for the title. Returning over 90% of production plus whatever transfers you bring in over the offseason is usually an incredible recipe for success. 10 seniors, only two juniors, but lots of experience. Keep an eye on River Falls on both the men’s & women’s sides this season…
It’s tough to name multiple dark horses when you’ve got a six-team league that’s extremely competitive… Beloit needs time, this isn’t the year to consider them in that category just yet.
Final Thoughts
Overall, I love this league and everything about it. It only has six teams on the men’s side, five on the women’s (no UW-Stout for women), but it’s simply a battle every night and these rivalries are all so much fun to watch as a viewer.
There isn’t necessarily a ‘favorite’ considering what everyone loses, but I’d lean Stevens Point simply off of consistency in recent times. Superior has the tools, they just need to do it again and build off of what they made of last season, minus the ending. Eau Claire was a weird team last season, lots of moving parts in and out of the transfer portal, Division I transfers coming in and leaving, too much noise and ultimately whether they want to hear it or not, I believe they cost them at times. Granted, they found a way to win the league at the end of the day, but a 14-16-1 record, the first below .500 record for the Blugolds since 2010, I’m going to toss out an assumption and say it’s likely unacceptable and they wouldn’t want to duplicate the record this season.
The last comment I’ll make about a team is UW-Stout, the Blue Devils haven’t made an NCAA tournament since 2009 (2008 was the only other NCAA tournament appearance in program history), but they’re always great for a random top-ranked non-conference win or a few big WIAC wins here and there. They had a great 2023 season, finishing 17-11-1, the most wins since that 2009 season, but the past two seasons have finished slightly below .500. Watch out for Stout at home, they always seem to win a few shockers.
Like the MIAC, it’ll be a shame seeing the WIAC charge money to see the playoffs, the casual viewers won’t get to experience playoff hockey in two of the best leagues D-III has to offer.
