Curry College vs University of New England (Photo via Curry College Athletics)
To begin our season previews as the 2025-2026 Men’s & Women’s Division III hockey regular season creeps upon us. We’ll begin with the Conference of New England (CNE) and preview the men’s side of things.
We’ll discuss various aspects of this league including returning production, dark horses, and some general analysis!
The CNE features:
Curry
Endicott
Johnson & Wales
Nichols
Roger Williams (Inaugural season)
Suffolk
University of New England
Wentworth
Western New England
2024-2025 Overview
Last season, we saw Curry (25-4-0) continue their newly found greatness under COTY (coach of the year) winner Peter Roundy, making their third straight NCAA tournament, making their first ever Frozen Four appearance, & winning their first ever CNE title, while also continuing their success on the goaltender development side of things. In net, the Sid Watson winner Shane Soderwall led the Colonels to the NCAA semifinals, now, taking his talents to Clarkson (NCAA D-I) where he recently got a huge win over former #4 Penn State, who features the future #1 overall NHL draft pick Gavin McKenna.
The success of Soderwall follows the recent success of former goalie Reid Cooper, Cooper received a tryout with the NHL’s Washington Capitals where he got to do the famous “rookie lap” prior to the game.
Also, coming out of the CNE was the University of New England (18-8-1), led by their elite Head Coach Kevin Swallow. The Nor’Easters made their third NCAA tournament in the last four years, falling to the NESCAC winner Hamilton (21-7-1) 4-2 in the first round of the NCAA tournament.
Overall, the CNE had another great year from their ‘big three’ at the top with the departure of Salve Regina for the NEHC. Curry, Univ. New England, & Endicott all finishing ranked to end the season with another multi-bid year for the conference.
Returning Production
It’s hard to bet against Curry after the streak they’ve been on, but will they have another stud in net? There’s big shoes to fill as the last two have certainly shown their skills at the higher levels.
Looking at the league and the returning production via our guy Scott Huston, two teams really stand out from the rest:
Curry returns 76.07% of their goal-scoring, 81.15% of their assists, & 79.55% of their total points. UNE returns 75% of their goals, 83.61% of their assists, & 80.34% of their points.
In this day and age of college hockey and college sports across the board, it’s becoming harder and harder to retain your production and talent year-after-year. These two teams should be in a good spot out of the gate as they can add some transfers to their already solid base of players coming back. They aren’t the highest-percentages for the league in the category of returning production, but considering their respective successes last season, having this much talent coming back is massive.
Endicott Men’s Hockey (Photo by David Le, Endicott College)
On the other side of the spectrum in terms of the top teams returning talent, we have Endicott, who returns just 44.23% of their goals, 46.75% of assists, & 45.79% of their point production. As we’ve seen the past few years, Head Coach R.J. Tolan has seemingly gone the route some have tried, but never mastered as of yet. Loading up on Division-I talent and seeing what happens. Last season, the Gulls had eight D-I transfers on the roster and seven during ’23-’24. Teams such as Oswego, Utica, & Wisconsin-Eau Claire to name a few, have seemingly tried this method in the past and we haven’t seen them achieve that ultimate goal of winning a national championship doing so (yes, I’m aware Oswego ’07 & UWEC ’13 won titles, but I’m referring specifically to this method of recruiting/roster building).
I’m by no means saying this won’t work, we see now with the CHL ruling that it’s a basic reality more D-I players will sprinkle into D-III, but I’m simply pointing out that Endicott is a team in particular, that’s had some of the most D-I transfers at once and will again return very little production.
Interestingly enough, the team returning the most production of anyone is the Rams of Suffolk. They’ll return 96.55% of goals, 89.80% of assists, & 92.31% of points. The team returning the least is Nichols, only returning 37.88% of goals, 41.82% of assists, & 40.34% of points.
Once again, I reiterate returning production isn’t everything, especially in this new age of college hockey, but it’ll always mean something and in most cases, never be considered a negative.
Dark Horses
Every year it seems there’s a dark horse or two coming out of a league or someone making some unexpected noise with a few wins some may not have foreseen in the preseason. The CNE has been very top-heavy in years past, as mentioned the ‘big three’ and previous ‘big four’ (including Salve Regina) were usually the main contenders.
This season I think we’ll see Suffolk win a few more games than some may expect. Again, looking back on their returning production numbers, they’re gonna be an experienced team and I would like to think they can pull off an upset win and/or tie here and there, putting themselves in at least the fourth spot in the league, maybe challenge for third. I can’t see them getting past the top three during the regular season simply because of how strong those teams have been, they’ll need to prove they can play with those teams night-in and night-out, but I won’t be shocked if they pull an upset in the league playoffs or split a few weekends.
Suffolk Men’s Hockey vs Nichols College. (Photo via Suffolk.edu)
Head Coach Shawn McEachern enters his third season at the helm of the Rams with a career record of 24-46-7. Despite his record, he improved this program mightily last season, winning 10+ games for the first time since 2015-16 and the most wins (13) since that 2015-16 season. Historically, Suffolk hasn’t been a main player as they haven’t made an NCAA tournament, nor won a league title regular season/postseason, but expect more from them now and especially going into this season.
Simply put, the other teams outside of Suffolk have not shown enough in recent history and the now for me to put them as a ‘dark horse’, but depending how this season goes, maybe we can consider them for next year. We will need to see how it all plays out.
Final Thoughts
My final thoughts on the Conference of New England are that it’ll continue to be a top conference in Division III men’s hockey and there’s lots of reasons to be intrigued for this upcoming season. Curry will be without their star goaltender unless they have another one in waiting, UNE returns a lot and has acquired a D-I transfer from Northeastern, senior goaltender Harrison Chesney. The Nor’Easters had some goaltender struggles last season, with both netminders splitting time. Despite their above .500 records, too often, the play simply was not up to the standard of play HC Kevin Swallow has built at Univ. New England.
I truly don’t see a world where this league doesn’t earn multiple bids again, I would guess two, three would be a challenge, but it’s possible. The prediction of a winner is a complete wildcard, the three teams Curry, Endicott, & Univ. New England are all a toss up it seems like once they take the ice against one another. All providing great home atmospheres during rivalry games and playoff times.
The one new look in this league we’ll see this year is Roger Williams University, you can read our Men’s Conference Realignment article to learn the whole story. Returning next season is former member Salve Regina, but until then, we’ll have another great season of hockey from this fun conference!
