St. Norbert goes 0-2 in the Panther/Cardinal Classic. (Photo by Nathanael LePage)

Our season previews continue as the 2025-2026 Men’s & Women’s Division III hockey regular season nears closer. Today, we look at the Women’s side of the Northern Collegiate Hockey Association (NCHA).

The NCHA features:

Adrian
Aurora
Concordia-Wisconsin
Dubuque
Lake Forest
Lawrence
Marian
Milwaukee School of Engineering
St. Norbert
Trine

2024-2025 Overview

Last season St. Norbert overtook Adrian who has ran the league for the recent past. Dating back to 2016, Adrian’s won eight of the last ten conference titles, including a streak of six in a row. St. Norbert won their second NCHA title in program history, the last time being 2013 under now Keene State Women’s Hockey Head Coach Rob Morgan. HC A.J. Aitken has improved his squad every year and he said on our podcast they’ve been building for a while and last year was the year they made that jump to the next level.

The Green Knights finished the season 25-5-1, defeating Gustavus on the road 3-1, but fell to Augsburg on the road in the quarterfinals.

The Bulldogs missed out on the NCAA tournament where they’ve found to be a common landing spot for them. They’ve made it seven times in the last ten seasons. HC Chad Davis in his first season back in Michigan since 2018 had a solid record of 23-4-2, but what hurt their NPI horribly was their opening night 1-0 OT loss to SUNY Canton led by HC Kalie Hart, a former Adrian assistant coach. To go along with it, a tie vs MSOE who finished the season 4-19-2.

Concordia Wisconsin Women’s Hockey. (Photo via Concordia University Wisconsin Athletics)

A team who made a massive improvement last season was Concordia (Wis.) led by HC Steve Fabiilli. The Falcons went 20-7-1, the most wins in program history, the previous program-high was 14, which was achieved in 2023. The Falcons quietly put together a phenomenal season, at one point achieving a record of 15-2-0, but would finish the season 5-5-1 in their last 11 games including playoffs.

Returning Production

The most eye-opening returning production number from the NCHA is Adrian, the Bulldogs return a mere 35.75% of points as they had 10 seniors, including six fifth-year seniors. Plus, with Riley Johnson entering / exiting the transfer portal, Annie Gilbert entering the portal, it’s even lower as Johnson put up 47 points last season… Adrian will be a solid team, but losing that many players and production totals is very tough to overcome.

The other major player, St. Norbert, also returns a low amount of production as they lost most notably the Hogan sisters. The Green Knights return 52% of production, but they return their star sophomore goalie Keira Markell who led them last season.

The highest returning production is Milwaukee School of Engineering which makes sense with it being their 2nd season as a program under Head Coach Baylee Marabella. The Raiders went 4-19-2 as mentioned earlier, but one of their ties was against Adrian which is a huge step for a young program on many levels.

The next closest is a tie between Aurora and Dubuque with about 65% in total returning production, which shows how hard the league was hit by graduation / transfers as most teams lost tons of production. We will see many new faces in the NCHA this season.

Dark Horses

The dark horse I’d say in this league is Concordia (Wis.) as mentioned. I think they’ll keep improving upon what they’re building, including their 20-win season last year.

Lake Forest under their new Head Coach Amy Budde who enters her second year at the helm of the Foresters, finishing 13-12-3 last season could possibly pull off an upset of an Adrian or St. Norbert during the regular season, maybe rack up enough wins to earn the 3-seed in the Slaats Cup.

It’s tough to pick a dark horse other than these two, the rest need more time and St. Norbert, the defending champs, and Adrian, the decade of dominance, have simply been too good for the rest of the league as of late. Concordia and Lake Forest I see as the only two who can really keep up this year with the top and it’ll be intriguing to see if we see many upsets due to that huge turnover of players on nearly all teams in this league.

Final Thoughts

My final thoughts on this league are that it’s hard to pick against Adrian due to their recent success, but with the current transfer portal issues / returning only ~36% of production, St. Norbert would open as the early favorite, but you never know. The 2025–26 NCHA women’s season sets up to be one of the most intriguing in recent memory. With both St. Norbert and Adrian losing key talent and production, the gap between the league’s top programs and the rest may finally narrow. Concordia (Wis.) looks poised to build on its record-setting year, while Lake Forest could emerge as a legitimate contender under HC Amy Budde. Expect a competitive, unpredictable season defined by balance, depth, and the emergence of new stars across the conference.