The old saying that “the only thing constant is change” certainly rings true with the turmoil that the Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (WIAC) has weathered this past spring. With the closure after 133 years of the venerable Northland College in Ashland, WI last May, the WIAC dropped down to five academic institutions playing both men’s and women’s ice hockey as conference members.
Unfortunately, this left the WIAC in an unenviable position due to NCAA rules requiring six schools per conference in order to receive an automatic bid to the NCAA DIII Hockey tournament. Without a sixth conference member, the WIAC appeared to be a non-entity so to speak in terms of DIII college hockey. In addition, dropping down to only five conference members means that the WIAC would be relegated to an “at-large” postseason bid which could easily jeopardize any future NCAA hockey tournament participation for the conference as a whole.
Beloit College joins the WIAC for 2025-26
As the sad saga of the Northland College closure sank in to Lumberjack and Lumberjill hockey players, the grander scale of this college closure threatened the existence of the WIAC as a viable college hockey conference. While it may belabor the point to use another old saying, “as one door closes, another door opens” for Beloit College, a unique opportunity sparked the revitalization of the WIAC for the upcoming hockey season and created a chance to expand the Beloit Buccaneer collective athletic footprint.
While the former Northland College men’s and women’s hockey programs were contemplating new playing and academic homes, Beloit College saw an opportunity to both assist two disenfranchised athletic programs and expand the sport of collegiate ice hockey to southern Wisconsin. By adding ice hockey at the NCAA DIII level, Beloit College will join the ranks of the WIAC this season as an associate member and insure that this conference will have six academic institutions represented, therefore ensuring another automatic NCAA postseason bid for the conference.
In addition, all Northland college hockey players and coaches were formally invited to transfer to Beloit College and to date, nearly 50 players utilized this offer to continue their academic endeavors and collegiate hockey careers. All of the former Northland College players, both men and women, have sacrificed for many years just to be able to play college hockey and the chance to continue playing at Beloit College seems almost too good to be true. For the Beloit Buccaneers, they will inherit two experienced hockey programs and create an anchor for future recruiting purposes. In addition, Beloit College can now target club and interscholastic programs in southern Wisconsin and northern Illinois and openly “sell” potential players to continue their hockey careers locally.
Beloit College faces challenging times with recent coaching changes
While the initial offer to inherit the entire Northland College men’s and women’s programs including their respective coaching staffs seemed to be a boon for Beloit College, the challenges of keeping coaches with the new programs have provided more than its own drama for the burgeoning Beloit hockey teams. Former Northland College men’s head coach Shane Buckley is fully on board with his new confines in Beloit, WI and provides the emotional and analytical stability that Beloit College hockey will need this season. The former high school hockey coach served two full seasons at Northland and knows not only his players but the WIAC as well and both programs will no doubt look to him for leadership and guidance.
Women’s head coach Jake Bobrowski makes a sudden move, leaves Beloit this past week
Northland College women’s head coach Jake Bobrowski was on course to inherit his new program at Beloit this season as well and followed the Lumberjill transfers from Northland down to southern Wisconsin. However, anyone vaguely familiar with the coaching profession, both at the interscholastic and Intercollegiate levels, knows that coaches move around suddenly and unexpectedly. Jake Bobrowski is a former police officer who served on the coaching staff at Hamline University from 2016-21 and when the women’s head coaching position at Hamline suddenly opened up in recent weeks, Bobrowski accepted an opportunity to return to Hamline and the Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan area.
For Beloit College, the additional challenge of finding a new women’s head coach just as the fall semester begins and hockey season is around the corner potentially spelled disaster for the Buccaneer’s women’s hockey season before it even begins. However, luck would have it that Kelly Millins was hired as the interim head coach just this week and the Elmira College graduate and former player brings coaching experience to the table with a former stint at Wilkes University including an NCAA postseason appearance.
What can be expected of Beloit College this season?
The answer to that question will be left up to the coaching staffs and players of the respective hockey programs in their new confines at Beloit College. While Northland College went through a challenging 2024-25 season culminating in the institution’s formal closure last spring, hockey players and hockey coaches will be players and coaches regardless of where they’re playing and coaching. Beloit College hockey will no doubt face growing pains but the sheer excitement of adding two new Intercollegiate sports, along with expanding the school’s NCAA visibility will reap this liberal arts school with potential dividends for many years down the road.
