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REAGAN COTTON
MSU News Service
BOZEMAN — For the fourth consecutive year, the Montana State men’s hockey club will play in the American Collegiate Hockey Association’s Division 2 national tournament.
The team will travel to St. Louis, where the tournament will be held March 14-18 at the Centene Community Ice Center. All games will be streamed live on FloHockey at flohockey.tv, which requires a subscription.
The Bobcats bring a 37-3-2 record into the tournament, along with the top seed out of the West region, which comprises more than 45 schools. The No. 1 seed means that MSU earned an automatic bid to the national tournament, bypassing the regional tournament. This year is the third in a row that MSU has been the West’s top seed.
While the automatic berth to nationals is a relief, the club’s head coach Dave Weaver said it presents a unique challenge of remaining composed and energized over a month-long break between the end of the regular season and the tournament.
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“How do you keep the guys at that top level for a month without seeing a different opponent? It’s almost like preseason,” Weaver said. “But this group is so experienced. You can’t mimic nationals until you’re there, and if you’ve been there, you know what it feels like. They know, and they’ll teach the guys who haven’t been there.”
Both players and coaches are preparing for a grueling schedule: five games in as many days to win a national title. The ACHA tournament begins with pool play, where each of the 16 qualified teams play three games to determine who advances to the tournament’s Final Four. Last year, the Bobcats won two of their three pool games, but it wasn’t enough to advance deeper into the tournament.
According to Weaver, more than a dozen players on the team have now been to multiple national tournaments. Starting goaltender and team captain Jorgen Johnson, for instance, will make his fourth trip to nationals since he arrived at MSU in 2022.
“It’s the top 16 teams in the country, so the tempo of every game is high,” said Johnson, a senior studying industrial technology. “The approach is huge for us: not putting one game ahead of another or looking beyond a team or a game. It’s a bit of a marathon, three games, hoping for five. That’s a lot at this level.”
All three of MSU’s pool play opponents are teams they have not yet faced this season: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Ohio University and the University of Wisconsin. The coaching staff has been scouting potential opponents for months, including those on the other side of the bracket that the Bobcats may face in the Final Four.
The Cats began their season with an 11-game winning streak in which they outscored their opponents 64-9, and the regular season ended earlier in February with a 6-0 shutout of the rival Montana Grizzlies. It was a senior night celebration in which Johnson’s No. 54 jersey was retired by the hockey program. One of the top goalies in the nation, Johnson has allowed the fewest goals of any Division 2 goalie playing more than 20 games this season. His 95.4% save rate leads the country.
Heading into a long break of preparation for nationals, Johnson said he couldn’t have written a better script.
“It’s kind of hard to put into words,” he said. “That’s the highest honor in the hockey world, but just to know that I’ve been a part of the success here and the overall success of the program, it just means a lot. The community coming out and supporting us gives it that much more of a special feel. It takes a village, and they show up for us year after year. And it’s not something that’s lost on us.”
The times and opponents for MSU’s pool play games are listed below and a full schedule of all 24 pool play games can be found on the ACHA website. Should they advance, the Bobcats will play in the Final Four on March 17 and 18.
Hockey is not an NCAA sport at MSU; instead, it is a club program. The team holds fundraisers throughout the year to support its long season and started a GoFundMe campaign to help raise the roughly $48,000 needed for transportation and lodging for the weeklong trip to Missouri.
On this fourth consecutive trip to the national tournament, Weaver said the fact that community support has never wavered is a testament to the strength of support from both MSU and Bozeman for their hockey players.
“It honestly is tremendous, and it always makes me step back and just think about how much appreciation I have,” Weaver said. “They truly do care about what interests their students and their athletes, they care about your successes and they want to help. When a need comes like a national trip, they have always stepped up, and we just can’t do it without them. I can’t thank them enough.”
ACHA Championship Schedule
The Bobcat men’s hockey team will play three games in the pool play round of the ACHA National Tournament. All times are Mountain time. Up-to-date information and game results can be found on the ACHA website.
Game 1: Friday, March 14, at 7:15 p.m. against Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Game 2: Saturday, March 15, at 4:15 p.m. against Ohio University
Game 3: Sunday, March 16, at 7 p.m. against the University of Wisconsin
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