We are still likely a few weeks at best from the official release of the Northeastern hockey schedule for the 2026-27 season, but between the releases by other teams as well as College Hockey News’ schedule tab seemingly having the whole schedule already loaded into it, we now know what the Huskies’ season will look like.
For the first time in their 95-year history, Northeastern is slated to play essentially all of their games on the road, with no true “home” rink to call their own as we are in the intermediary period between the demolition of Matthews Arena and building of the new multi-purpose facility that will replace it. That arena is scheduled for opening in Fall 2028 and as far as we have heard they are on pace to meet that goal.
As things stand, there are only three games on the CHN schedule marked as a Northeastern “home” game: October 30th against BC, November 13th against UConn, and March 6th against BC. CHN’s schedule did have a mark on the October game indicating that it will be played at BC’s Conte Forum, which has since been removed. As of now we expect the November UConn game to be played either at Toscano Family Ice Forum in Storrs or the XL Center in Hartford. Add in the two Beanpot games at TD Garden, and a 30+ true road game schedule is unheard of in the history of college hockey, surpassing the 26-game schedule played by Arizona State in 2020-21. We will touch on the potential impacts and implications of that later in this piece.
Conference Games
But first, the games themselves. As always, they will have 24 Hockey East games. For the second straight season, they will play three conference games against Boston University, Boston College, Connecticut, and UMass-Amherst. Most of the conference weekends are mirrors of last season. In January, they will be making the trip to Burlington, Vermont to play the Catamounts at Gutterson Fieldhouse for the third straight year. In late February 2027 they will be making their first trip to play Maine at Alfond Arena since a single game in Orono in January 2025. In a new wrinkle, most Hockey East teams this year will end the season with two games back to back against different opponents. NU will play theirs against the two Comm Ave schools.
For the first time since the 2015-16 season they will not play a game the Friday before the first round of the Beanpot. October 16th will be the first conference game, against UMass-Amherst, which is also paired with a Saturday non-conference game with the Minutemen, a knock-on effect from when AIC dropped down from Division 1 hockey and left both teams with a schedule gap last season.
Non-Conference Games
The Huskies will not play a game or exhibition the opening weekend of the season for the first time since 2019-20, instead opening their season October 10 against Bentley. The Huskies hold a 8-5-2 record against the Falcons, but have yet to get a win on the road, holding a 0-2-2 record between Bentley Arena and the John A. Ryan Skating Arena. After the UMA series they will have an exhibition game against Harvard at Bright-Landry Hockey Center, returning the favor after the Crimson came to Matthews Arena one last time for an exhibition last October. It will also be the first game action for new Harvard head coach Rob Rassey, as the Northeastern alum took over the bench boss job from Ted Donato this offseason.
November sees five non-conference games, starting with a trip to Worcester to play the Holy Cross Crusaders November 7th. Northeastern holds a 8-2-1 record all time against Holy Cross, and defeated them in the season opener last year 6-4. It is the first time Northeastern has traveled to Holy Cross since 2013, not including a matchup at the DCU Center during the 2021 Icebreaker tournament. Two weeks later, they will head to Warrior Ice Arena, the practice arena for the NHL’s Boston Bruins, for the first time, taking on Stonehill College for two games. Northeastern is 4-0 since Stonehill went Division 1, and playing at Warrior offers a really unique opportunity for the players to experience an NHL-adjacent setting outside the Beanpot and a great venue for fans to come and see the Huskies in Boston. Warrior was our first choice to be the Huskies’ home during this period of homelessness, but for multiple reasons it was not to be. Very excited for this series.
Ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday, the Huskies will play non-conference games against two Ivy League foes, traveling to Providence to play Brown on Tuesday November 24th and then up to Hanover, NH to play Dartmouth on Sunday November 29th. Northeastern and Brown have a long history on and off the ice; Brown was Northeastern’s first opponent as a varsity program back in 1930. Northeastern is 29-48-2 all time against the Bears, but have won each of the last four meetings. Dartmouth is on the schedule for the first time since 2019 and they will meet in Hanover for the first time since 2013. Dartmouth is coming off their best season in decades, climbing into the national top 10 rankings and likely will be picked in preseason polls to be in a similar range, and likely the second-best team in the ECAC. Outside the Beanpot, this is likely the biggest matchup for Northeastern on paper, featuring multiple NHL prospects and a Richter Award-caliber goalie. The Big Green have not beaten the Huskies since 1992, so they will have a chance for some history. Northeastern is 27-31-1 all time against Dartmouth and the last matchup in Hanover was an exhilarating 8-8 contest in December 2013.
The last non-Beanpot game for the Huskies’ non-conference slate is Long Island University over New Year’s Weekend, playing on January 2nd, offering the team and fans alike a chance to head to New York City for some tourism festivities. Northeastern is 4-0 against LIU in their short history, with the last two games needing overtime to secure the Huskies’ win, and the last game in December 2022 also being played at Northwell Health Ice Center. Really looking forward to making the trip down for the holiday and seeing some friends who live on Long Island.
And finally the non-conference schedule rounds out with the Beanpot. Northeastern opens up with Harvard in what will assuredly be the 5:00 puck drop early game on Feburary 1st. Northeastern has lost in the opening round and come in fourth place each of the last two tournaments after winning the Beanpot in 2023 and 2024, so the Huntington Hounds will certainly have to make it a priority to bring that 4-game losing streak to a halt.
Opinions and Thoughts
From an objective, bird’s-eye view of the schedule, there is every opportunity for Northeastern to succeed this season. By not playing a game in the opening weekend, and having an exhibition game in October, that’s opportunity for the team to gel quicker, and avoid a slow start to the year which has plagued the program before. When looking at the eight non-Beanpot games, there should be the expectation that Northeastern can compete against and beat all eight of those team, even Dartmouth, if they play their best game. And as always in the Beanpot, all it takes is winning one game to stem the tide of a Beanpot losing streak, and after that, it’s one game where anything can happen.
But let’s be quite frank- there is an elephant in the room here. The fact that the schedule, as it presents as of this writing, shows three “home” dates is really tough to defend, and even tougher to stomach as a fan of the program. We all knew it was never going to be an easy transition between arenas- it was going to be a majority road schedule and playing a single home game beyond the 12 that Hockey East schedules was likely out of the question- but there was a level of expectation among fanbase that the school would find ice time for their two teams to play in the half-dozen rinks in the Greater Boston Area. Even discounting Warrior Arena as an option, between Walter Brown Arena, Agganis Arena, Conte Forum, Bentley Arena, Bright-Landry Hockey Center, and the Tsongas Center, fans thought they’d have something of a home base to center around with some kind of regularity to watch their beloved Huskies, even if it wasn’t often on Friday and Saturday at 7 PM. Instead, public communication from Northeastern’s Athletics department as a whole has been nonexistent, and it seems a decision was silently made after the brief run of local dates in Spring 2026 to play out the games this season as true road games.
This fan expectation was not borne out of imagination. There is historical precedent for schools in the area to take advantage of the wealth of options available, as Harvard and Boston College both played out their home dates at nearby arenas, including Matthews and Walter Brown, while Conte and Bright-Landry were being constructed. This was reinforced when the Spring 2026 schedule was not released until well after the season was underway and had dates for nearly every conference “home” game to be played at Bright-Landry, Walter Brown, or the Tsongas Center. Even after some of those games did not come to fruition, the team was able to use Conte Forum to host their playoff game, and after that game- played in front of a couple of hundred people on a Wednesday Night in Newton- fellow blog writer Mike Downie called the experience “the closest it’s felt like home” since Matthews Arena closed and a reason to hope for the next two years. These “home” games, as underwhelming as they can be, still make a difference to the fanbase.
Now, mathematically, there’s a massive benefit to the road schedule- road game victories carry a bigger bump in the NPI than home victories do, and the opposite applies for losses, so if Northeastern wins the bulk of their games this year, they’ll climb in the NPI ranking higher and faster than they otherwise would have if games were “at home.” And frankly, considering the relatively sparse crowd that was likely at many of the “home” games compared to true home games, and the lack of relief NU was going to receive in the NPI for not actually having a home, you could even argue that this decision is sensible from a sporting perspective. But this is not a standalone value-maximizing math problem. This is sports team representing a college and representative of the entire surrounding community as their signature athletic program. Northeastern has proudly enjoyed and championed one of the best student atmospheres in college hockey and a loyal group of alumni and local followers.
From a fan perspective, one of the biggest goals of this transition was to keep together enough of a connection that the DogHouse and overall fan experience of 2025 lives on in 2028, as much as possible considering the circumstances. This approach from Northeastern has games that could have been “home” somewhere instead taking place in New Hampshire, Amherst, Vermont, and likely Connecticut- places that are too distant to reasonably travel to on a weekly basis and not nearly as accessible as arenas around the city- and it will unfortunately lead to much less fanfare for the Huskies in these games, particularly among the students still at Northeastern who desperately want to watch and cheer for their team. Sure, there will still be a group of people that go no matter what. I myself will certainly be among them, with plans to once again attend over 80% of games next season. But consistent turnout and support from the general fan populace, student body, and continuation of the part of the Northeastern Men’s hockey culture that goes beyond the locker room will be much harder to achieve than it otherwise could have been.
It’s especially jarring when comparing to the Northeastern Women’s Hockey team’s schedule, per CHN they have 12 games marked as “home” games. Those games might be at any of the arenas listed above (we’d heard offseason rumors of Bentley Arena games, and last year they played at Walter Brown often), but you can rest assured that students will turn up more regularly at those locations more than trekking to UNH, UMA, or UVM. This will especially be the case if the athletic department promotes them as home games, encourages students to prioritize them, but even if they don’t, it’s impossible to put a value on the mental difference for people making plans to attend a game when they can point to even a handful of default “home” games and say “these are the ones that me and my people will attend and this will still be a community experience” instead of being confronted with a list of 30 road games and being left to their own devices to decide which one, if any, are the ones they should prioritize within that sea or if they can count on seeing any friends at all there. Ultimately, this makes it incredibly easy for people to check out entirely for the next two years, and maybe never check back in.
That is the real concern for both of us here at NUHB- the long-term payoff of both fan and student support when the new arena does come to fruition. If there’s a lack of connection to a team for 2+ years because of an inability to see them in person, how much less likely are students and recent alumni, especially those who enroll or graduate between 2026 and 2028, to come back with the same fervor when the new on-campus arena is done? It’s a fair question. At Matthews, we sat with alumni who have been going to games for 10-25 years, some who went to every single game home or road while students, but have minimal plans to travel around New England to watch their team when they can stay home and watch on ESPN+, if they watch at all. We know young alumni and students who have said they’ll probably just go to whatever game is closest to them geographically. Once these students graduate, are they more apt to donate and support the teams that they barely saw in person? These are hypotheticals, but it’s something we’ve been discussing in alumni circles all summer. People follow the news and see where games will and won’t be played. They see a lack of information, a lack of communication. Fans notice these things, especially ones that have been around for decades.
Ultimately, winning can cure all ills. If Northeastern comes out on fire in the first half, people will make a greater attempt to come see the team if they can make the drive. And that extends into the 2027-28 season as well- if the team succeeds and does well, you can expect people to continue putting forth the greater efforts to come see them ahead of the new arena. They’ve won 17, 14, and 17 games each of the last three seasons, so fans are anxious to return to regular winning ways. They’d just like to be there to see the winning more in person too.
Less than one month before students enroll for Fall semester and we have the team skating in their first practices at Boch Ice Center, and less than two months before the Huskies start their season in Waltham against Bentley. It’s been a long summer, but the weather seems to be cooling a bit harkening to the Fall and Winter days ahead.
As always, go Huskies!