D3: What to Watch, Thanksgiving 2024 and After

This holiday weekend, a couple of D3 tournaments will feature high profile teams and regional crossovers. Games between eastern and western teams are particularly important throughout D3 because they’re scarce. These few crossover games play an outsized role in setting the strength of schedule (SOS) of all the D3 teams, as SOS looks at the records of not just every team’s opponents but their opponents’ opponents. One crossover game can therefore have far-reaching consequences. SOS, in turn, is the backbone of the NCAA Power Index (NPI), which is used to select and seed the teams in the NCAA tournament: SOS itself is a factor, and it also determines what constitutes a quality win over another team. 

Tournaments often have sponsors who can help defray travel costs, thus enabling more distant teams to participate without blowing their budgets. This helps all D3 hockey, because more crossover games means more data to give a more accurate measurement of SOS for everyone.

The two tournaments I’ll be watching most closely this weekend are the Sunshine Turkey Classic in Tampa, and the Cardinal/Panther Classic in Plattsburgh.

Cardinal/Panther Classic

The Cardinal/Panther Classic is perhaps the longest-running D3 midseason tournament. The name of the tournament and its timing have fluctuated over the years, but a tournament featuring the Middlebury College Panthers and the Plattsburgh State Cardinals, along with two guest teams, has been played every season since 2005–2006. (There was no tournament in 2020-2021, when the season was cancelled by COVID.) In most years, one of the guests has been a western team. Middlebury and Plattsburgh alternate as hosts, and this time, in the 19th year of the tournament, it’s Plattsburgh’s turn.

Going into the Thanksgiving weekend, Middlebury is 5-0 and ranked #3 in both the USCHO and DIIIHockeyNews polls as of 25 November. Plattsburgh is ranked #6 in both polls at 4-1-1, with the loss and tie both coming to ranked opponents. This year’s guests are also strong: Endicott College is 5-2 and received votes in both polls. St. Norbert represents the west, traveling in from De Pere, Wisconsin, and is undefeated at 8-0 and received votes but stands just out of the top 15 in both polls. 

Plattsburgh opens the tournament on Saturday afternoon against St. Norbert, while Middlebury faces off against Endicott that evening. On Sunday afternoon, the consolation game pits the losers against each other, and the champion will be crowned in the nightcap.

All games of the Cardinal/Panther Classic will be streamed, with the streams and live stats available from Plattsburgh’s schedule page.

Sunshine Turkey Classic

The Sunshine Turkey Classic is a rare bird in D3: not only does it feature both eastern and western teams, but it’s taking place at a neutral site in a nontraditional hockey city, far from any D3 team. This seems to be the first year for a D3 tournament in Tampa.

Norwich University, the tournament’s host, is 5-2, with both losses to ranked teams. The USCHO poll has Norwich at #13, while the DIIIHockeyNews poll places them at #12. Norwich opens the tournament on Friday afternoon against USCHO #8/DIIIHockeyNews #9 Utica University, 8-1, with its only loss to a team that received votes in both polls. The other opening round game features Trinity College and the western representative Adrian College. Trinity has opened the season at 5-0, #12 in the USCHO poll and tied for #13 in the DIIIHockeyNews poll. Adrian, in southeastern Michigan, is the easternmost team in the west region of D3 hockey and frequently travels east, especially if an opponent is willing to reciprocate in a subsequent season. Later this year, Adrian will make another trip east to play at Chatham University, the westernmost team in the east region. Adrian is currently ranked at #5 in both polls, with a record of 7-1 and the only loss in overtime.

The Sunshine Turkey Classic will close on Saturday, with a consolation game followed by a championship game.

As Norwich is the host, look there for streams of the games. As of this writing, it seems that all games will be available on Norwich’s YouTube channel.

Other Tournaments

There are also two lower profile tournaments over the holiday weekend. The Codfish Bowl, hosted by UMass Boston, is another long-running tournament. This year will be its 17th, with games on Saturday and Sunday. The other participating teams are Amherst College, Manhattanville University, and western representative St. Olaf College. Of these, only Amherst appears in the polls, at #4 in both. And the University of Dubuque hosts three other western teams on Friday and Saturday in the Mississippi Match-Up: the Milwaukee School of Engineering, in its first year, will play its first-ever tournament game against Dubuque, while St. Mary’s University will take on Lake Forest College. Of these teams, only St. Mary’s received votes in the polls, but did not crack the top 15 in either.

After the Weekend

Following the excitement of the holiday weekend and the tournaments, there’s a midweek game that could also be interesting. Utica will come home from Tampa and then travel to Middlebury for a Wednesday evening face-off. (No other team playing in a holiday tournament is scheduled to play before the weekend.) Middlebury will have a shorter journey home from Plattsburgh than any other visiting team at a tournament, but Middlebury will play on Sunday and have a day less rest than Utica. Both teams will have their legs tested!