The first 10 games of the University of Denver hockey team’s schedule next season is beyond tough. Difficult is an understatement.
Try brutal.
“It’s as good as it gets, no question about it,” DU coach George Gwozdecky said Tuesday.
The Pioneers’ first eight games are against big-name programs that qualified for the NCAA Tournament in March. DU opens Oct. 8 at Vermont to begin a two-game series against the Catamounts, then hosts two-game sets against NCAA champion Boston College and national runner-up Wisconsin. DU will play twice at North Dakota before concluding the 10-game stretch with a home-and-home series against Front Range archrival Colorado College.
Five games at home, five on the road. If DU were to go 5-5, it probably would be deemed a success for a program that lost only 10 of its 41 games last season.
“We’ve got two powerhouse teams from Hockey East and then we start our own league schedule against three of the top teams,” Gwozdecky said. “It just gets more and more challenging. It’s a pretty good start to see exactly where we’re at.”
The Denver Cup — traditionally played during the first weekend after Christmas — is now scheduled during Thanksgiving weekend, Nov. 26-27. Gwozdecky said the change was made for a handful of reasons, including giving DU students the opportunity to attend the games just as first-quarter finals are ending.
“Also part of it was giving us a better opportunity to try to schedule a competitive field,” he said. “We were really running out of teams at Christmas, because so many people were running their own tournaments.”
The Pioneers will play Lake Superior State and Air Force in the points-based Denver Cup, which is no longer a tournament format. Clarkson also is in the mix.
Mike Chambers: 303-954-1357 or mchambers@denverpost.com
