{"id":151677,"date":"2025-03-05T14:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-03-05T20:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/?p=151677"},"modified":"2025-03-04T18:58:04","modified_gmt":"2025-03-05T00:58:04","slug":"this-week-in-nchc-hockey-claiming-its-first-penrose-cup-western-michigan-finding-success-heading-to-playoffs-with-a-consistency-of-play-and-competitiveness-of-our-players","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/2025\/03\/05\/this-week-in-nchc-hockey-claiming-its-first-penrose-cup-western-michigan-finding-success-heading-to-playoffs-with-a-consistency-of-play-and-competitiveness-of-our-players\/","title":{"rendered":"This Week in NCHC Hockey: Claiming its first Penrose Cup, Western Michigan finding success heading to playoffs with ‘a consistency of play and competitiveness of our players’"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
Western Michigan captain Tim Washe accepts the Penrose Cup from NCHC commissioner Heather Weems last Friday (photo: Ashley Huss).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Winning its first-ever regular-season conference title in program history last Friday wasn\u2019t just satisfying for Western Michigan on a surface level.<\/p>\n

The Broncos were already well aware of what the Penrose Cup looked like ahead of WMU\u2019s 6-4 win Friday against North Dakota, which saw Western lock up the NCHC regular season title with three games to spare.<\/p>\n

In the 12 years since NCHC play began, and with WMU a member school all that time, the Broncos had been in the same building several times as that massive silver chalice. Until last week, though, they had never put their mitts on it.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve been on the other side of it at least two or three times with North Dakota, and once with Denver so we\u2019ve been in the building when it\u2019s been presented many times,\u201d WMU coach Pat Ferschweiler said. \u201cThis is the first time it\u2019s been presented to us, and it\u2019s a cooler feeling.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe numbers were working in our favor as we crept through the back half of the season here, and we\u2019ve been able to get points in every game but one, 21 of 22 games in the league, which in this league is absolutely remarkable.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt certainly shows a consistency of play and competitiveness of our players, and with two games in hand, we wanted to close it out at home, and I couldn\u2019t be happier for this group of young men,\u201d Ferschweiler continued. \u201cThey\u2019re a dream to coach, they love coming to the rink and they love to work real hard.\u201d<\/p>\n

Two power-play goals, and six all told from six different players, helped WMU take Friday\u2019s series opener with a North Dakota team firmly on the NCAA tournament bubble. To that end, the Fighting Hawks did themselves a favor in winning Saturday\u2019s game, 4-3 in overtime.<\/p>\n

A lot of people were wrong on WMU this season. The Broncos were picked sixth in the NCHC\u2019s preseason poll. Whoops. They opened league play 6-0-1 and, by and large, kept rolling. Two wins this weekend against Miami, plus a good NCHC postseason run, could help the Broncos tie up a No. 1 regional seed for the NCAA tournament. But, first thing\u2019s first.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re approaching Friday\u2019s game as our most important game of the year,\u201d Ferschweiler said of WMU\u2019s road series this weekend with Miami. \u201cWe do that every game, and we\u2019ll stick with that.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a stated goal from the start of the year to get better every day, and we\u2019re certainly not a perfect team but we\u2019re working on improving. We\u2019ve had two fantastic days of practice this week, and I\u2019m looking forward to us being on top for our series at Miami.\u201d<\/p>\n

And once that series is out of the way, Ferschweiler\u2019s team will turn its attention to the back half of what it wants to accomplish this season.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a chance to play for four championships,\u201d he said. \u201cFirst was the Great Lakes Invitational, and we lost in the championship game, and the second is the regular season (conference title), and we were able to win that, and that\u2019s great but there\u2019s two more championships to compete for: the (NCHC) Frozen Faceoff and hopefully the NCAA tournament.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re going to take them one by one, we\u2019re going to go one day at a time, and we have a real mature group that doesn\u2019t get ahead of themselves, and they don\u2019t look back. They rip off the rear-view mirror and stare out the windshield.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Winning its first-ever regular-season conference title in program history last Friday wasn\u2019t just satisfying for Western Michigan on a surface level. The Broncos were already well aware of what the Penrose Cup looked like ahead of WMU\u2019s 6-4 win Friday against North Dakota, which saw Western lock up the NCHC regular season title with three […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":89,"featured_media":151678,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[812],"coauthors":[810],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThis Week in NCHC Hockey: Claiming its first Penrose Cup, Western Michigan finding success heading to playoffs with 'a consistency of play and competitiveness of our players' - College Hockey | USCHO.com<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Winning its first-ever regular-season conference title in program history last Friday wasn\u2019t just satisfying for Western Michigan on a surface level. 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