DULUTH — Wisconsin coach Mark Johnson called it “the elephant in the room” last week during
“The perfect storm” might have been a better phrase to describe the timing of the 2026 Winter Olympics in Italy, which are hitting the WCHA at the same time the league deals with
ever-changing landscapes in both college athletics
and
Olympic seasons are nothing new for the WCHA, a league filled with past, present and future Olympians
from across the globe. However, the 2026 Winter Games include two new major wrinkles that will heavily impact the league in 2025-26.
The first is that USA Hockey and Hockey Canada are not centralizing their national and Olympic teams like they have done in the past. It’s no longer necessary with an elite professional women’s hockey league, the PWHL, now fully operational. The end of centralization for the U.S. and Canada comes with good news, and bad news, however.
Good news: Teams won’t lose top players for an entire season, like the Bulldogs did with Ashton Bell during the 2022 Olympics in Beijing or
Maddie Rooney in 2018 in PyeongChang.
Bad news: Those top players will still be gone for at least a month at the end of the season to compete in the Olympics, and they won’t get another year of NCAA eligibility back to replace that lost time.
Combine that with the second wrinkle of
26-player roster limits going into effect this season because of the House Settlement
— though some players were grandfathered in — and teams could find themselves with short benches at key points in the season.
Teams have already been working through a preseason in which stars are coming and going. The U.S., Canada and Europeans
in August and September, and all have come at different times. That could continue throughout the season.
Ohio State head coach Nadine Muzerall speaks during a press conference at the NCAA Women’s Frozen Four Championship game at Amsoil Arena on Sunday, March 19, 2023, in Duluth.
Clint Austin / File / Duluth News Tribune
“We’ve never really had to manage that,” Ohio State coach Nadine Muzerall said. “This is going to be the first year there is not a centralization for anybody. This will be new for all teams where our players from all over the world are being taken each month to train for their Olympic team. It’s going to be a new environment for everybody. It is what it is. We want them to represent their country.”
Ohio State, Minnesota, Wisconsin, UMD and St. Cloud State could all lose five or six players to the 2026 Olympics in late January and the month of February.
UMD is looking at five potential Olympians on its 2025-26 roster. Senior transfer forward
out of Mercyhurst and junior defenseman
are candidates for Sweden’s Olympic roster while senior transfer defenseman
formerly of Minnesota and Vermont, is in contention to make Finland’s Olympic team.
All three competed for their respective countries at the 2025 IIHF Women’s World Championship.
The two wild cards for UMD are Canadians Eve Gascon and Caitlin Kraemer, who are among the three current collegians — Minnesota defenseman Chloe Primerano is the other — invited to Hockey Canada’s Olympic orientation camp in August.
Gascon and Kraemer are arguably the Bulldogs’ best players. Gascon, a junior goalie from Quebec, is coming off a sophomore season in which she was named
the WCHA Goaltender of the Year and a first-team All-American.
Kraemer, a sophomore center from Ontario, is
the reigning national rookie of the year
and the Bulldogs’ top returning goalscorer.
Minnesota Duluth forward Caitlin Kraemer (11) skates with the puck against St. Cloud State on Saturday, Jan. 11 at Amsoil Arena in Duluth.
Clint Austin / File / Duluth Media Group
“They are really important,” Bulldogs coach Laura Schuler said of Gascon and Kraemer. “You know what else is really important? To me, it is to see them have success at (the Olympic) level. Ultimately, we’re known for our development, whether it’s making a respective national team or the Olympics or the PWHL. That’s our forte, that’s what we do, is develop our student-athletes. So for us, when we see that come to fruition, our five athletes here have the opportunity to be able to vie for those opportunities, that’s what excites us as a whole.”
While Ohio State, Wisconsin and Minnesota may not have prior experience dealing with players coming and going during an Olympic season, Schuler pointed out that the Bulldogs do have experience with that, most recently during the 2022 Olympics in Beijing when starting goaltender Emma Soderberg left the program for a month to play for Sweden.
Minnesota Duluth head coach Laura Schuler talks to her team during a timeout against St. Thomas on Friday, Oct. 18, 2024, at Amsoil Arena in Duluth.
Clint Austin / File / Duluth Media Group
Schuler said the key is making sure those players remain connected and part of the team. UMD is their family, their home and the Bulldogs want their Olympians to be just as excited to play for UMD again as they were to play for their country, she said.
“It’s something that our program is used to,” Schuler said. “We’ve always recruited internationally. We’ve had our
whatever it was, in and out. Not only that, I think our returners are used to it as well. Some of those veterans have gone through that process and they know how important that is to make sure everyone feels included.”
Bulldogs redshirt senior captain Mary Kate O’Brien
was part of the 2021-22 Bulldogs squad that lost Soderberg for nine straight games late in the season. Soderberg then played sparingly upon her return as she recovered from a heavy Olympic workload, only to then backstop the Bulldogs in the NCAA tournament to within a goal of a national championship.
If Canada does select Gascon and Kramer for the 2026 Olympics in Italy, the Bulldogs will, “adapt,” O’Brien said.
“We just have to be ready for anything,” the captain said. “This isn’t new for UMD. We’ve had so many people be able to represent the Bulldogs on the national stage and represent their country. We just have to roll with the punches, and we’re not alone in this Olympic year. People have a revolving door.”