{"id":490136,"date":"2026-03-07T00:41:15","date_gmt":"2026-03-07T00:41:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/490136\/"},"modified":"2026-03-07T00:41:15","modified_gmt":"2026-03-07T00:41:15","slug":"uconn-womens-hockey-hosting-northeastern-in-hockey-east-finals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/490136\/","title":{"rendered":"UConn women\u2019s hockey hosting Northeastern in Hockey East finals"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Chris MacKenzie\u2019s UConn Huskies are in the Hockey East tournament final after beating Holy Cross, 6-1, in the semis, and beating Maine by the same score last week in the quarters. This will be a rematch of the last two Hockey East tournament finals, with both teams winning one.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">We had a chance to catch up with Coach MacKenzie and team captains Kyla Josifovic and Emma Eryou before this <a href=\"https:\/\/www.uconnhockeyhub.com\/p\/surging-uconn-women-s-hockey-hosting-northeastern-in-hockey-east-final\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">huge matchup<\/a>!<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">MacKenzie emphasized the excitement around this matchup and the surprise to be hosting as the 2-seed going against a top-seeded opponent. But Northeastern just demolished its on-campus arena to make room for a new one after the end of their regular season. The initial thinking was that a different school would host, but Hockey East went with Toscano Family Ice Forum in Storrs, and what a venue it is.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">The Huskies\u2019 coach and captains shared that they\u2019re feeling the extra excitement around their sport thanks to the Olympics, and locally with in-state teams from Yale and Quinnipiac also likely to be in the 11-team NCAA Tournament field when that is announced.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Eryou and Josifovic went on to heap praise on their fifth-year goalie Tia Chan, saying she\u2019s been the backbone of the program in her time there. They also said they\u2019ve enjoyed the fan support within Toscano during the season, saying it\u2019s the best it\u2019s been since they arrived in Storrs.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">The Huskies have lost three times to Northeastern already this season. But the last two were incredibly close. NU has been UConn\u2019s main rival in the league the last few years, and of course represent a sharp challenge.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">MacKenzie pointed to the balance and depth of his team, and its propensity for finding the back of the net. They emphasized that they need to play mistake-free hockey and lockdown defense in order to prevail.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Chris MacKenzie\u2019s UConn Huskies are in the Hockey East tournament final after beating Holy Cross, 6-1, in the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":490137,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[377],"tags":[5,31255],"class_list":{"0":"post-490136","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-hockey","8":"tag-hockey","9":"tag-uconn-hockey"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116185116561635407","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/490136","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=490136"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/490136\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/490137"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=490136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=490136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=490136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}