It's the Off-Season, So What Now?

The college hockey season officially ended last Saturday night when Yale took home the national championship. It was a big year in college hockey, and also a pretty big year for our little community here. We expanded our focus to cover all of college hockey, and added a fantastic group of new writers. A big thanks go out to Andy Johnson, Nate Wells, Jeff Cox, Josh Kummins, and Ryan Durling for their help this year.

As a result, there's a lot of new readers around here; roughly six for every one we had last year at this time. So we figured it might be a good time to remind everyone that even though the college hockey season has ended, the coverage here continues all year long, and we hope you'll stick around to check it out.

Here's what we'll be following until the puck drops on a new college hockey season next October.

- The coaching carousel looks like it will be keeping us busy all summer. Denver has found their next head coach, but Maine, Ohio State, Alaska-Anchorage, and Connecticut are all looking for new coaches, and who knows what other teams might be looking for a new coach after some of the shockers we've already seen this summer.

-We'll also be continuing our coverage of any early departures and other pro signings. We're mostly through the first round of signings immediately after the season, but there's usually another wave later in the summer as pro teams assess their needs for next year/players participate in prospect camps/check from the CHL clear, so there should be another handful of signings coming.

-The NHL Draft is coming up in late June, which is an event we cover annually, as we keep a close eye on the Americans and future NCAA players that will be selected.

-The summer is a big time to focus on the next generation of college hockey players. We'll have a lot of recruiting coverage, including coverage of a few live events like the upcoming USA Hockey Select Festival tryouts and various USHL tryout camps. We'll have coverage of the upcoming USHL drafts, and the WHL bantam draft.

-We'll try to keep tabs on a few of the many, many college alums now plying their trade in the NHL.

-For long time readers, we'll also be bringing back somewhat daily Linkorama posts, giving us the opportunity to share links and comment on related stories that might not merit a full post.

-And finally, we'll be on top of any other breaking news that might come from the college hockey world.

All in all, it should be a pretty busy summer with lots of hockey talk to get us through until it's time to previewing next season.y