Michigan Announces 2015-2016 Schedule

Michigan announced their complete schedule for the 2015-2016 season on Thursday.

The schedule does include some interesting games: a weekend series at Boston University, playing Penn State at Madison Square Garden, the always entertaining Great Lakes Invitational. But even the most fervent detractors of the Big Ten Conference and college hockey's realignment have to look at Michigan's home schedule and wince.

The Wolverines' home non-conference schedule will feature Mercyhurst, Robert Morris and Dartmouth for weekend series in the first half of the season, and a single game against Ferris State in the latter half of the season. That's on top of a Big Ten home schedule that features a home series against Minnesota in December and not much else. To top it off, Michigan plays at Yost Arena just six times in the second half of the season, and will go over a month--January 17th to February 19th without a game on their home rink.

When first conceived, there was hope that the Big Ten Conference would provide teams like Michigan more flexibility in their non-conference scheduling. But the Wolverines have had a difficult time getting local teams to meet their demands in scheduling agreements, leading to a string of less-than-impressive eastern opponents. The struggles of the other teams in the Big Ten hasn't helped add intrigue to the schedule either.