Miami hasn’t participated in an in-season tournament since 2018, but the RedHawks will play in a pair next season.
MU — along with Sacred Heart, Union and RIT — is traveling to Belfast, Northern Ireland, for the Friendship Four over Thanksgiving weekend and the hockey program’s first-ever games outside of the U.S.
The RedHawks are also locked into the six-decade-old Great Lakes Invitational field for the first time in team history. That four-team tournament played in Grand Rapids, Mich., the weekend between Christmas and New Year’s will feature Michigan State, Michigan Tech and Ferris State.
“I like the fact that we’re going to be playing in two tournaments,” Miami coach Anthony Noreen said. “For a lot of returning guys and a lot of guys that haven’t played in quote-unquote ‘playoff hockey’ at the college level, I think those tournaments are about the closest thing you can get to that. So to be able to play in some highly contentious-type situations…that’s going to be some really good experience for our guys, and I think some really good life experience as well.”
MU traveled to Erie, Pa., for the Ice Breaker in October of 2018 and its only neutral-site games since the Omaha COVID pod in 2020-21.
Miami is already a frontrunner to lead Division I in one statistical category next season: Traveling distance.
Combined with a conference road schedule that has it crossing time zones to play Arizona, Colorado, North Dakota, Nebraska and Minnesota, Miami will travel over 20,000 miles round trip in 2025-26.
Just 14 of the RedHawks’ 34 regular season games will be played at Cady Arena.
Saddled with the previous coaching staff’s schedule last season, the RedHawks must complete the road portion of their home-and-home contracts with RPI and Lindenwood this season after playing 19 of 34 home games in 2024-25.
“Obviously we wish we had more home games,” Noreen said. “That’s something we’ll try to work on more in the future.”
For the fifth straight season, Ferris State will be Miami’s opening-weekend opponent. The teams open the 2025-26 campaign with a two-game series in Oxford on Oct. 3-4.
Miami’s long-term contract with Ferris State between former RedHawks coach Chris Bergeron and retired Bulldogs legend Bob Daniels is winding down, and with this season’s tournaments being single-year commitments and the completion of the RPI and Lindenwood contracts, MU will likely look for closer-to-home out-of-conference opponents to round out its 10-game non-conference slate in subsequent seasons.
“One of the things that you’ve got to realize, you look at our conference games, the amount of miles we travel compared to most teams in the conference, it’s pretty large,” Noreen said. “So as many times — for the student-athlete experience, the travel in respect to their schooling — any time we can keep those non-conference games as close to home as possible, we’re going to. In saying that, we’re going to Ireland next year, but it’s the week of Thanksgiving.”
In-state former rival Bowling Green is an obvious target, and the teams could renew their long-standing series in 2026-27.
“We want to start restoring some of those old CCHA rivalries,” Noreen said. “We’re going to get — whether it’s a Big Ten team on the schedule or a team closer to us proximity-wise on the schedule that’s more of a natural rival — that’s something that we’re working towards, for the fans, really.”
Noreen was unhappy with Miami’s 33-day layoff over the holidays late last year, so the longest down time between games will be 16 days next season.
Miami travels to Tempe, Ariz., for the first time to play new league rival Arizona State. With ASU becoming the ninth member of the NCHC, all conference teams will play six of eight opponents at home and on the road.
The RedHawks will host every league foe except North Dakota and Denver and will not travel to Colorado College or Minn.-Duluth.
Miami’s 2025-26 schedule:
| Opponent | Dates |
| FERRIS STATE | Oct. 3-4 |
| at RPI | Oct. 10-11 |
| at Lindenwood | Oct. 24-25 |
| ARIZONA ST. | Oct. 31-Nov. 1 |
| at W. Michigan | Nov. 14-15 |
| ST. CLOUD ST. | Nov. 21-22 |
| Friendship Four at Belfast, N. Ireland | Nov. 28-29 |
| at Denver | Dec. 5-6 |
| COLORADO COLLEGE | Dec. 12-13 |
| at Great Lakes Invitational, Grand Rapids, Mich. | Dec. 29-30 |
| at Arizona State | Jan. 9-10 |
| OMAHA | Jan. 16-17 |
| at St. Cloud State | Jan. 30-31 |
| W. MICHIGAN | Feb. 6-7 |
| at North Dakota | Feb. 13-14 |
| MINN.-DULUTH | Feb. 20-21 |
| at Omaha | Feb. 27-28 |
| NCHC playoffs, home campuses | March 6-21 |
View From the Glass 
Bring on the Buckeyes!
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I hope so, it would be good for both programs. Miami has been trying to get them back on the schedule for years, but last I heard, OSU didn’t want to play ball…err…puck.
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