Miami finished 2024 on a 10-game losing streak after Halloween, and it continued those non-winning ways for the balance of the season, ending the campaign winless in its final 26 contests.
Despite the RedHawks’ struggles in the waning months of last calendar year, coach Anthony Noreen said before the second half of 2024-25 he was even more confident his staff could rejuvenate Miami hockey than he was when he accepted the job eight months prior.
“I think a big part of it, after being here and seeing everything that we have and just the way this university operates and what the day-to-day is for our student-athletes, just thinking, man, this is a great place to sell,” Noreen said. “When we came in as a staff there was a high level of confidence that (Miami) had a lot of potential and would be able to be a winning program, and I think after being here, that confidence grew. And that’s not to say it’s going to be easy or it’s going to be overnight.”
A year later? MU heads into the second half of 2025-26 with 11 wins — more than in any full season in seven years — including a Belpot championship in its first-ever overseas contests.
Miami’s previous high-water wins mark since 2018-19 was eight. The RedHawks had won just 38 games their last six seasons.
They ran off six straight wins to open this campaign, including two in overtime, which had been RedHawks kryptonite for nearly a decade.
“The start this year hopefully reinvigorated some people,” Noreen said. “I think it said a lot about the players that we brought in and what they’re going to bring to the program — now and long-term — and I think the exciting thing is: Listen, there’s nobody inside of our walls that’s satisfied with our first half. I think we all feel like it could’ve been better and there’s more there, and we’ve lot to keep pushing for, and I think that’s what good about it.”
Miami struggled with a ‘country club mentality’ for years, with too many mercurial efforts and a lack of Division I-level conditioning accompanied by a complete confidence breakdown, as seemingly every close game went against the RedHawks.
But with 11 wins in 20 games for a team that hadn’t recorded more than eight since 2018-19, the RedHawks appears to have shed that label.
“From the very beginning, we’ve said ‘culture above everything’,” Noreen said. “The core values of this team are: Tough, disciplined and passionate, and we have to be those things every single time we take the ice. One of the things I’ve always said to our guys: Whether it’s someone who…sees us play every game or someone walking across from the dorms watching us for the very first time, they should see those things in action. They should feel that from our guys regardless of what the score is, regardless of how much time is left on the clock. And listen: I’m not going to say it’s been perfect this year, but I think that there’s been a standard that has been established amongst our guys in the way we practice, in the way we work out, the way we take care of ourselves and that standard is going to keep raising. What you like to see is now that, hey, this is who we are, and some new guys come in and they don’t know any better because they look at the returners and they say, these guys go at it every single day. They play hard every single day, and they’re completely committed to this program, and that’s what we’d like to see build.”
Travel the past two months has been difficult. In mid-November, Miami played four games in eight days and the following morning bussed to Cleveland, where the team boarded planes to Northern Ireland for the Friendship Four over Thanksgiving weekend.
From there, MU flew to back Cleveland, returned home and left for Denver a few days later to play a weekend series a mile above sea level. Then back home and a pair of games against Colorado College, which both ended in ties.
Miami wrapped up its 2025 slate with the Great Lakes Invitational and finished in third place, losing to Michigan Tech and beating Ferris State.
“I think the (New Year’s weekend) break probably came at a good time, I think we’ll all ready to get going here in the back half, and what will be nice here is we haven’t played a lot of home games,” Noreen said. “It’ll be nice, especially after some of the games (at Cady Arena) we’ve had, and some of these weekends and what the atmosphere was like in our building, and we’re also excited about playing in some great (road) rinks.”
We’re now a week into 2006, and Miami still has not named captains, which is almost unheard of at this level over three months into the season.
Blake Mesenburg was an alternate captain last season and was the only returning RedHawk bearing a letter, but he was scratched 10 straight games before dressing for both ends of the Great Lakes Invitational.
Doug Grimes seemed to be making a play for that role but is out with a lower body injury.
“It’s an ongoing conversation and it’s something right now where we like where this culture is at, we like that it’s a bunch of different guys — and it seems to be different guys every day, every weekend, that are stepping up in leadership roles. I certainly think there’s some of the older guys that kind of do a good job in different areas. There’s certain guys that have latched onto, hey this guy kind of handles this part, and this guy handles this part, and hey, it’s cool that a freshman has taken this onto his back and a senior that’s helping guys with this. To me, that’s what a true team does, and we just haven’t really felt this year yet like it was time (to name captains), and not to say that won’t change — maybe it’ll be something in the spring, maybe it’ll be something next fall, maybe it’ll be something next week — again, it’s an ongoing conversation for us, and I don’t think it’s something uncommon, especially when you look at the NHL the last number of years, and maybe some teams that were going through rebirths or rebuilds or rediscoveries, or whatever you want to call it where maybe they had a little bit of a vacancy for a little bit as they were trying to establish some things and find out about themselves. What I would say is it’s nothing against any of the guys that we currently have here and our beliefs in what they’ve been as leaders. I guess it’s more of a giving it time to establish itself.”
One of the biggest stories of the 2025 portion of the 2025-26 schedule but goalie Shika Gadzhiev not being granted eligibility by the NCAA, leaving Miami with two netminders the entire first half. But Noreen found a way to bring in Mathis Langevin from the QMJHL.
Langevin stopped 30 of 32 shots in his collegiate debut win over Ferris State in the third-place game of the GLI, earning a win.
Matteo Drobac was between the pipes for all of the RedHawks’ first 19 games, going 10-7-2 with a 3.14 goals-against average and an .898 save percentage. He has notched a pair of shutouts and helped lead the RedHawks to the Friendship Four championship.
“Matteo played every minute the first part of the season, and he deserved that, he earned that was something where we felt like he gave us a chance each night and battles hard every game,” Noreen said. “For Mathis coming in, he’s a guy who obviously trusted in us in leaving at a very important time in his career, leaving a very good (Rimouski) program and trusting us to come here when he’s still draft eligible and trying to prove himself, so I think we’ve got to find a way to showcase all of these guys and give them an opportunity. I think the nice thing about our three goalies is they’re three guys that show up and they work and they want to get better, and they get along and they push each other.”
Another key storyline went the other direction, as freshman defenseman Charlie Michaud left the team just prior to the GLI and joined WHL Penticton.
Michaud, the youngest blueliner on the RedHawks entering this season, did not dress the first four games, played in all of the following six and was a healthy scratch for the last 10. He had not cracked the lineup since Nov. 15.
It’s yet another consequence of declaring CHL players eligible, but the NCAA is currently not allowing student-athletes to join Division I teams mid-season, which can strain its members, especially since those like Miami that have opted into the House settlement to ultimately trim their roster to 26 players.
“There are a lot of things right now that we can look and say are not ideal,” Noreen said. “I think it’s why you — again –prepare. There’s a reason why we have three goalies to start the year, there’s a reason why we decided when we had a couple players that were designated — so were able to go over the 26-man cap — that we decided late, late recruiting, to bring in a ninth defenseman. There was a reason — what if one goes down, what if someone leaves, what if something happens? It’s hard to practice with seven. You go through this thing long enough and you know whatever can happen, whatever can go wrong at times, it’s probably going to at some point, and you just try to be as organized and prepared as you possibly can be.”
With college athletes in general having more freedom to play the field, especially in hockey with the CHL option in play, Noreen said it’s become a factor when coaches set their lineup cards.
“I think there’s a lot of that in college sports in general going around right now,” Noreen said. “It’s one of the things, again, coming back to why recruiting is so important. I don’t think it’s the worst thing that student-athletes have options right now, and that the schools and the coaches don’t have all of the power. Do I think there should be some and more guardrails on it? Absolutely. I think the college basketball coaches of late have said it better than I can, and through their experience of maybe limiting the number of transfers, trying to keep guys in once place, giving them a chance to graduate, teaching them the value of pushing through hard things and not looking for an out. Having said that, I think there are certain situations for certain players when you talk about a chance to maybe leave and prove who you are and get an opportunity somewhere else is good for the student-athlete, so I probably fall somewhere in the middle. I think all you can do is be prepared for it, but I don’t think you can change who and what you are and how you do things or treat guys or hold guys accountable because you’re worried about them leaving. If you’re worried about that, then you’ve probably recruited the wrong guy.”
Miami has 14 games remaining on its regular season schedule, including eight on the road and six against top-six teams in the USCHO poll — a series at North Dakota and a pair of home sets vs. Western Michigan and Minn.-Duluth.
Despite their metamorphic improvement over 2024-25, the RedHawks are still in the NCHC basement with eight points, and they haven’t won a conference road game since Feb. 25, 2023 at UMD.
But this team realizes it needs to up its game in the next couple of months if hopes to even qualify for the NCHC Tournament, which takes the top eight teams in a nine-team league.
“There is zero complacency or zero satisfaction with we’ve done so far,” Noreen said. “I think we’ve got a hungry group and I know for sure we’ve got a lot to prove.”
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