Friendship Four College Hockey Teams Arriving in Ireland: Puck Drop

The teams have been making their way to Belfast for this weekend's Friendship Four, and touristy photos of the players, coaches and traveling parties are beginning to make their way back on social media. After overnight flights over the Atlantic Ocean, Monday was about checking out some of the local scenery in Dublin.

For example, per its online travel journal, the Miami Redhawks enjoyed a walking tour of the city, followed by dinner at The Hairy Lemon, a famous Dublin establishment. Meanwhile, the Union players and coaches visited Croke Park and tried their hand at the sport of hurling, which has Gaelic and Irish origin and has been played for 3,000 years.

Hurling has been described as "hockey on steroids," and "the fastest game on grass."

Tried our hand at hurling today while visiting Croke Park...

We weren't half bad, right @officialgaa?#UBeforeMe pic.twitter.com/CRZVKlVimK
— Union College Men's Hockey (@Unionmhockey) November 24, 2025

Founded by The Odyssey Trust and held in Belfast since 2015, the Friendship Four and Friendship Series for women are the first and only NCAA Division I hockey tournaments to take place outside of North America.

This year's Friendship Four field is a little different at it features some of the smaller schools in Division I. Union made this trip before and won the 2018 tournament. The Garnet Chargers, 8-3-2 overall, and 2-3-1 in the ECAC, are the only currently ranked team at No. 20.

However, both Miami (8-4-0 overall, 2-4 NCHC), and RIT (9-4, 6-4 Atlantic Hockey America) received votes in this week's polls. The Tigers enjoyed a recent nine-game winning streak, which is tied with Michigan State for the longest thus far this season.

Kicked off the trip with a walking tour of Dublin before heading to the Guinness Storehouse!#WeAreSHU pic.twitter.com/VKDcYX6Cur
— Sacred Heart University Men's Ice Hockey (@sacredheartmih) November 24, 2025

Sacred Heart also plays in the AHA. It's off to a 6-5-1 start, 4-3-1 in conference play. Last season it finished the best of the four teams, 21-13-5 and 27th in the Pairwise Rankings that were used to determine the NCAA Tournament pairings, while Union was 37th at 19-14-3. But the others struggled, finishing in the bottom five of the Pairwise. Miami finished 3-28-3, RIT was 10-23-2.

Union opens against Sacred Heart, and Miami faces RIT on Friday at SSE Arena. The losing teams will square off on Saturday, followed by the championship game and awarding for the Belpot Trophy.

Meanwhile, this season's Friendship Series will be played in January and feature the women's programs from Boston University, Harvard, Minnesota Duluth and Quinnipiac.

🚨GET TO KNOW R.I.T. TIGERS. 🏒

Head Coach Matt Thomas tells us how his team are preparing to play in the Friendship Four tornament at the @SSEBelfastArena. 🙌

ONLY ONE WEEK TO GO! Get your tickets here ➡️ https://t.co/ZBxuvBNz1Q

🤝 @RITMHKY pic.twitter.com/MA9eU3uTJS
— Friendship Four (@Friendship_Four) November 21, 2025

Friendship Four Teams by Year

(Order is champion, runner-up, third-place winner and fourth)
2024: Boston University, Notre Dame, Harvard, Merrimack
2022: Quinnipiac, Massachusetts, UMass Lowell, Dartmouth
2019: Northeastern, Colgate, New Hampshire, Princeton
2018: Union, Boston University, Yale, Connecticut
2017: Clarkson, Providence, Maine, RPI
2016: Vermont, Quinnipiac, Massachusetts/St.Lawrence
2015: UMass Lowell, Brown, Northeastern, Colgate

• Former Minnesota center Logan Cooley had the first four-goal game in Utah Mammoth history, with two on an empty net. He also had an impressive assist in the 5-1 victory over Vegas.

LOGAN COOLEY HAS THE FIRST FOUR-GOAL GAME IN UTAH MAMMOTH HISTORY 🗣️ pic.twitter.com/k06PoCsvuo
— NHL (@NHL) November 25, 2025

• Former Michigan defenseman Zach Werenski was named the NHL second star of the week, and former Boston University center Macklin Celebrini was the third star (Calgary Flames defenseman Rasmus Andersson was the first start). Werenski had three goals and five assists in four games for Columbus, while Celebrini had four goals and three assists in four games, including two game-winning goals and a hat trick, for San Jose. However, Werenski left Monday's loss to Washington with an upper-body injury and did not return.

• USA Hockey will reveal the jerseys the American team will wear in the 2026 Winter Olympics on Wednesday.

• Former New Hampshire left wing James Van Riemsdyk played in NHL career game No. 1,100 as Detroit took a 4-3 loss at New Jersey.

• Maine gave an update on freshman defenseman Jérémy Langlois: “After a collision in Saturday's game, he was taken to Brigham and Women’s Hospital for evaluation where CT scans and X-rays were normal. He was released and has since traveled back to Orono where he is under the care of our sports medicine staff.”

This is really not good.@MaineIceHockey D-man Jeremy Langlois was smashed into the boards and a stretcher has been pulled out.

Langlois hit his head on the ice super hard after the check.

Prayers 🙏. pic.twitter.com/lKUUzL4EZJ
— Graham Dietz (@graham_dietz) November 23, 2025

Monday's Scores

No Games Scheduled

Games between ranked opponents are bolded. All times are local to where the game is being played.

Tuesday's Schedule

MEN
AHA
Bentley at Army, 7 p.m. ET

Non-Conference
Stonehill at No. 12 UConn, 6 p.m. ET

WOMEN
Non-Conference
Yale at Princeton, 11 a.m. ET
No. 5 Cornell at Syracuse, 6 p.m. ET

This Date in Hockey History:

November 25, 1902: Hall of Fame defenseman Eddie Shore was born in Fort Qu'Appelle, Saskatchewan.

November 25, 1930: The Philadelphia Quakers notched their first win by defeating the Toronto Maple Leafs 2-1. They went 4-36-4 during their only NHL season.

November 25, 1951: Chicago Blackhawks assistant trainer and former NHL goaltender Moe Roberts had to suit up after Harry Lumley suffered an injury and couldn’t continue. He didn’t allow a goal, but Detroit still won 5-2. Roberts was 45 at the time and is still the oldest goaltender to play in an NHL game.

November 25, 1965: Michigan defenseman Jeff Norton was born in Acton, Mass.

November 25, 1967: Minnesota goaltender Robb Stauber was born in Duluth.

November 25, 1975: Former Cornell goaltender Ken Dryden notched his 22nd career shutout during a 4-0 Montreal victory against the Atlanta Flames. He finished his career with 46.

November 25, 1980: Michigan State defenseman John-Michael Liles was born in Indianapolis.

November 25, 1987: Former Minnesota center Aaron Broten had two goals and three assists as New Jersey won 8-7 in overtime in Edmonton to become the second team in NHL history to finish last overall one season and then beat the reining Stanley Cup Champs in their first two meetings the next season.

November 25, 1992: Former Alaska Anchorage left wing Mike Peluso scored 29 seconds into a 3-1 victory over New Jersey to set a franchise record for fastest goal at the start of a game. He added a second goal as Ottawa snapped a 0-20-1 winless streak.

November 25, 2012: Former St. Cloud State right wing Mark Parrish announced his retirement after 722 NHL games over 12 seasons and with seven different teams.

November 25, 2022: Former Minnesota right wing Blake Wheeler set a Winnipeg Jets record for most games played with 844.

November 25, 2023: Former UMass defenseman Cale Maker set an NHL record for most assists by a defenseman in November with 19, topping Ray Bourque’s 18 in 1984, and became the fastest defenseman in Avalanche/Quebec Nordiques history to record 30 points in a season. Colorado defeated Calgary 3-1.

Hockey Quote of the Day

"When Joe's on, goalies don't have a chance. If you shot it at the net and Joe was there, he'd get a piece of it."
Theo Fleury on Joe Nieuwendyk

We'll Leave You With This ...

About this idea that women's college hockey is considering adding checking in order to better prepare players for the ohyiscal nature of the growing pro game ...