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Wisconsin women's hockey tabbed as WCHA preseason favorite

Finding the Wisconsin Badgers atop the WCHA preseason poll has become a regular September tradition
Kedrick Stumbris|
Wisconsin Badgers forward Casey O'Brien (26, center) and defender Caroline Harvey (4) accept the WCHA regular season trophy from commissioner Michelle McAteer after in a game against the Minnesota Gophers on Saturday, February 8, 2025, at LaBahn Arena in Madison, Wisconsin. Wisconsin won, 8-2.
Wisconsin Badgers forward Casey O'Brien (26, center) and defender Caroline Harvey (4) accept the WCHA regular season trophy from commissioner Michelle McAteer after in a game against the Minnesota Gophers on Saturday, February 8, 2025, at LaBahn Arena in Madison, Wisconsin. Wisconsin won, 8-2. | Dave Kallmann / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

Wisconsin women's hockey gets its season underway next week on the road in Minnesota. When the Wisconsin Badgers take the ice against the Bemidji State Beavers, they will do so with a familiar target on their back.

After winning an NCAA-record eighth national championship in March, expectations are high as ever in Madison. The Badgers are the reigning national, WCHA regular season, and WCHA Final Faceoff champions. Add in a trio of returning first-team All-Americans, a heralded rookie, and the winningest coach in the history of the sport–this Wisconsin team has much to live up to.

Living up to lofty preseason expectations, however, is not a new challenge for the Badgers. When WCHA coaches picked Wisconsin as the preseason favorite in the conference, they may have activated some muscle memory to do so.

Wisconsin women's hockey continues streak atop preseason WCHA poll

For the third-straight year, UW finished first in the WCHA preseason coaches poll. The assessment of Wisconsin as the team to beat, a title shared between the Badgers and Ohio State Buckeyes in 2023, goes back several years. Wisconsin has landed atop the preseason poll six of the past seven seasons.

Even for a program like Wisconsin, going wire-to-wire in the WCHA is no easy task. UW's 2025 regular season title was its first since 2021. Now, it will try to win the conference back-to-back for the first time since winning that 2021 title.

Trailing Wisconsin are Ohio State and the Minnesota Golden Gophers, which tied for second. Minnesota is the only team other than Wisconsin that received a first-place vote. Coaches cannot vote for their own team, so it appears Badgers head coach Mark Johnson sees the Gophers as his stiffest competition this winter–go figure.

The full results of the poll are:

Pl.    Team (1st-Place Votes)     Points  
1.       Wisconsin (7)                    49 

T2.     Minnesota (1)                   40

T2.     Ohio State                        40

4.       Minnesota Duluth             31

5.       St. Cloud State                24

6.       St. Thomas                      17                                                                                                 

7.        Minnesota State              16

8.        Bemidji State                   7

*First-place votes are in parentheses (Coaches could not vote for their own team)

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Kedrick Stumbris
KEDRICK STUMBRIS

Kedrick Stumbris has covered the Wisconsin Badgers since 2022 with a focus on the Badgers football, men's basketball, and women's hockey programs. He graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2018 with a Bachelor of Arts in Economics and Political Science.

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