NCAA Women’s Hockey Bracketology 2026 — and more

We nearly have made it to the end of another women’s hockey season. The start of the year way back in September seems so far away, and with several top teams missing their best players for the final month of the regular season at the Olympics—it’s ending on a big of a weird note as well. But we have reached the final week of the regular season. The WCHA Playoff Quarterfinals will take place next weekend, with the WCHA Final Faceoff played at St. Thomas the first weekend of March. The NCAA field of 11 will be announced on Sunday March 8th on an ESPN network to be determined and the teams will know their path to try and reach Pegula Arena at Penn State for the 2026 Frozen Four.

How Does This Tournament Work Again?

The women’s NCAA Hockey tournament is definitely a bit more awkward compared to the straight 16 team bracket on the men’s side or of course the familiar 68-team fields that men’s and women’s basketball will field. Eleven teams will make the women’s NCAA bracket with five auto bids going to the tournament champion of the WCHA, ECAC, Hockey East, Atlantic Hockey, and NEWHA. The other six team will be the top ranked non-champions in the National Collegiate Percentage (NPI) rankings. As of February 18th, here are the top NPI teams:
1 Wisconsin 65.614
2 Ohio State 65.461
3 Minnesota 60.747
4 Penn State 60.6525
5 Northeastern 58.624
6 Connecticut 58.086
7 Quinnipiac 57.853
8 Yale 57.160
9 Princeton 56.545
10 Minnesota Duluth 56.431
11 Cornell 54.898
12 Clarkson 54.134

If you look at those 12 ranked teams you find at least one team from four of the five conferences. The NEWHA is not represented and traditionally does not compete will with the rest of the conferences. The top NEWHA school in the NPI is Franklin Pierce who comes in at #27. So that conference will get their lone auto bid and will be the lowest seeded team at #11 in the field. But that auto bid comes at the expense of the lowest seeded non-champion in the NPI which in that case would be #11 Cornell who would miss the field.

So What’s the Format?

The top four seeded teams will host the NCAA Quarterfinals. The top five teams all receive a bye into the quarterfinals with teams six through eleven needing to face one another in an opening round game held at the Quarterfinal host’s rink. The winners advance to the quarterfinals, the losers season is done. Seed #1 hosts the 8/9 game and plays the winner in the quarterfinal. Seed #2 hosts the 7/10 game and plays the winner. Seed #3 hosts the 6/11 game and plays the winner. And seed #4 hosts #5 in a quarterfinal. The winners advance to the Frozen Four.

So What’s the Bracket Gonna Look Like?

Using our NPI rankings from above, and putting in teams that are the highest NPI ranked teas as the auto bids from their respective conferences, and adding in the NEWHA winner as seed #11, we get the following bracket.

Madison, WI Quad:

#1 Wisconsin will play the winner of #8 Yale vs #9 Princeton

Columbus, OH Quad:

#2 Ohio State will play the winner of #7 Quinnipiac and #10 Minnesota-Duluth

Minneapolis, MN Quad:

#3 Minnesota will play the winner of #6 UConn vs #11 Franklin Pierce

State College, PA Quad:

#4 Penn State would host #5 Northeastern

BUT…..

The NCAA would lie to avoid matchups between schools in the same conference in the opening round with the exception of the 4/5 game. So if we look we see that the #8 vs #9 matchup between Yale and Princeton pits a pair of ECAC opponents against one another. So how can we fix that? Not very easily it appears as #7 Quinnipiac is also a ECAC school. So we either need to just flip one team but that would upset the bracket integrality the most, or we can move a pair of teams around to try and keep the bracket as close to seeded as possible. Either way we need to get the three ECAC teams in three different cities in the opening round.

The first option is just to swap #8 Yale with #6 UCONN. You can’t move #7 Quinnipiac to play #9 as they are still both ECAC schools. But this then sets up by seeding a #6 vs #9 and a #8 vs #11 quarterfinal. Not really ideal.

The second option involves moving multiple teams around, but moving them all just one seed line with one exception. You can move #8 Yale to Columbus to face #10 UMD, move #6 UCONN to Madison to face #9 Princeton and move #7 Quinnipiac to Minneapolis to face #11 Franklin Pierce. In this situation Quinnipiac probably wins getting an easier first round game, and getting Minnesota instead of Wisconsin in the Quarterfinals while UCONN gets screwed. But, we avoid all the conference matchups in the opening round, so that’s what we will go with for right now.

The Actual Predicted Bracket:

Madison, WI Quad:

#1 Wisconsin will play the winner of #6 UConn vs #9 Princeton

Columbus, OH Quad:

#2 Ohio State will play the winner of #8 Yale and #10 Minnesota-Duluth

Minneapolis, MN Quad:

#3 Minnesota will play the winner of #7 Quinnipiac vs #11 Franklin Pierce

State College, PA Quad:

#4 Penn State would host #5 Northeastern

Will This Change Before Selection Sunday?

Most definitely. The only real locks in the bracket are Wisconsin at #1 and Ohio State at #2. Minnesota and Penn State seem pretty safe for #3 and #4 but they could easily flip. In face Penn State was ahead of Minnesota for much of the weekend before a few random games flipped them back late on Saturday. Conference tournaments can change these numbers quickly, so what you see above is almost certainly not to be the case when the final bracket is announced.

This was a risky, but worthwhile, offseason for the Cubs.

A hard-fought victory over OH Leuven at Meadow Park sent Arsenal through to the quarter-finals of the Champions League. The visitors tested Renée Slegers’ side when Sára Pusztai cancelled out Alessia Russo’s goal but a penalty from Mariona Caldentey and second from Russo secured the win, earning them a comfortable 7-1 aggregate score.

This was a disjointed performance from the hosts but it will have done little to dampen the high spirits in north London.

Duo share personal answers away from the pitch

Pyramids, squash and famous names — what Salah and Marmoush said about Egypt

Mohamed Salah & Omar Marmoush spoke about Egypt during Premier League YouTube chat with players from the league.

Premier League chat brings Egyptian duo together

The Premier League held special conversation on its official YouTube channel with several players from across the league.

Among them were Egypt stars Mohamed Salah of Liverpool and Omar Marmoush of Manchester City.

Players were asked light questions about their home countries giving fans closer look at their personalities away from the pitch.

Pyramids, museum and squash

When asked where they would take teammates visiting Egypt, Marmoush answered without hesitation:

the Pyramids. Salah agreed but added second choice saying he would also take visitors to the Grand Egyptian Museum which has recently opened.

The questions continued beyond football. Asked what Egypt is famous for apart from the sport, Marmoush chose squash, a game where Egypt has enjoyed major global success.

Clubs & Famous names

Marmoush also asked to name the best club in Egypt. He picked Wadi Degla, the club where he began his career.

On the question of the most famous person in Egypt, Salah surprised many. He replied that it was not him and instead mentioned Sir Magdi Yacoub, the world-known heart surgeon.

The interview ended on friendly note. When asked to name the best Egyptian player, Marmoush said he would leave it to the people.

Salah smiled, joked that he did not want to choose himself and then stood up from his seat drawing laughs.