PROVIDENCE, R.I. – The Hockey East Association announced today details for its Return to Play plan for the 2020- 21 season, including composite league schedules, featuring a double round robin format. Hockey East also announced its NESN schedule through January 1 and news that other games streamed through its partnership with ViacomCBS Digital will be made free to fans all year.
Three of the final five weekends of regular season play in each league are designated as Flex Weekends. These Flex Weekend contests are tentative and opponents may be adjusted in order to maintain a competitively balanced schedule for each team. If games are postponed during the regular season, these Flex Weekend games will be rescheduled with those postponed games. Any games played during Flex Weekends will be designated as "non-conference" games and will not count toward the Army ROTC Hockey East Standings. Additional Flex Dates have been added throughout the schedule where availability allowed to maximize flexibility to play a full regular season schedule and prioritize the student-athlete experience.
After a 18-14-4 campaign in 2019-20, the Providence College women's hockey program unveiled its 26-game schedule for the 2020-21 season, 18 of which will count as Hockey East conference games for the league standings.
The Friars dive into the 2020-21 Hockey East season with a home-and-home set with Merrimack (Nov. 20-21) followed by a home-and-home with Northeastern (Nov. 27-28). The contest on the 27th can be seen live on NESN beginning at 1 p.m.
December kicks off as Providence travels to Worcester, Mass. on Dec. 4 to take on Holy Cross, before the Friars play host to the Crusaders the following evening (Dec. 5). Followed by another home-and-home series with UConn (Dec. 11-12), the Friars will then wrap up the semester with their first road series of the season against the Maine Black Bears (Dec. 19-20).
The second half begins with a home-and-home series against Boston University (Jan. 8-9), followed by a pair of home games against Maine on Jan. 15-16. The following two weekends will consist of home-and-home sets against Boston College (Jan. 22-23) and UConn (Jan. 29-30).
A busy February begins with back-to-back home-and-homes against New Hampshire (Feb. 5-6), Boston University (Feb. 12-13), and Northeastern (Feb. 19-20). The Friars' final games of the season will be played on a road series at Vermont (Feb. 25-26).
Hockey East will once again partner with NESN and ViacomCBS Digital to provide fans across the world the opportunity to view every single Hockey East game in the 2020-21 season. Today, Hockey East announced a slate of games that can be seen on NESN through January 1, as well as news that all other streamed games will be made available to fans for free on one of ViacomCBS Digital's platforms. Full television schedule details and How-To-Watch information about streamed games, as well as specific game times, will be announced in the coming days.
Details on the 2021 Hockey East Tournament formats will be announced at a later date. Schedules are tentative and subject to change.
For more information on Providence College women's hockey, follow the team on Twitter @PCWHockey.