Houghton forward Brody Donnelly tries to protect the puck from Calumet forward Ben Anderson during a semifinal game of the MacInnes Holiday Hockey Classic at the MacInnes Student Ice Arena in Houghton on Friday, Dec. 27, 2024. (David Archambeau/For the Gazette)

HOUGHTON — In late March, the Michigan High School Athletic Association (MHSAA) announced that it was expanding the high school hockey season from the current 25 games to 27 games. While that might not seem like a big jump, it actually means quite a bit to Copper Country area teams.

“It opens up our schedule, gives kids the opportunity to play 51 more minutes (per game),” said Houghton coach Micah Stipech. “First of all, it’s more opportunity for kids to play hockey, and for, especially, the teams downstate, they really compete with AAA teams. The game count is one of the big separators (as) AAA teams play many (more) games than high school.”

Calumet coach Dan Giachino, who serves on the MHSAA Ice Hockey Committee, offered some insight into how the process came to be.

“We don’t run into it as much in the up, but in the metro areas, there’s obviously a lot of competition for players within schools,” he said. “Hockey, I believe, is the only sport, MHSAA sport, where we have a competing organization playing at the same time. So, that makes it challenging for some schools, because they’re fighting AA and AAA programs within their schools. Which is why you look at some of these schools when they co-op, they have 5, 6, 7,000 students, and they’re barely pulling together a varsity team. That’s the challenge we’re fighting. We want to keep making high school hockey, we want to keep improving it.

“So, we have to look at avenues like that as how do we help our teams, our schools, continue to compete with those other organizations. So, obviously, game count is one of the first things that people note. You’re only allowed to play 25 games. So our goal was to get it to 27. You figure you get some playoff games in, there’s a scrimmage in there, so now we’re getting, for most teams, over 30 games. We’re trying to also to expand our pre- and post-offerings as best we can, as well.”

Player development

For Stipech, who will be entering his third year as the head coach of the Gremlins, practice is still very important when working on player development.

“For me, practice is where you get better, and it’s really important to have that balance,” he said. “The season didn’t get longer (in terms of time), so adding two games in there will probably create some more three-game weeks. I think that will be more challenging for teams from the U.P., in my opinion, to add games, because of our distance.”

For Giachino, adding more games is something his team is clamoring for.

“Obviously, it’s important,” he said. “The kids are going to enjoy it. It’s more competition. It’s two more games that we can schedule against high-quality competition. It makes programs throughout the state a little bit more competitive with the AAA model. (We) keep trying to improve and get to that point.”

As Giachino said, adding games was one of multiple ways in which the MHSAA has looked to address making changes to the hockey schedule. Another option would be to lengthen periods to 20 minutes, which would line up high school hockey with both the college and professional game.

“This was the major push the last couple years,” Stipech said about adding games to the schedule. “(The MHSAA Ice Hockey Committee) mentioned, when (talking) to the coaches association, adding three minutes to periods. Twenty-minute periods is the equivalent to four and a half games throughout the course of the year. What I like about that is it pushes teams to develop more depth.

“Depth becomes more important when you have longer games. When you play, whether it’s three more minutes in a game, or nine more minutes, depth becomes more important. It’s more opportunities for kids to play in a game.”

Giachino sees adding two more games as a way to strengthen his team’s schedule.

“That’s the way we’re looking at it as it’s an opportunity to continue strengthening our schedule, to continue playing tough teams,” he said, “Two more games means that we can schedule two more tough games, whether that be local competition, or downstate competition. But, that’s what our goal is, to make our schedule even a little bit more difficult.”

For Calumet, playing as difficult a schedule as you can helps prepare you for the playoffs.

“It is what it is, and you want that schedule, in my mind, to be difficult to prepare you for the end of February, and because we know what our playoff competition is, we have to have a tough schedule to prepare you for that,” he said.

What teams do you add?

In terms of scheduling, with the announcement coming in the Spring, it has left schools scrambling to find opponents for the 2025-26 season.

“I think all the teams have been scrambling a little bit,” said Stipech. “It’s expensive to come up here and play, so there’s some teams that backed out this year. We’ve got a few that aren’t making the trip back up, but we’ve started to travel also. For us personally in Houghton, we’re going to be going down to Green Bay, play Notre Dame next year, and added some pieces like that.

“It’s a dream that someday we’ll be able to play in Minnesota possibly.”

One of the games the Gremlins have added back to their schedule is a second matchup with the Jeffers Jets, who beat them twice last season, once in the regular season, and in the Regional 17 title game.

“They’re taking a big step,” Stipech said. “Their coaches and (their athletic director) Steve Nordstrom are doing things the right way. They’re building up their schedule. It’s cool to see them trying to partner with teams that are coming up here.”

Houghton has also added Escanaba back to their schedule for the coming year.

Calumet is also looking at adding games against other U.P. opponents this season, but is looking to add more out-of-town opponents in the future.

“It’s a little bit difficult, because for the most part, my schedule was done at 25,” said Giachino. “So, to try to turn around and find two games, it just makes things a little bit more challenging when you’re doing it after the fact. But right now I think I’m at 26, so looking at one more game. Obviously, I know there’s some local, and some U.P. competition, where if we played each other another time, it’s not going to hurt anything.”

Another region the Gremlins have looked to add games is in Wisconsin, specifically the Green Bay area. By adding Notre Dame at the end of the season, both schools will play a very challenging game before their respective district tournaments begin.

“For me, Wisconsin is a no-brainer,” said Stipech. “(It’s) three and a half hours to Green Bay. I think that we will play Bay Port. We’ll play Notre Dame this year, and DePere is coming to the holiday tournament, (where) J.P. Coppo (is coaching).”