With 18 games against the NCAA's top-10 teams from last season, including 10 games against the teams that skated in the 2016 NCAA Frozen Four, the University of Minnesota Duluth women's hockey team will pick up right where it left off last March -- willing to play one of the toughest schedules in the country.

The Bulldogs -- who will open their 17th season this fall -- released their 2016-17 regular season schedule Tuesday, complete with 28 Western Collegiate Hockey Association contests and four out of league showdowns.  UMD will host NCAA Frozen Four runner-up Boston College at AMSOIL Arena to kick off the regular season on Sept. 30-Oct. 1, and just two weeks later will head to Minneapols, Minn. to face the 2016 NCAA champs in the University of Minnesota (Oct. 14-15).  The Bulldogs will also host Bemidji State University -- the team they swept from the first round of the WCHA playoffs this past year -- on Oct. 21-22.  UMD will welcome its third 2016 NCAA Frozen Four participant in the University of Wisconsin on Nov. 18-19, when the Badgers come to AMSOIL.

In all, the Bulldogs will play five of their first seven series against teams that finished ranked in the top-10 last season.  Besides the Golden Eagles, UMD will step out of WCHA action on Nov. 25-26 when it travels to Cambridge, Mass. to face Harvard University.  

UMD will play two exhibition games against the Minnesota Whitecaps (Sept. 24 and Jan. 7, 2017), and will open the 2017 portion of the season against the defending champion Gophers at AMSOIL on Jan. 13-14.  From there, the Bulldogs will play a grueling WCHA schedule, highlighted by a trip to BSU (Jan. 20-21), a visit from the University of North Dakota (Feb. 3-4) and a series in Madison, Wisc. against Wisconsin (Feb. 10-11).

The Bulldogs finished with the fourth strongest strength of schedule in the country in 2015-16, and held down a 15-21-1 overall record.  UMD returned to the WCHA's Final Face-Off semifinal game for only the second time in the past four years after stunning the then No. 7 Beavers in Bemidji, Minn. with a series sweep in the first round.

2016-17 UMD Women's Hockey Schedule