The Michigan Wolverines men's ice hockey team is the college ice hockey team that represents the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The program earned varsity status in 1922, and has competed for 105 consecutive seasons. The team played as an independent until 1951, before transferring to multiple conferences in the 1950s. From 1959 to 1981, the team competed in the Western Collegiate Hockey Association (WCHA) and then the Central Collegiate Hockey Association (CCHA) from 1981 to 2013.The Record Book MGoBlue.com: University of Michigan Official Athletic Site (Click on Complete Version to download the PDF record book) Since the 2013–14 season, the Wolverines have competed in the Big Ten Conference, which at the time began sponsoring hockey.
Michigan has had many successes as a program including a record-setting number of championships, total championship tournament appearances, and consecutive tournament appearances. From 1991 to 2012, the team played in 22 consecutive NCAA Division I Men's Ice Hockey Tournaments, an NCAA record. The Wolverines have won nine Division I NCAA Men's Ice Hockey Championships, seven of which came during a 17-year stretch between 1948 and 1964. Two more championships were won under head coach Red Berenson in 1996 and 1998. The Wolverines have won the second-most all-time NCAA National Hockey Championships with nine (1948, 1951, 1952, 1953, 1955, 1956, 1964, 1996, 1998), behind the Denver Pioneers record eleven championships.
Players from the program have earned numerous honors, professional championships, international championships, individual statistical championships, team and individual records. The previous head coach was Mel Pearson, a former assistant to coach Red Berenson, who retired in 2017 after leading the program for 33 years. Berenson for nearly 50 years has continued to hold the school single-season goal scoring record, and was the second player in the program's history to win the Stanley Cup. The program has dozens of National Hockey League alumni and 21 current 2026–27 NHL season opening-day players, which led all collegiate programs. They currently hold the record for the most titles at the Great Lakes Invitational with 17 titles respectively. Their traditional rival is Michigan State and the teams have played an annual game in Detroit since 1990, first at Joe Louis Arena but currently at Little Caesars Arena since 2018.
In 2010, Michigan hosted a Guinness-verified world record crowd in excess of 113,000 in an event known as The Big Chill which was held at Michigan Stadium.
Team history and seasons
Early history
In 1920, "as a result of the interest in the interclass and interfraternity leagues, in which twenty-two teams took part", an informal Michigan hockey team was organized to represent the university.("An informal team was organized to represent the University as there was no Varsity aggregation in this popular ice sport.") Mr. Le Mieux of the Engineering faculty had played 12 years of professional hockey and offered his services as coach. Because of the difficulty in securing intercollegiate competition, the 1920 team played a six-game schedule against an Ann Arbor team, Assumption College, and four games against teams from the Detroit Hockey League. The 1920 Michigan team, with Russell Barkell as the team's high scorer, compiled a 6–0 record and outscored opponents 27 to 7. In February 1920, The Michigan Alumnus noted: "There is a big sentiment for a Varsity hockey team. The difficulties are the lack of a University rink, and the arranging of suitable competition." In April 1920, The Michigan Chimes wrote:"The record of our informal hockey team which was organized at the close of the January interclass sports, has been truly remarkable. With only two weeks of practice, it has defeated the three strongest Detroit teams. ... Unfortunately this one team of ours which seems able to win, and shows possibilities of great development has not as yet been recognized as a regular team." Later, The Michigan Chimes published a lengthy article pleading for the administration to recognize hockey as a varsity sport: "Agitation was started for the recognition of hockey as a varsity sport. What spell, what charm there is in that single appellation bestowed by custom on football, baseball, track, and recently basketball! What obstacles must be overcome, what sacrifices made, to attain the heights!"
With the success of the informal Michigan hockey team in 1920, Michigan moved forward with the development of the hockey team. According to Wilfred Byron Shaw's four-volume history of the University of Michigan, "Hockey also had its beginning in 1921, with Joseph Barss as Coach (1921–26). Although officially not on the Western Conference athletic program, hockey provided a number of Big Ten teams with competition."() The 1921 season saw the development of intercollegiate hockey at Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota. In January 1921, Michigan and Wisconsin scheduled four games to be played on consecutive weekends from February 18 to 26, 1921. The 1921 team began the season with two games against the Michigan College of Mines at Houghton, Michigan. Michigan lost the first game 3–0 but won the second game 4–3. Russell Barkell, the first standout hockey player at Michigan, was the Michigan star in both games against the College of Mines. However, the remainder of the season, including the planned four-game series with Wisconsin, was cancelled due to warm weather. The Michigan Alumnus reported in March 1921: "The warmth of the present winter has made necessary the cancelling of all scheduled hockey games. The informal team had started off well, but lack of ice made the development of a really powerful team impossible."
In December 1921, The Michigan Alumnus wrote: "There will be much pushing of the puck this year. The Athletic Association hopes to have more money to spend for Michigan skaters, and plans to encourage hockey more than ever before. We used to spend our time 'doing the grapevine,' but only because we were not fast enough for shinny. More power to the shinny artists."
Over the course of a 10-game schedule, Michigan's 1922 squad finished with a record of 5–5. The team opened the 1922 season with a 5–1 victory over Michigan Agricultural College (now known as Michigan State University) in the first hockey match between the rival schools. They followed with a 3–2 overtime victory over the Detroit Rayls on January 16, 1922. Later that month, the Notre Dame hockey team defeated Michigan 3–2 in overtime, marking the first defeat for the Michigan hockey team on its home rink in three years. The team traveled to Houghton for night games against the Michigan School of Mines, losing both games by scores of 2–1 and 5–2. The Wolverines beat the School of Mines 4–1 in a rematch in Ann Arbor. In the season's seventh game, Michigan defeated Wisconsin 6–3 in the first match between Western Conference hockey teams. Following another loss to Notre Dame (7–2), Michigan defeated Wisconsin for the second time by a score of 5–1; Barkell scored three goals against Wisconsin and was the high scorer in the game. The season ended with a 5–2 victory over the Windsor Monarchs.
In March 1922, The Michigan Alumnus reported that athletic director Fielding H. Yost had stated that recognition of hockey as a minor sport was very probable in 1923. Yost expressed the view that the sport should be either intramural or intercollegiate and not an informal sport. The same article noted that Michigan's hockey team had already met Notre Dame, Michigan School of Mines, Michigan Agricultural College and many Detroit teams.
According to Bacon's history of the Michigan hockey program, the first "official" college hockey game played west of the Alleghenies was a game between Michigan and Wisconsin, played on January 12, 1923, in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The game went into overtime with Michigan prevailing by a score of 2–1. The Capital Times in Madison reported on the game as follows: "Michigan counted the first point, when Kahn, by clever work, rushed the ball through the Badger defense for a goal. In the second period Blodgett for Wisconsin tied the score. The first five-minute period of overtime found both teams battling desperately. The second five minutes was a repetition. The Wolverines seemed held on from the side, slipped the puck through the goal for the winning point." In another account, the Madison newspaper wrote that, "after outplaying Michigan all the way through, Wisconsin lost in the second overtime period when a lucky shot went for a goal." Michigan again defeated Wisconsin 1–0 in the second game of the season, played the following day, January 13, 1923.
Barss coached the Michigan Wolverines men's ice hockey team from 1922 to 1927. In five years as the head coach, the Michigan hockey team compiled a record of 26–21–4.
As the popularity of college hockey grew in the early 1920s, other colleges looked to Barss' pupils for coaching candidates. In January 1923, former Michigan hockey star Russell Barkell was hired as the coach of the hockey team at Williams College.
In February 1924, after a 3–0 victory by Michigan over Wisconsin, a Madison newspaper praised the defensive play of the Barss-coached Wolverines: "With an almost air-tight defense and a definite scoring attack the Michigan hockey team defeated the Badger six by a score of 3–0 yesterday afternoon. Wisconsin could not stop Michigan's fast team work and was unable to penetrate their defense to take any close shots at the goal."
In mid-1925, the university purchased the former Weinberg Coliseum, a local ice skating rink that had served as the unofficial home of the Wolverines hockey team since 1920. The facility, which had previously relied on winter weather to maintain its ice, was renovated to add artificial coolant to guarantee its playing surface year-round. The Michigan Coliseum would remain home to the Wolverines until the opening of Yost Ice Arena in 1973.
Vic Heyliger era From 1947–48 through 1956–57, when Vic Heyliger retired, the Michigan hockey team had won 195 games, lost only 41, and tied 11. The Wolverines' record got them 10 consecutive invitations to the Frozen Four, where they came home with the national title six times-records that have never been in danger of being broken by any college team a half century later. This also helped shift the locus of power in hockey from the East to the West when it was previously thought to be the other way around. Led by Michigan, the West won 18 of the first 20 NCAA championships, setting the question rather emphatically. The run also ensured the team its place on campus for years to come, filling a hole created by the football and basketball teams' mediocrity during the fifties.
Of Michigan's 53 players who have earned All-American status, almost half (24) played for Heyliger between 1948 and 1957. During that stretch he never had fewer than two players on the All-American team. Four times he had five players so honored, and in 1956 he had a record six players on the squad. In Michigan history, twelve Wolverines have won it twice or more. Heyliger coached nine of them and recruited the tenth, Bob White. No other school has ever amassed and developed such a mother lode of talent in the history of college hockey.
For all of this Heyliger was given the NCAA's Spencer Penrose Award for Coach of the Year, he was inducted into the U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame, and he was selected in 1996 by the American Hockey Coaches Association as one of the five best college coaches of the century, and the very best of the first half. In 1980 he became the first hockey coach to be inducted into the University of Michigan's Hall of Honor. Heyliger's severe asthma forced him to leave the team and Ann Arbor in the summer of 1957. His impact on the Michigan program, the NCAA tournament, the WCHA, and college hockey would be hard to overstate.
Al Renfrew era