A season-opening tournament at AMSOIL Arena, one dozen bouts against clubs that qualified for last spring's NCAA playoffs and 18 regular season home games  highlight the University of Minnesota Duluth's 2017-18 men's hockey schedule

Following a Sept. 30 exhibition home clash with the University of Alberta, the Bulldogs will launch their 74th season of intercollegiate competition on Oct. 6 by facing off with long-time rival and four-time defending Big Ten champion, the University of Minnesota, in the opening round of the 21st Ice Breaker Tournament. Two other reigning league champions  -- Michigan Tech University (Western Collegiate Hockey Association) and Union College (Eastern Collegiate Athletic Conference) -- will collide in the other semifinal with the third place game and championship set for the following day.  All four of the Ice Breaker Tournament participants took part in the 2017 NCAA postseason. That includes UMD, which last hosted a tournament in 2001, when the four-team Silverado Shootout was held for a third, and final time, at the Duluth Entertainment and Convention Center.

UMD will then make its 2017-18 road debut the following week (Oct. 13) at Bemidji State University before the two clubs complete the home-and-home series one night later in Duluth. Following back-to-back series against a pair of Hockey East foes -- Merrimack College (Oct. 20-21 at AMSOIL Arena) and the University of Maine (Oct. 27-28 in the Bulldogs' first trip to Orono, Maine, since Jan. 16, 1988) -- the Bulldogs will open National Collegiate Hockey play at St. Cloud State University on Nov. 3-4.  During the remainder of the 2017-18 regular season, the Bulldogs will host Western Michigan University (Nov. 10-11), Minnesota State University-Mankato (on Nov. 25  in the front end of a home-and-home series that wraps up on Jan. 23 in Mankato), NCAA champion University of Denver (Dec. 1-2), the University of North Dakota (Jan. 19-20), St. Cloud State  (Jan. 26-27), Miami University (Feb. 16-17) and the University of Nebraska-Omaha (March 2-3).

The second of two regular season tournaments on UMD's 2017-18 slate is the Ledyard Classic featuring Yale University (the Bulldogs' Dec. 29 opponent), host Dartmouth College (which will face UMD on Dec. 30) and the University of New Hampshire.

UMD faces Denver, Miami, Omaha, St. Cloud State and Western Michigan four times each next season and the other two remaining NCHC members (Colorado College and North Dakota) just twice.

The Bulldogs closed out the 2016-17 season this past April with a 28-7-7 overall record (for the second most wins in team history), having advanced all the way to the NCAA Frozen Four title game in Chicago, Ill., where they succumbed 3-2 to Denver. UMD, which held down the No. 1 spot in the USCHO.com Poll a school-record 11 times last winter, also captured the program's first NCHC Frozen Faceoff championship, placed second in the final NCHC standings (15-5-4) and secured its fifth NCAA Tournament berth for the fifth time in seven seasons.

2017-18 UMD Schedule