Michigan Wolverines men's ice hockey

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. 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."

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

Through Heyliger's tenure, athletic director Fritz Crisler had seen the virtue of having a Michigan man head the hockey program. When it came time for Crisler to conduct his second search for a hockey coach, therefore, he sought out Al Renfrew, an affable man who had captained the 1948–49 Wolverine squad and had already been coaching college hockey for six years.

At the end of Renfrew's first season in Grand Forks, Heyliger stepped down from the Michigan job and told Renfrew to put his name in for it. Renfrew wrote Fritz Crisler a letter in March indicating his interest, but Crisler didn't respond for over a month. Renfrew had already concluded he was out of the running when Crisler called to offer him the job. His decision should have been harder than it was. He had built a great team at North Dakota, and the players he recruited won the national title two years after he left, but he was too excited to be back in Ann Arbor.

Renfrew inherited a team that had gone 18–5–2 and finished one victory short of its third consecutive NCAA title in 1956–57—and then Renfrew promptly suffered Michigan's first losing season since World War II. His skaters finished 8–13 in 1957–58, his first year, and 8–13–1 his second. But Renfrew wasn't worried-he knew he had a secret weapon coming in.

From 1958 to 1964, some 14 players made the trek from Regina, Saskatchewan to Ann Arbor, including one Red Berenson. While still in high school, Berenson had already become a highly touted major junior player, one good enough to join the Montreal Canadiens system straight out of high school, but he had other ideas. A serious student, Berenson became aware of the world of American college hockey when Regina Pats high-profile coach Murray Armstrong went south of the border in 1956 to accept the head coaching job at University of Denver. Berenson visited North Dakota in 1958 and was favorably impressed at the caliber of players the former coach, a man named Al Renfrew, had lured to Grand Forks before Ranfrew returned to Michigan the year before. But soon after Berenson's visit to North Dakota, Dale MacDonald, a Saskatchewan native playing for Renfrew at Michigan, told his coach that Berenson was the rare player worth going out of his way to get. Renfrew scraped together enough money to fly the young phenom to Michigan, thereby making him the first hockey player ever to receive a free recruiting trip to Ann Arbor. The extra effort was worth it, for both parties. Once he was on campus, they didn't have to sell him on it. "After I came down on a visit", Berenson confirms, "I came back and told the other guys. "This is where we're going." And just like that, a pipeline of hockey talent was created between Regina and Ann Arbor.

Transition to Yost Arena and the Central Collegiate Hockey Association (CCHA)

Renfrew retired as head coach following the 1972–73 season. He was succeeded by Dan Farrell, a former assistant coach at Michigan Tech (where Renfrew had previously coached). Farrell's first season was also the team's first at their new home in the converted Fielding H. Yost Field House, now known as Yost Ice Arena. Farrell guided the Wolverines to the 1977 NCAA championship game at Olympia Stadium, losing to the Wisconsin Badgers by a score of 6–5. Farrell's teams would be unable to duplicate that success, and he stepped down at the end of the 1979–80 season.

Wilf Martin returned to his alma mater to serve as head coach, but only lasted two games into the 1980–81 season before he was forced to step down for health reasons. Assistant coach John Giordano took over for the rest of the season. In 1981, Giordano's Wolverines moved from the WCHA to the CCHA, joining fellow Big Ten rival schools Michigan State (which also jumped from the WCHA) and Ohio State (a founding member of the CCHA), as well as football rival Notre Dame. It was hoped that the change in conferences would help the Wolverines compete, but Michigan followed up a first-round conference tournament loss to the Irish with back-to-back ninth-place finishes. In the spring of 1984 Giordano's team mutinied when all 22 players signed a list of grievances. With the entire team behind the revolt, athletic director Don Canham was left with little choice but to relieve Giordano of his duties.

Red Berenson era

After a lengthy playing career in the NHL and a stint as head coach of the St. Louis Blues (where he won the Jack Adams Award) and a term as an assistant to Scotty Bowman in Buffalo, Red Berenson returned to his alma mater in 1984 to take over the reins. Berenson's teams faced a stiff rival in Ron Mason's Spartans, who dominated the CCHA in the mid-80s and won the 1986 NCAA championship. Prior to the 1989 CCHA playoffs, Berenson had the Wolverines adopt the winged helmet design associated with the football team.

After several years of rebuilding the Wolverines finally won a CCHA playoff series in 1990 and returned to the NCAA tournament for the first time in 14 years the following season. That appearance was the first of a record 22 consecutive berths, including 11 Frozen Four appearances and three appearances in the title game, winning the championship in 1996 and 1998. Along the way Berenson's teams won 11 CCHA titles, 9 CCHA Tournaments and produced 11 30+ win seasons including a record 8 consecutive from 1991 through 1998. Two of Berenson's players won the Hobey Baker Award, Brendan Morrison (1997) and Kevin Porter while Marty Turco (127) and Steve Shields (111) became the 1st- and 2nd-winningest goaltenders in NCAA history.

The 1996 Frozen Four run is most notable for forward Mike Legg's goal in the regional semi-final against Minnesota at Munn Ice Arena in East Lansing. Legg picked up the puck behind the net with the toe of his stick, cradled it on the blade, and tucked it into the top corner all in one motion. The highlight-reel goal has become one of the most famous in the history of hockey worldwide and has been mimicked by many a player. While it goes by other names (Europeans call it an "airhook", while it has also been called a "Svech", after Carolina Hurricanes forward Andrei Svechnikov who was the first to score such a goal in the NHL), most hockey players and fans call this move a Michigan goal or "The Michigan".

The streak was broken in the final season of the CCHA, when the team failed to get an invite after losing the conference championship to Notre Dame. Berenson's final trip to the NCAA tournament came in 2016, which was also his last conference championship (this time in the Big Ten). Berenson announced his retirement on April 10, 2017.

Mel Pearson era

On April 24, 2017, Mel Pearson was announced as the new head coach at the University of Michigan. In his first season the team went 22-15-3 overall, 11-10-3 in Big Ten play. They reached the 2018 Big Ten Men's Ice Hockey Tournament but lost to Ohio State (3-2) in overtime. Nevertheless, the team qualified for the NCAA Tournament and went to the Frozen Four before losing to Notre Dame (4-3) on a last-second goal.

During the 2021 NHL entry draft, Michigan became the first school in NCAA Division I history to have three teammates drafted in the first round of the NHL Draft. Owen Power was drafted first overall by the Buffalo Sabres, Matty Beniers was drafted second overall by the Seattle Kraken, and Kent Johnson was drafted fifth overall by the Columbus Blue Jackets. Michigan also became the first program to have teammates drafted first and second overall in the same NHL Draft for the first time since 1969. With Beniers being picked by Seattle, Michigan became the first collegiate team to have a player drafted by all 32 NHL franchises. Incoming freshman recruits Luke Hughes was drafted fourth overall by the New Jersey Devils and Mackie Samoskevich was drafted 24th overall by the Florida Panthers. Michigan became the first program to have five players/recruits selected in the first round of one draft.

On August 5, 2022, it was announced Pearson was relieved of his duties.

Brandon Naurato era

On August 7, 2022, Michigan promoted Naurato to interim head coach for the 2022–23 Wolverines. On March 31, 2023, he was officially named the permanent head coach, agreeing to a five-year contract. Naurato won the 2023 Big Ten tournament and led the Wolverines to the Frozen Four that season. He followed with a repeat appearance to the Frozen Four in 2024. Naurato won his second Big Ten tournament in 2026, the program's fourth overall title, and gained a 42nd NCAA tournament berth for Michigan, where he led the team to a third Frozen Four under his leadership.

Hazing allegations

In a lawsuit filed in early September 2026, multiple prior ice hockey team members alleged hazing by sexual abuse between 1984 and 2001, with further allegations that Michigan coaches, including Red Berenson, were aware of the hazing and concealed the nature of the abuse, misled and/or punished players who complained. The former players alleged that they were stripped naked, had objects inserted in their rectums, and other actions leading to long term effects of the hazing resulting including depression and substance abuse. The University denied that it was responsible or liable for the alleged claims and stressed that those who allegedly participated were breaking University policy and highlighted their anti-hazing policy first adopted in 1982.

Conferences

Conference affiliation since 1951

Midwest Collegiate Hockey League (1951–53)

Western Intercollegiate Hockey League (1953–58)

Big Ten Conference (1958–81)

Western Collegiate Hockey Association (1959–81)

Central Collegiate Hockey Association (1981–2013)

Big Ten Conference (2013–present)

Championships

NCAA tournament history

Including the 2026 NCAA Division I men's ice hockey tournament, Michigan holds several NCAA Men's Ice Hockey Championship records: Tournaments (42, tied), consecutive tournaments (22), and Frozen Four appearances (29). Through the 2026 Tournament, the team has a 59–33 record in the NCAA Tournament, including a 25–20 record in the Frozen Four. The following is the complete history of the Michigan Wolverines men's ice hockey team in the NCAA Men's Ice Hockey Championship.

Record by opponent

Big Ten Conference opponents

Former CCHA opponents

Major non-conference opponents

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Head coaching history and current staff

Current coaching staff

As of 2025–26

All-time coaching records

As of April 10, 2026

^ Martin coached the first two games of the 1980–81 season before Giordano took over the coaching duties.

Honored players and current roster

Current roster

As of September 1, 2025.

Michigan has had numerous players recognized with prestigious awards and honors. The following is a summary of some of the other standout Michigan Wolverines men's ice hockey players.

U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame

The following individuals have been inducted into the United States Hockey Hall of Fame.

Hobey Baker Award winners

The following players have been awarded the Hobey Baker Award.

Player of the year

The Hockey News U.S. College Player of the Year

Central Collegiate Hockey Association

Western Collegiate Hockey Association

Tim Taylor Award

Academic All-American

Michigan has had two hockey Academic All-Americans.

Zach Hyman (2015, first team)

Jeff Jillson (2001, second team)

Winter Olympic medalists

Michigan has had twenty-one players and one coach participate in the Winter Olympics. Seven of these participants earned Olympic medals.

All-Americans

Fifty-four Michigan Wolverines men's ice hockey players have been chosen as First team Division I All-Americans by the American Hockey Coaches Association.

Statistical leaders and accomplishments

Career goaltending leaders

GP = Games played; Min = Minutes played; W = Wins; L = Losses; T = Ties; GA = Goals against; SO = Shutouts; SV% = Save percentage; GAA = Goals against average

Minimum 1,000 minutes

Statistics current through the start of the 2020–21 season.

Statistical accomplishments

The all-time Michigan single-season goal scoring leaders are Red Berenson (1961–62) and Dave Debol (1976–77) who have each totaled 43. Denny Felsner (1988–92) has totaled 139 in his career for the school record. Brendan Morrison holds the school record for both single-season and career assists with 57 (1996–97) and 182 (1994–97), respectively. Debol (99, 1976–77) and Morrison (284, 1994–97) hold the single-season and career points records, respectively.

On defense, Marty Turco holds the single-season and career win records with 34 (1995–96) and 127 (1995–98). The single-season goals against average is held by Billy Sauer (1.95, 2007–08), while the career record is held by Shawn Hunwick (2.21, 2007–2012). Shawn Hunwick holds the single-season save percentage record, (.925, 2010–11), and also holds the career record (.924, 2007–2012). Montoya's 6 single-season shutouts (2003–2004) is the school record while Turco's 15 is the career record.

The following Michigan Wolverines men's ice hockey players hold NCAA Division I national records:

The following Michigan Wolverines men's ice hockey players formerly held NCAA Division I national records:

The following Michigan Wolverines men's ice hockey players have been national statistical champions:

The following Michigan Wolverines men's ice hockey teams hold NCAA Division I national records:

Largest single-game margin of victory (21–0, vs. Ohio State, February 8, 1964)

Most single-season overtime wins (6, 1998)

In addition, the 2005 and 2007 teams led the nation in goals per game, and the 1996 and 1997 teams led the nation in both goals allowed per game and scoring margin per game.

Yost Ice Arena

Built in 1923 as a field house, the facility is named in honor of Michigan's legendary football coach and athletic director, Fielding H. Yost. For many years, it housed the Michigan basketball team, until they relocated to the larger Crisler Arena in 1967. It also housed the track teams in the 1950s. In 1973, it was converted into an ice arena, and the Michigan hockey team has used it ever since. The University of Michigan's Senior and Collegiate synchronized skating and freestyle teams also practice at Yost. In addition, local high school teams, recreational leagues (AAAHA) and the university's intramural hockey league call it home.

The arena has served as home of Michigan hockey since the 1973–74 season, hosting over 3 million fans. The Wolverines have won over 450 victories at home in this time.

Yost Ice Arena has hosted NCAA Ice Hockey Tournament games five times in its history, most recently in 2003.

Rivalries

Michigan State

Michigan and Michigan State first played each other in 1922. Michigan and Michigan State began playing a neutral site game in Detroit once a year in the "Duel in the D" series in which Michigan leads the series 19–11–5. Michigan leads the all-time series between the teams, 175–138–24.

Notre Dame

Michigan and Notre Dame first played each other in 1923. Michigan leads the all-time series between the teams, 83–67–5.

Wolverines in the NHL

As of July 1, 2025.

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