The 2025 NCAA Men’s Hockey Championship Starts Thursday as Ohio State Buckeyes take on Boston University Terriers

The Madness hits the ice as the college hockey scene skates to the centre of the sports world with the start of the 2025 NCAA Division I Men’s Hockey Championship on Thursday.

We will see a trio of games that will feature the best collegiate hockey teams in the United States, battling it out in a similar one-game elimination tournament to basketball's March Madness.

The field is smaller at 16 teams from around the country with the winners of the six Division I conference championships receiving automatic bids while a Championship Committee come together to select the remaining ten teams.

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The tournament will feature some of the biggest universities in colligate sports like Ohio State, Penn State and Michigan State among others. Some players involved are must-see NHL prospects like Washington's Riley Leonard, New York's Gabe Perreault and Minnesota's Zeev Buium.

It's one of the most enjoyable tournament's in the sport and we are here to give some takes so that you can enjoy the high-flying action while hopefully adding to your bank at the same time.

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Future Bets To Consider: BC Eagles Dominate With NHL-Ready Talent

The most historic team among the bunch is the University of Denver, who is coming off a championship win last season and marked their second in the last three seasons. The Pioneers are the most prolific college hockey program in history with the most all-time championship wins at ten.

Despite their history, they aren't the favourites to take home the trophy as they finished with a 29-11-1 record, that pegged them as the ninth-best team in the country, according to the NCAA National rankings. The number one ranked team is also the betting favourite to win the tournament in the Boston College Eagles.

With a team full of notable NHL-ready talent like Leonard and Perreault, the Eagles finished the season with a dominant 26-7-2 record but were upset early in the Hockey East Championship by Northeastern University in the Quarterfinals.

This should give them a subtle advantage as they will be well-rested and prepared heading into the tournament with the expectation being a championship.

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This team has too much talent to bet against with most dangerous part of this BC team being their backend, as they've allowed the second-fewest goals in all of college hockey with 61 through 35 games due to stellar play from starting netminder Jacob Fowler.

The Montreal Canadiens prospect finished with a stellar 24-6-2 record with a 1.64 goals against average and was one of three NCAA goaltenders to have a save percentage above .940 on the season.

Boston College will be one of the many teams in this tournament that we can rely on for relatively sweat-free under bets on opposing offences. They will face-off against the Bentley Falcons in the first round, who have an over/under set at 1.5 team goals for the game.

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The Eagles have allowed two or more goals in just two of their last seven games entering the tournament. They are listed with +300 odds to win the Championship and -140 odds to make the Frozen Four (Semi-finals).

Betting Strategies: Defence Wins Championships

The Four Nations Face-Off reminded hockey fans that defence can be the most important part of a winning team and several defensive units in this tournament will make things incredibly difficult for teams to generate offence. The only team to allow fewer goals than Boston College was Minnesota State, who dominated the Central Collegiate Hockey Association Conference (CCHA).

Their defence that only allowed 56 goals through 38 games, helped the Mavericks roll through the competition to a 27-8-3 record and won the program's ninth MacNaughton Cup as regular-season champions as well as their third Mason Cup for winning the CCHA Conference Championship.

They will face-off against Western Michigan in the first round, which will be an all-time matchup as the Broncos have the highest-scoring offence in the country with 154 goals through 38 games. They will have an over/under set at 3.5 team goals that will test a Mavericks team that has allowed four goals just once this season.

The Broncos have a found little success in the tournament as of late with just one win over their last three tournament appearances dating back to 2022. They've score four or more goals in one of their last four tournament games, which leads to suspect that the Mavericks will be able to shut things down enough to hold the Broncos under four goals.