The 9th best rivalry in college hockey is....
Dogs versus cats is a rivalry as old as time. Northern Michigan and Michigan Tech are merely extensions of it.
The Wildcats and the Huskies have been at each other’s throats since they first played in 1979, but the rivalry has always been marred by conference fluctuation. Yet it persisted.
Michigan Tech is the far older of the two programs, entering varsity hockey in 1919. For nearly 50 years, it ruled the roost of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula as the best hockey team around. In 1977, Northern Michigan joined the CCHA full time and immediately became a force to be reckoned with, earning consecutive 19-win seasons. Still, the teams had not played each other until 1979, facing off that November. Both teams earned one victory.
Northern Michigan’s ascendance continued, but Michigan Tech kept pace. In 1981, the two played four times in the regular season, with the Huskies taking the season series 2-1-1. Later that season, they almost played the biggest game of the year against each other as both advanced to the Frozen Four. Unfortunately, they both lost by solid margins in their games, so the matchup never occurred. Michigan Tech won the third-place game, 5-2.
1981 marked a diverging point for the two programs. Tech moved to the CCHA and began a downturn, marked with repeated losses in the first round of its conference tournaments. The Huskies rejoined the WCHA in 1985, but they’d have just three winning seasons over the next 30 years and made the Frozen Four just once.
Northern Michigan’s rise would continue — but not for too long. After a rough stretch in the 1980s, the Wildcats began the new decade on the highest note, winning their first national championship, 8-7, in triple overtime against Boston University in 1991. That year, Northern lost just seven games, going 25-3-4 and winning the WCHA title, as well. The Huskies made it back to the NCAA tournament in the next two seasons as well, but fell in the regional final both times. The team hit a low in 1995 and left the WCHA for the CCHA beginning in the 1997-98 season. Northern Michigan and Michigan Tech had often been in the same conference before, but for the next decade, they would be separated by more than just the normal 100 miles.
Still, the teams battled each year, conference or non conference. For most of the 1990s, Northern Michigan controlled the rivalry, winning 22 of the 37 games. The rivalry was only intensified by their battles in the Great Lakes Invitational and in the WCHA playoffs. In a sign of how driven each team was to beat their fiercest rival, it took nearly 20 years for one of the teams to record a shutout over the other. The games were always intense, magnified by the passionate fans at each arena.
In 2014, Michigan Tech would be reunited with its foe as the formation of the Big Ten and the NCHC tore multiple big teams out of the WCHA. Northern rejoined the WCHA in that void, but it would never again find the same level of success it had before.
Tech, on the other hand, was experiencing a resurgence under Mel Pearson, winning a WCHA championship in 2016-17 and reaching two NCAA regional finals in 2014-15 and in 16-17. The success continued under Joe Shawhan as they repeated as conference champions in 2017-18.
In 2021, the two teams came back under the CCHA banner once more as the WCHA finally collapsed. The Huskies have dominated the series since, winning 12 of the 17 games since they resumed CCHA play. Tech has been the more successful outside of the rivalry as well, winning another CCHA championship in 2023-24 and making the NCAA tournament from 2022 to 2024 (though they have scored just one goal in those three games and lost 8-0 to Penn State in 2023-24).
Both programs have struggled in the NIL era as they attempt to convince players to move to the UP. But the rivalry is as stubbornly bright as ever — dogs and cats at each others’ throats.