Colorado College will open its National Collegiate Hockey Conference schedule Oct. 30-31, the team and the NCHC announced Tuesday. 

The Tigers will host Minnesota Duluth to begin their campaign to reach the top of the now 10-team NCHC. 

Two weeks later, CC will travel to Western Michigan for its first conference road series of the season. 

The Tigers will close the first half of the season hosting NCHC newcomer St. Thomas on Dec. 11-12. 

Both of the Gold Pan series against rival, and defending national and conference champion, Denver, will take place in the spring. CC will close the regular season in a home-and-home series against the Pioneers on Feb. 26-27. However, the Tigers’ first series against Denver will be split over a pair of Saturdays. 

Denver will host CC at Magness Arena on Jan. 16 and the Pioneers will take on the Tigers at Ed Robson Arena two weeks later on Jan. 30.

The teams were originally slated to have the home-and-home series on Jan. 15-16, but with both teams on a bye Jan. 29-30, the Tigers and Pioneers opted to have the contest at CC on Jan. 30 when students were back from the holiday break, per NCHC Associate Commissioner Michael Weisman. 

St. Thomas joins the NCHC on July 1. The Tommies’ addition comes with a change to the NCHC postseason tournament. In the previous two years, the ninth- and last-place team simply missed the playoffs. This coming year, all 10 teams will be a part of the conference tournament and will face off (No. 10 at No. 1, No. 9 at No. 2, and so on) in best-of-three, first-round series March 5-7. The winners will be reseeded, and three games will take place the following weekend. The fourth and fifth seeds will play a quarterfinal game at the site of the first seed Friday, March 12. The winner of that game will face the top seed in a semifinal Saturday, March 13, while the second seed hosts the third seed on the same evening. 

The NCHC championship will take place on Friday or Saturday the following weekend at the home of the highest remaining seed. 

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Tigers’ full conference schedule (home series in bold)

Oct. 30-31 Minnesota Duluth

Nov. 13-14 Western Michigan 

Nov. 20-21 Miami of Ohio 

Dec. 4-5 Arizona State 

Dec. 11-12 St. Thomas

Jan. 8-9 Minnesota Duluth

Jan. 16 Denver 

Jan. 22-23 St. Cloud State

Jan. 30 Denver 

Feb. 5-6 North Dakota 

Feb. 12-13 Western Michigan 

Feb. 19-20 Omaha 

Feb. 26 Denver

Feb. 27 Denver