Badger men's hockey to open season with exhibition game at Omaha

MADISON, Wis. -- The Wisconsin men's hockey team will open the 2024-25 season with an exhibition game at Omaha on Oct. 5, UW Athletics announced Tuesday.

Omaha is set to name the ice at their arena after the team's first head coach Mike Kemp that night. Kemp was an assistant coach with Wisconsin, first under the legendary "Badger" Bob Johnson from 1981-82 and again under Jeff Sauer from 1983-96.

Kemp won a WCHA regular season championship, four WCHA tournaments and a National Championship while on staff with the Badgers.

Omaha hired Kemp as its first-ever head men's hockey coach ahead of the 1997-98 season. He guided the Mavericks to their first winning season in 2001 and their first NCAA Tournament berth in 2006. In 2009, he stepped away from coaching to become Omaha's associate athletic director. He was named interim athletic director in 2021 after then-AD Trev Alberts left to become AD at Nebraska.

The Badgers are looking to build on a successful 2023-24 campaign that saw them win 26 games, their most since the 2009-10 season, during head coach Mike Hastings' first year with the program.

Wisconsin is 9-5-1 all-time against Omaha. The Badgers won the first 5 matchups between the two teams, but the Mavericks have put up quite the fight in recent years. Omaha won the last meeting, 5-2, in 2019 in Nebraska.

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