Let's skate two! Notre Dame hockey part of 'Frozen Confines' doubleheader Jan. 3, 2025

CHICAGO — The Friendly Confines of Wrigley Field, home of the Chicago Cubs, will have temporary winter tenants as year 2024 rolls into year 2025.

Six of seven Big Ten hockey teams, including Notre Dame and Penn State, will face off against each other as part of what is being called “The Frozen Confines: Big Ten Hockey Series.” Only Minnesota will not be participating.

The Fighting Irish and Nittany Lions will play their outdoors game Friday, Jan. 3 on the ice rink set up inside Wrigley Field for the Tuesday, Dec. 31 NHL Winter Classic game between the Chicago Blackhawks and St. Louis Blues.

And in the spirit of Cubs great Ernie Banks, the Big Ten matchup will be part of two “Let’s Skate Two” doubleheaders Jan. 3 and 4. Joining the Irish and Nittany Lions on Friday will be a Big Ten men’s game between Ohio State and Michigan. The order for the games will be announced at a later date, but the faceoffs already are set for 5 and 8:30 p.m. EST and the games carried by the Big Ten Network.

“It will be another incredible experience for our student-athletes,” said Notre Dame assistant athletics director Nick Siergiej, who represented the school after just returning from a trip to Belfast, Northern Ireland. That’s where, on Nov. 29-30, outgoing coach Jeff Jackson and his Irish will play in the Friendship Four tournament in Belfast’s SSE Arena with Harvard (Notre Dame’s foe on Nov. 29), Merrimack and Boston University.

“It’s neat we’ll be able to supply our student-athletes with two unique experiences this season,” Siergiej added. “This speaks to the really great partnerships we have with the Big Ten Conference and the Blackhawks.”

Wrigley should be a sea of red-hooded fans Saturday, June 4 as the Wisconsin hockey fan base storms the Clark and Addison neighborhood to see its men and women teams play. The men’s game will pit the Badgers against Michigan State, while the Badgers’ women will take on Ohio State.

The men’s game will be the second that week between the Spartans and Badgers, who will play Thursday, Jan. 2 in East Lansing. The women’s game matches the two teams which have combined to win the last five NCAA national titles. The Buckeyes beat the Badgers 1-0 last season after the Badgers won the 2023 title by the same score. Wisconsin, coached by 1980 Olympic gold-medalist Mark Johnson, also has titles from 2019 and 2021; Ohio State won in 2022.

More: Michigan stuns Irish early on way to hockey win in Notre Dame Stadium

Again, the schedule of these two Jan. 4 games is not set, and the games will be played at 5:30 and 9 p.m. EST and be televised by the Big Ten Network even though the women’s teams play in the Western Collegiate Hockey Association.

It will be Notre Dame’s fourth outdoors game in the 20-year tenure of Jackson, the school’s winningest coach with 407 victories and four trips to the Frozen Four. Jackson, who won a pair of NCAA titles at Lake Superior State, announced on June 24 that this upcoming season will be his last behind the Irish bench. Associate head coach Brock Sheahan, a former defenseman for Jackson at Notre Dame, will take over for the 2025-26 season.

Siergiej will be witnessing his fourth outdoors game for Notre Dame. He was Notre Dame’s director of hockey operations for the first three: a 2-1 Irish win over Miami (Ohio) in the Hockey City Classic at Soldier Field on Feb. 1, 2013; a 4-3 loss to Boston College on Jan. 4, 2013 in the Frozen Fenway at Boston; and a 4-2 loss to Michigan at Notre Dame Stadium on Jan. 5, 2019 after the Winter Classic game won there by the Boston Bruins 4-2 over the Blackhawks before 76,126.

Tickets for the Frozen Confines doubleheaders go on sale to the general public Friday, Aug. 30 at 10 a.m. Central Time at Wrigley Field  and will be available at Cubs.com/BigTenHockey . But a variety of pre-sales will be available to Notre Dame ticket holders at 10 a.m. CT on the following dates: Aug. 27 for hockey season ticket members; Aug. 28 all other athletics season ticket members; Aug. 29 for Notre Dame football ticket lottery participants and priority access subscribers.

The second game of the Notre Dame-Penn State series likely will be played Sunday, Jan. 5 at the Compton Family Ice Arena. The Big Ten’s full 24-game schedule will be released in a couple of weeks.

This article originally appeared on South Bend Tribune: Let's skate two! Notre Dame hockey part of 'Frozen Confines' doubleheader Jan. 3, 2025