Michigan State Wins 2024 GLI

For the first time in 15 years, Michigan State is the Great Lakes Invitational champion. The Spartans defeated Western Michigan, 3-1, on Monday night at Van Andel Arena in Grand Rapids, Mich. in the 2024 title game.

Joey Larson scored the game-winning goal, then set up an insurance marker by Isaac Howard in the third period, to lift top-ranked MSU to its first GLI crown since 2009 at the now-demolished Joe Louis Arena in Detroit. GLI MVP Luca Di Pasquo stopped 29 shots for the Spartans, one night after making 16 saves in a 2-0 opening-round victory over Northern Michigan. 

WMU had advanced to this year's championship contest by besting Michigan Tech, 4-3, in overtime on Sunday. MTU then won the consolation game, 4-3 in OT, over NMU yesterday.

MSU has now won 13 GLI titles all-time dating back to the tournament's start in 1965, second behind only former participant Michigan's 17 crowns. Next year's GLI field, the fourth straight that will be played at the VAA in West Michigan, will again feature co-hosts MSU and MTU, plus Ferris State and Miami (Ohio).

GLI Moving to Grand Rapids for 2022

The Great Lakes Invitational is moving west.

For the first time ever, the annual holiday college hockey tournament will be played outside Detroit, as the 2022 version will be contested on Dec. 27-28 at Van Andel Arena in Grand Rapids, Mich., home of the AHL's Grand Rapids Griffins. 

The semifinals for the 57th incarnation of the GLI will feature Michigan Tech against Western Michigan, and Michigan State versus Ferris State, with the winners meeting on the second day for the title. Longtime GLI participant Michigan, which holds the tournament record with 17 championships, will not be a part of the field for the first time since 1973. 

The GLI began in 1965 at the Olympia in Detroit, before moving to Joe Louis Arena in 1979 and then Little Caesars Arena in 2017. The 2018 version was contested outdoors at Comerica Park, home of Major League Baseball's Detroit Tigers, while the 2020 edition was canceled due to COVID-19. Last year's tournament was held on campus sites, with MSU hosting Western and Tech, and Michigan hosting MTU before the Wolverines bowed out the next night against WMU due to extenuating circumstances. 

MTU won the last regular GLI title in 2019, defeating Michigan in the final.

Van Andel Arena has previously hosted a number of college hockey games, including Ferris State-Michigan State and Michigan-Western Michigan regular-season contests in its first season of operation (1996-97). The facility has also hosted NCAA men's hockey regionals in 1997, 2001, 2004, 2005, 2007, 2009 and 2013. 

Shawhan New Head Coach at Michigan Tech

The latest NCAA head coaching vacancy this offseason was filled on Monday when Michigan Tech University assistant coach Joe Shawhan was named as the 22^nd head coach overall of the Huskies. He succeeds Mel Pearson, an MTU graduate who left Tech after six seasons to return to the University of Michigan as head coach in place of the retired Red Berenson.

Shawhan has been on MTU's staff the last three seasons, helping the Huskies to a WCHA playoff title and NCAA Tournament berth this past season. He previously served as an assistant coach at his alma mater, Lake Superior State University, and at Northern Michigan University. He also guided the U.S. Junior National Team to a silver medal at the Viking Cup in Alberta as head coach in 2004, two years after doing the same as an assistant.

Prior to becoming an NCAA Division I college coach, Shawhan served as head coach and general manager of the now-defunct Soo Kewadin Casino Indians of the North American Hockey League from 1995 to 2005, amassing a league-record 474 junior “A” wins to go along with three NAHL titles. He also turned out dozens of players for the collegiate and professional ranks, most noticeably former Michigan State University goaltender Ryan Miller, a Hobey Baker Memorial Award winner and U.S. Olympian who now plays for the NHL's Vancouver Canucks.

A native of Sault Ste. Marie, Mich., Shawhan played collegiately at LSSU. He led the Lakers in total saves (480) in 1982-83 and in goals-against average (3.03) in 1985-86, and finished with 1,130 career saves.

Pearson Returns to Michigan as Head Coach

Former University of Michigan assistant Mel Pearson is the new bench boss of the Wolverines, as announced Monday. Pearson succeeds former head coach Red Berenson, who retired last month after 33 years at the helm in Ann Arbor.

Pearson, 58, spent the last six years coaching at his alma mater, Michigan Tech. The Huskies went 118-92-6 under his tutelage, won the Western Collegiate Hockey Association's playoff tournament this past season, and qualified twice for the NCAA Tournament (2015, 2017). MTU also recorded three consecutive 20-plus win campaigns in the last three years, and went 15-7-6-3 in WCHA play last year, finishing second in the conference.

Pearson played for MTU from 1977 to 1981, scoring 21 goals and adding 35 assists for 56 points in 107 career outings, according to hockeydb.com. He also served three seasons as an assistant coach with the Huskies (1985-1988).

A native of Edina, Minn., Pearson served as an assistant coach at Michigan from 1988 to 1999, and then as associate coach from 1999 to 2011. In that span, the Wolverines won 10 Central Collegiate Hockey Association regular-season titles and nine CCHA playoff championships, while qualifying for the NCAA Tournament every year from 1991 to 2011. Michigan also made 11 NCAA Frozen Four appearances and won national titles in 1996 and 1998, while also finishing as NCAA runner-up in 2011. U-M also finished first in the annual Great Lakes Invitational no less than 13 times during Pearson’s tenure, including his first nine seasons.

This past season U-M went 13-19-3 overall, finished fifth in the Big Ten Conference, and did not qualify for the NCAAs for the fourth time in the last five seasons.

Western Michigan Wins GLI

The Western Michigan University Broncos claimed their first Great Lakes Invitational title since 1986 with a 1-0 overtime victory over the defending champion Michigan Tech Huskies, on Saturday evening at Comerica Park in Detroit.

Justin Kovacs scored the game's only goal 2:01 into the extra session when he jammed a puck past MTU netminder Pheonix Copley at the left post after Copley had deflected a shot away to his right. Copley had posted a 4-0 shutout in the GLI title game over WMU last year at Joe Louis Arena when the Huskies claimed their first GLI crown since 1980.

2013 Tournament MVP Lukas Hafner made 33 saves in his second straight appearance in the Broncos net, after stopping 30 shots against  No. 3 Michigan in a 3-2 OT triumph on Friday. MTU survived Michigan State, 3-2, that same day in a shootout, while MSU then blanked rival Michigan, 3-0, in yesterday's consolation contest as Jake Hildebrand made 29 saves for the Spartans.

The tournament returns to Joe Louis Arena next December, with Ferris State slated to join the regular field of MTU , MSU and Michigan.