The Michigan–Michigan State men's ice hockey rivalry is a

college ice hockey College ice hockey is played principally in the United States and Canada, though leagues exist outside North America. In the United States, competitive "college hockey" refers to ice hockey played between colleges and universities within the g ...

rivalry A rivalry is the state of two people or groups engaging in a lasting competitive relationship. Rivalry is the "against each other" spirit between two competing sides. The relationship itself may also be called "a rivalry", and each participant o ...

between

Michigan Wolverines men's ice hockey The Michigan Wolverines men's ice hockey team is the college ice hockey team that represents the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Earning varsity status in 1922, the program has competed in 100 seasons. Between 1959 and 1981, the ...

and

Michigan State Spartans men's ice hockey The Michigan State Spartans men's ice hockey team is the college ice hockey team that represents Michigan State University (MSU). The team plays at the Munn Ice Arena in East Lansing, Michigan, on the MSU campus. The current head coach is Adam Ni ...

that is part of the larger intrastate rivalry between the

University of Michigan , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...

and

Michigan State University Michigan State University (Michigan State, MSU) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in East Lansing, Michigan. It was founded in 1855 as the Agricultural College of the State of Michigan, the fi ...

. It constitutes the most-played rivalry in college hockey. The rivalry between the

Spartans Sparta (Doric Greek: Σπάρτα, ''Spártā''; Attic Greek: Σπάρτη, ''Spártē'') was a prominent city-state in Laconia, in ancient Greece. In antiquity, the city-state was known as Lacedaemon (, ), while the name Sparta referred t ...

and

Wolverines The wolverine (), (''Gulo gulo''; ''Gulo'' is Latin for " glutton"), also referred to as the glutton, carcajou, or quickhatch (from East Cree, ''kwiihkwahaacheew''), is the largest land-dwelling species of the family Mustelidae. It is a muscul ...

notably includes

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

and

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appr ...

rivalries, although it extends to almost all sports and many other forms of achievement. The most notable examples of the hockey rivalry are two outdoor games, the October 6, 2001

Cold War The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because the ...

in East Lansing and the December 11, 2010 Big Chill at the Big House in Ann Arbor, which set the world record for attendance at a hockey game. This record however was broken four years later at the

2014 NHL Winter Classic The 2014 NHL Winter Classic was an outdoor regular season National Hockey League (NHL) game, part of the Winter Classic series, played on January 1, 2014 at Michigan Stadium in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The visiting Toronto Maple Leafs defeated the ...

on January 1, 2014. As of 2013, both teams are members of the

Big Ten Conference The Big Ten Conference (stylized B1G, formerly the Western Conference and the Big Nine Conference) is the oldest Division I collegiate athletic conference in the United States. Founded as the Intercollegiate Conference of Faculty Representati ...

, although they have previously competed together in both the

Central Collegiate Hockey Association The Central Collegiate Hockey Association (CCHA) is a college athletic conference that participates in the NCAA's Division I as a hockey-only conference. The current CCHA began play in the 2021–22 season; a previous incarnation, which the curre ...

(CCHA) and the

Western Collegiate Hockey Association The Western Collegiate Hockey Association (WCHA) is a college athletic conference which operates in the Midwestern United States. It participates in the NCAA's Division I as a women's ice hockey-only conference. From 1951 to 1999, it operated a ...

(WCHA). Michigan currently leads the series, which began on January 11, 1922. The Wolverines lead 175–138–24, as of the end of the 2022-23 season. The regular home arenas for the teams are

Yost Ice Arena Yost Ice Arena, formerly the Fielding H. Yost Field House, is an indoor ice hockey arena located on the campus of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan. It is the home of the Michigan Wolverines men's ice hockey team which plays in ...

(capacity 5,800) and

Munn Ice Arena Clarence L. Munn Ice Arena is a 6,114-seat hockey-only arena in East Lansing, Michigan on the campus of Michigan State University, situated across Chestnut Road from the Intramural Recreative Sports Center West and Spartan Stadium. It is home ...

(capacity 6,114). The two schools play at least four times a year through conference play, and with regularity play a fifth game in the

Great Lakes Invitational The Great Lakes Invitational (GLI) is a four-team National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) men's ice hockey tournament held annually at Little Caesars Arena in Detroit around the New Year's holiday as part of College Hockey in the D. The ...

. It is possible for the teams to meet nine times throughout the season with regular season, GLI, Big Ten tournament and NCAA tournament games. The teams often play games on neutral sites and have played at least once per year since 1990 in Detroit, starting at

Joe Louis Arena Joe Louis Arena was an arena in Downtown Detroit. Completed in 1979 at a cost of US$57 million as a replacement for Olympia Stadium, it sat adjacent to TCF Center, Cobo Center on the bank of the Detroit River and was accessible by the Joe Lou ...

(capacity 20,066). The teams generally alternate years in which they hold a home game in the city. Beginning during the 2015–16 season, the winner of each game at Joe Louis Arena ("The Joe") receives the Iron D Trophy. The last contest at "The Joe" was on February 10, 2017, with

Little Caesars Arena Little Caesars Arena is a multi-purpose arena in Midtown Detroit. Opened on September 5, 2017, the arena, which cost $862.9 million to construct, replaced Joe Louis Arena and The Palace of Auburn Hills as the home of the Detroit Red Wings of th ...

(capacity 19,515) replacing The Joe entirely. Since the

's hockey configuration capacity exceeds that of all regular collegiate hockey home venues as well as the

Beanpot Tournament The Beanpot is an annual ice hockey tournament among the four major US college hockey schools of the Boston, Massachusetts area, usually held during the first two Mondays in February at TD Garden. The tournament has been held annually since the 1 ...

host venue,

TD Garden TD Garden is a multi-purpose arena in Boston, Massachusetts. It is named after its sponsor, TD Bank, a subsidiary of the Toronto-Dominion Bank of Toronto, Ontario. It opened in 1995 as a replacement for the original Boston Garden and has been k ...

, the annual game at LCA is among the most attended college hockey games each year, rivaled only by the

Frozen Four The annual NCAA Division I Men's Ice Hockey Tournament is a college ice hockey tournament held in the United States by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) to determine the top men's team in Division I. Like other Division I cham ...

. An element of the rivalry is that Michigan (1964, 1992*, 1993* and 2018) and Michigan State (1999 and 2001) are the only two schools to have had both their hockey team and basketball team qualify for the Final Four of the

NCAA Men's Ice Hockey Championship ''NCAA men's ice hockey championship'' refers to either of the two tournaments in men's ice hockey – one in Division I and one in Division III – contested by the National Collegiate Athletic Association The National Collegiate Athlet ...

and

NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament The NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament, branded as NCAA March Madness and commonly called March Madness, is a single-elimination tournament played each spring in the United States, currently featuring 68 college basketball teams from ...

in the same season.

Duel in the D series

Michigan and Michigan State meet once a year in Detroit for a neutral site game. Michigan gets home team designation in even years, while Michigan State gets home team designation in odd years. Michigan leads the Duel in the D series 19–11–5. In 2016, the teams started competing for the Iron D trophy, Michigan has won the trophy five times, while Michigan State has won once.

Game results

Full game results for the rivalry, with rankings beginning in the 1995–96 season.

Notes

External links

Official Big Chill at the Big House website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Michigan-Michigan State men's ice hockey rivalry Michigan Michigan State Big Ten Conference rivalries Michigan Wolverines men's ice hockey Michigan State Spartans ice hockey 1925 establishments in Michigan