The Uni­ver­si­ty of Den­ver hock­ey sea­son begins next week with the Pio­neers con­fi­dent in pur­suit of adding a ninth nation­al cham­pi­onship to their exceed­ing­ly large tro­phy case.

It won’t take long to find out if the No. 5 Pio­neers are legit. Their open­ing sched­ule is stacked.

“No doubt, it’s tough,” DU coach David Car­le said. “We’re grate­ful and excit­ed for the oppor­tu­ni­ty to get into it. Hav­ing mean­ing­ful games right away is awesome.”

The NCAA hock­ey sea­son, slat­ed to start in ear­ly Octo­ber before the coro­n­avirus pan­dem­ic, final­ly returns in a “pod” for­mat in Oma­ha where DU and fel­low Nation­al Col­le­giate Hock­ey Con­fer­ence teams will con­verge to each play 10 games apiece over the first three weeks of December.

On Dec. 2, DU opens the sea­son against No. 3 Min­neso­ta Duluth (the defend­ing NCAA cham­pi­ons). Two days lat­er, the Pio­neers face No. 1 North Dakota.

“Every­one is eager to play and every­one is extreme­ly excit­ed,” said senior DU for­ward Kohen Olis­chef­s­ki, the Pio­neers’ cap­tain this sea­son. “We know it’s going to be a chal­lenge. This for­mat is some­thing we haven’t seen before with a lot of games in a short peri­od of time. Our con­di­tion­ing and our fit­ness are our biggest point of empha­sis right now.”

The Pio­neers also know the entire sea­son — which includes home-and-away games against region­al foes start­ing in Jan­u­ary — might be on thin ice. A DU play­er test­ed pos­i­tive for COVID-19 about two-and-a-half weeks ago, Car­le said, which required sev­en addi­tion­al play­ers to “get shut down for a tem­po­rary amount of time.”

The Pio­neers are now back at full strength.

“That’s been our one major hic­cup,” Car­le said. “Our team has been doing a great job, but obvi­ous­ly, some­times it doesn’t mat­ter how great of a job (you’re doing). With a con­ta­gious virus, it still might get you. I give our guys a lot of cred­it. We’ve done the right things away from the rink to make sure we are on the ice as much as possible.”

Added Olis­chef­s­ki: “It’s just been a lot of lay­ing low, mak­ing sac­ri­fices and deci­sions that are for the bet­ter of the team. We’re just try­ing to stay safe and healthy right now. Obvi­ous­ly, pos­i­tive tests put a big wrench into things.”

The Pio­neers have rea­son to be con­fi­dent. DU returns 63% of its goal-scor­ing from a year ago and four defense­men with at least 25 games played. Add in a trio of instant-impact grad­u­ate trans­fers — D Bo Han­son (St. Lawrence), F Steven Jan­dric (Alas­ka Fair­banks) and G Corbin Kaczper­s­ki (Yale) — and the Pio­neers believe they have the tal­ent and depth to com­pete with anyone.

“The pace at which we do things has been the most impres­sive,” Car­le said. “We need that with the style of play we like. We need all four lines to be able to do it. I like our depth at all three posi­tions. We’re a con­fi­dent bunch.”