The New Mexico Ice Wolves start their 2024-2025 season on Friday, Sept. 20 against their south division rival Corpus Christi Ice Rays with a three-game series. While it’s the start for the Ice Wolves the Ice Rays on the other hand have one game under their belt, a 5-1 victory over the Shreveport Mudbugs. The Ice Rays were lead by four year NAHL veteran Stepan Kuznetsov who scored twice in the victory. The Ice Wolves will start a new era of hockey this season with Kevin Hartzell behind the bench after Phil Fox’s departure this summer. Hartzell talks about how excited he is for the season opening weekend, “It’s always exciting to get the season started for everyone, players, their parents, billet families, and supporters of the team. I personally don’t get to wrapped up in the results as we have such a long way to go as a team, so this weekend is just another step in the process of constant improvement.
I suspect some parts of our game will look good, and there will tons of room for improvement in many areas. We will do our best, hopefully fare well on the scoreboard, but whatever the results, we will learn and improve. It should be a lot of fun to test ourselves for 3 straight days against what I expect to be a tough opponent. “
The Ice Wolves finished in fourth place in the 2023-2024 campaign earning their second playoff appearance in team history. During the playoff run the Ice Wolves defeated the Amarillo Wranglers in the play-in round winning the first two games of the best of three series. The Ice Wolves would then face the best team in the regular season, Lone Star Brahmas, where they would lose in four games to the eventual Robertson cup Champions.
In the 2023-2024 season the Ice Wolves took care of business against the Ice Rays winning the season series 7-1. The all-time record between the two teams is in favor of the Ice Wolves 18–12. Tickets are still available at https://tickets.nmicewolves.com/ and will be streamed live on https://nahltv.com/.