College Hockey's Passport Stamp: Providence, UConn, Colgate and Duluth Head to Belfast for the 2026 Friendship Four

While the sport just celebrated its first Frozen Four on the Vegas Strip, four more programs are packing bags for Northern Ireland this Thanksgiving. Here's what the Friendship Four means for college hockey's expanding map.

Four teams, one overseas bracket

College hockey just wrapped a season that put the sport on the Strip for the first time, with the men's Frozen Four filling T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. Now the calendar swings the opposite direction entirely. This Thanksgiving weekend, Providence, UConn, Colgate and Minnesota Duluth will cross an ocean to play the 2026 Friendship Four at the SSE Arena in Belfast, Northern Ireland.

Providence opens against Minnesota Duluth on Nov. 27, while Colgate and UConn meet the same day in the other opening bracket game. The Nov. 27 results set the Nov. 28 matchups, with the winners advancing to play for the tournament's championship prize, the Belpot Trophy, and the two losers meeting in a consolation game.

It is a small bracket with a big footprint. Four programs from two different conferences, Hockey East and the NCHC, flying overseas for a holiday weekend of hockey most fans back home will be watching from a very different time zone.

Why a Belfast arena hosts a Thanksgiving hockey tournament

The Friendship Four has run in Belfast since 2015, pausing only during the pandemic years, and it remains billed as the sole NCAA Division I ice hockey tournament staged outside North America. Past winners include UMass Lowell, Vermont, Clarkson, Union, Northeastern, Quinnipiac, Boston University and, most recently, Miami in 2025.

The tournament grew out of the Sister Cities partnership between Belfast and Boston, a cultural exchange agreement that is now roughly a decade old. Organizers have leaned on that relationship to frame the games as more than just an exhibition weekend, pairing the on-ice bracket with community and educational programming built around the visiting rosters.

For players used to campus rinks and regional bus trips, a few days in Northern Ireland during Thanksgiving break is the kind of program experience that shows up on recruiting pitches for years afterward.

The NCHC keeps punching its ticket

Minnesota Duluth's trip is not a one-off. Miami became the conference's first Friendship Four entrant with its 2025 championship, and the league has already locked in North Dakota for 2027 and Nebraska Omaha for 2028. That run gives the NCHC representation in Belfast for four consecutive seasons, a streak no other conference currently matches.

It is a small but telling data point for a league that has spent this offseason expanding in other ways too, from a new ten-team footprint to a fresh commissioner extension. Sending programs across the Atlantic on a rotating basis has quietly become part of how the conference builds its national and international profile between now and the next Frozen Four cycle.

What it means for hockey in the desert

It is a fun contrast to sit with. One corner of college hockey is chasing the sport into new buildings in the Nevada desert, and another corner is flying it across the Atlantic to a Belfast arena that has hosted Thanksgiving hockey for over a decade. Both moves say the same thing: this sport keeps finding new places to put down roots, and fans keep showing up wherever the puck drops.

You do not need a passport to catch that same energy this season. The rinks around the Ice Vegas Invitational bring the same speed and physicality that will be on display in Belfast, minus the transatlantic flight. Grab tickets, get to City National Arena, and watch college hockey's growing footprint show up right here on the Strip.

Know the 2026 Friendship Four field

Four programs, two conferences, one holiday-weekend bracket overseas. Here's who is making the trip and what is riding on it.

1. Providence Friars: Open the bracket against Minnesota Duluth on Nov. 27 in a Hockey East program's return trip to Belfast.
2. Minnesota Duluth Bulldogs: The NCHC's representative this year, following Miami's 2025 championship run in the same event.
3. UConn Huskies: Face Colgate in the other opening game, giving the Huskies a rare holiday-weekend trip across the Atlantic.
4. Colgate Raiders: Chasing the program's first Belpot Trophy against a Hockey East opponent to open the tournament.
5. The Belpot Trophy: The championship prize awarded to the Friendship Four winner each year since the event's 2015 debut.
6. SSE Arena Belfast: The Northern Ireland venue that has hosted every edition of the tournament since it launched.
7. North Dakota (2027) and Nebraska Omaha (2028): Already locked in for future Belfast trips, extending the NCHC's overseas streak to at least six years.

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