Sixteen regular-season home games and an exhibition contest vs. Royal Military College on Oct. 6 highlight University of Massachusetts hockey's 2018-19 schedule, announced on Friday. The schedule features 24 Hockey East games and 10 non-league contests with 12 of the home matchups being played on Fridays and Saturdays.UMass will open the 2018-19 campaign with a home-and-home against Rensselaer, with the first game being played in Amherst on Oct. 12. The Minutemen then travel to Columbus on Oct. 19 and 20 for two against Ohio State, who is coming off a trip to the Frozen Four in 2017-18.Hockey East play begins for the Minutemen on Oct. 26, hosting Merrimack in the front end of a home-and-home against the Warriors.In November, UMass will travel to New Hampshire on Nov. 3, while the Wildcats visit Amherst on Sunday, Nov. 18. The Minutemen will play the first two of its three on the year against Providence on Thursday, Nov. 8 (home) and Saturday, Nov. 10 (away). UMass will have two non-conference matchups in the month, as well, visiting Holy Cross on Nov. 16, and hosting Princeton on Nov. 24.League play resumes briefly for the Minutemen on Nov. 30 with a home matchup against UConn, which begins a stretch of four straight against foes from the Nutmeg State—games versus Quinnipiac on Dec. 7 (away) and Dec. 8 (home) and a Tuesday meeting with Yale (home) on Dec. 11 close out the 2018 calendar year.The Minutemen will kick off the second half of their season on Jan. 4 against UMass Lowell at the Mullins Center before wrapping up non-conference action on Jan. 5 at American International. January also features two-game sets against Vermont on Jan. 11-12 (home), Northeastern on Jan. 18 (home) and Jan. 19 (away) and a trip to Maine on Jan. 25-26.UMass will face Boston University on back-to-back Fridays to open the month of February (Feb. 1, away; Feb. 8 home) and will have its second meeting with UMass Lowell on Feb. 9 (away).On Feb. 15-16, the Minutemen will play Boston College in a home-and-home, which opens in Amherst. UMass then hosts UConn for a second time on the year on Feb. 21.UMass wraps up the regular season by closing out series against the four Hockey East foes that the Minutemen will face three times in the 2018-19 season—Providence (Feb. 23, away), Merrimack (Feb. 28, away), Maine (Mar. 2, home) and UConn (Mar. 8, away).The Hockey East Playoffs, under a revised format for 2018-19, will open with the quarterfinal round on March 15-16.Season ticket renewals for the 2018-19 UMass hockey campaign are currently ongoing with a renewal deadline of Tuesday, July 10 to secure the discounted rate ($176 for adults, $160 for faculty/staff/senior/youth). Fans looking to purchase new season tickets can now place a $50 per-seat deposit down, which will go towards the purchase of the tickets ($192 for adults, $176 for faculty/staff/senior/youth) and grants seat selection access prior to the on-sale date of Tuesday, July 24. Call 1-866-UMASS-TIX to renew your season tickets or place a deposit on new season tickets today!For continued coverage of UMass hockey, follow the team on Twitter and Instagram (@UMassHockey) and on Facebook at facebook.com/UMassHockey.