The Beginner’s Guide to College Hockey

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College hockey is a hidden gem of the ncaa, and here’s a guide for anyone new to the sport looking to join the growing community

written by james blennau

From the Frozen Four to the Friendly Confines, college hockey spreads across America as one of the best-kept secrets in major sports. It combines the pageantry and tradition of major sports like college football and basketball with the intensity of professional ice hockey, creating a hybrid that produces some of the most exciting athletic events each weekend of the season. 

Its lack of presence on the national stage can seem a bit misleading. It attracts massive fan bases from Maine to Arizona who see their alma maters, local schools and favorite teams take the ice every weekend never knowing what they'll see even despite most games being on streaming services and obscure cable channels. 

The growing fan bases and excitement each year around NCAA ice hockey are aided by the influx of high-talent players, NHL prospects and legendary coaches in American hockey history. It may be confusing to pick up on, but once you're hooked, you're sure to stick around. 

How does it all work, though? Well, that's exactly why you're here. This story will cover everything in the sport from conferences, championships, contracts and coaches to traditions, talents, teams and tracking. 

OVERVIEW

Let's start with the basics. NCAA Division I men's ice hockey comprises 64 teams in the 2023-24 season, always subject to change with teams adding programs or dropping levels. There is also a Division II and III level, with DIII the only other division having a postseason tournament. Division I women's ice hockey also has 44 teams across its landscape, but since I'm pretty much a one-man band and that's where my coverage is focused, we'll be discussing DI men's. 

DI men's ice hockey is split across six conferences with a small group of independent schools spread nationwide without a conference affiliation. Each conference consists of seven to 12 teams and operates its own postseason tournament with a bid to the national tournament on the line, which will be explained later. Some schools are only Division I for hockey, and due to the lack of programs around the country, this tradition has stayed around for decades.

Point structure during regular season games differs from that of the modern NHL system, in that a win earns a team three points, an overtime or shootout win two, and an overtime or shootout loss one. Shootout scores are also officially kept as a draw in the standings and goal differential at whatever the score was before the shootout. In many cases, especially non-conference play, shootouts are optional but in conference or in-season tournament games they are used to award an extra point or crown a champion. 

Image Courtesy: NCAA Photos/Tyler Schank | Crowds gathering outside Amalie Arena in Tampa, Florida at the 2023 Frozen Four.

rules

In many such cases, the NCAA's rules differ from those of leagues like the NHL or International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) standards. These rules are some of the most major examples of how the competition strays from professional norms.

• Goals scored during a delayed penalty do not negate power plays

• Contact to the head is a major penalty and a game misconduct

• Fighting is a major penalty and game disqualification possibly including suspension from the following game

• All players must wear a full face shield, traditional metal cage or "fishbowl" clear mask

• No trapezoidd behind the goal, goalies can play the puck behind the goal line anywhere with no penalty

• No automatic delay of game penalty for shooting the puck directly over the glass and can be called at the officials' discretion

conferences

NCAA ice hockey is split into six different conferences, and each conference has its own geographical base. They differ in size, revenue and prestige but each finds its niche in the larger college hockey community. Each conference has its own tournament format, standings ranking for during the regular season and referee crew with all tournaments ending in time for the national tournament in March. Conferences can change as they do in the other major sports, but realignment in hockey is rarer and more impactful than in its counterparts across the NCAA.

Atlantic hockey America

Formerly known as Atlantic Hockey before its merger with the women's conference College Hockey America in early 2024, this conference is one of the major underdogs in college hockey. Its schools are small, but its fanbases are loyal. Atlantic Hockey America's teams, like its name suggests, mostly span the Eastern Seaboard and dip a bit west but nowhere past Western New York and Pennsylvania. Its teams consist of the following eleven schools:

• Air Force

• American International College (AIC)

• Army (West Point)

• Bentley

• Canisius

• Holy Cross

• Mercyhurst

• Niagara

• Robert Morris

• Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT)

• Sacred Heart

big ten

The Big Ten Conference in hockey consists of many of the conference's full member institutions and was created to bring its traditions to a super-conference in college hockey with all its member teams under the same brand, being announced in 2010 with Penn State's jump to DI and beginning play in 2014. It consists of some longtime blue-bloods (a school with a longstanding and successful program) and some up-and-coming programs and is the smallest conference in Division I. While its size may lack compared to other conferences, its schools certainly do not as it is made up of the following institutions:

• Michigan

• Michigan State

• Minnesota

• Notre Dame

• Ohio State

• Penn State

• Wisconsin

ccha

The Central Collegiate Hockey Association (CCHA) is another one of college hockey's less successful conferences in recent years, but its members hold decades of history in hockey throughout the hallowed halls of home rinks in the Midwest. Its teams spread across Ohio, Michigan and Minnesota with Ohio State once a member of the conference before the Big Ten's founding. Its nine teams range from startups within the last five years to giants of the game with multiple Frozen Four appearances and national championships. Its members are as follows:

• Augustana

• Bemidji State

• Bowling Green

• Ferris State

• Lake Superior State

• Michigan Tech

• Minnesota State

• Northern Michigan

• St. Thomas

ECAC hockey

To quote Pierre McGuire in the conference's advertisements, "The most historic conference in college hockey" is next on our list. Home to ageless institutions of college hockey and American education in the Ivy League teams, the conference has continued to thrive despite many of its teams breaking away due to revenue and scheduling concerns in the 1970s. Its teams span New England, New York and even New Jersey with giants of the game and underdogs who've created their own history in the past few decades. With intense and historic rivalries, teams and traditions, its teams are as follows:

• Brown

• Clarkson

• Colgate

• Cornell

• Dartmouth

• Harvard

• Princeton

• Quinnipiac

• Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI)

• St. Lawrence

• Union

• Yale

Image Courtesy: NYS Olympic Regional Development Authority | ECAC Hockey fans gathered in Lake Placid, New York to watch their teams play in the semifinals and finals of the conference tournament with the conference’s teams displayed on banners in the in the center of the arena.

hockey east

This conference can be considered top-to-bottom the most competitive conference in the nation in recent years, and it's not hard to see why. With powerhouses who broke away from ECAC Hockey and teams from across the New England hockey hotbed in massive alumni and local markets, its schools are always seen on the national stage. From five-time national champions to giant state schools with massive fanbases, this conference's teams have no shortage of pride and prestige, and go as follows:

• Boston College

• Boston University

• UConn

• Maine

• Massachusetts/UMass

• UMass Lowell

• Merrimack

• New Hampshire

• Northeastern

• Providence

• Vermont

NCHC

The National Collegiate Hockey Conference (NCHC) is also rather new to the college hockey community, and formed in 2011 being used primarily as a home for teams stranded when the WCHA folded its men's conference in 2013, just in time to make way for the new Big Ten. Teams from across the Midwest, Great Plains and Rocky Mountains flocked to its newly opened doors, and it remains a powerhouse with some of the most important schools in college hockey history, and pioneers in nontraditional markets also joining in on one of college hockey's purest conferences, with teams as follows: 

• Arizona State

• Colorado College

• Denver

• Miami (OH)

• Minnesota Duluth

• North Dakota

• Omaha

• St. Cloud State

• Western Michigan

independents

Many teams who don't affiliate with a conference are either new to the sport within the last decade still adjusting and waiting for a conference invite or were left without one in the realignment during the early 2010s. Despite having no scheduled series with common opponents, these teams symbolize the spirit of playing for the love of the game, and go as follows:

• Alaska (Fairbanks)

• Alaska-Anchorage

• Lindenwood

• Long Island University

• Stonehill

CHAMPIONSHIP

The current edition of the NCAA men's ice hockey championship field consists of 16 teams, with six of them coming from each conference's champion and the others being the top ten remaining teams in the Pairwise rankings, a statistical matrix used to rate teams against each other throughout the season. Each regional is hosted by a school, with hosts never allowed to play at their sponsored site. 

The field is split into four sets of seeds one through four, each facing off in a traditional 1-vs.-4 and 2-vs.-3 first-round matchup and each team also ranked one through 16. The top team will receive the site closest to their school, and each subsequent one-seed will follow suit. These usually take place at AHL or similar-level arenas, able to host larger-capacity crowds than most college hockey arenas, usually at least 6,000 seats.

The winner of each region then moves on to the Frozen Four, hosted annually at an NHL-level arena, usually in early April. The semifinals are determined by the teams' original seeding 1-16, with the highest being one and the lowest being four taking the same matchup organization as the regional rounds. After an entire season of hockey, the task is simple - win four hockey games, and you take home the hardware.

Image Courtesy: Tyler Schank/NCAA Photos | Denver players celebrating their National Championship at the 2024 Frozen Four in St. Paul, Minnesota at the Xcel Energy Center.

POLLS

There are two main media polls in college hockey used to evaluate the best teams from around the country. These come from USCHO.com, commonly known as USCHO and USA Hockey. The USCHO poll is largely seen as more accurate due to its expansive network of knowledgeable writers, but neither poll is used for any official purpose, similar to the AP and coaches poll in football or basketball. 

The Pairwise rankings system, while largely difficult to understand, uses statistics to measure teams and mimic the methods the NCAA uses to select teams for the national tournament and is largely accurate annually. The system uses teams' strength of schedule and records to compare every team in Division I and create a fair matrix of the nation's best teams.

ROSTER RULES

College hockey teams are allowed to carry up to 26 players and provide full scholarships to each as of the 2024-25 season, changing from the previous 18-scholarship limit with no roster caps. Teams can also dress up to 19 skaters and three goalies during a game, with many choosing to carry the full three netminders during all competitions. 

This allows for one extra skater and goaltender compared to NHL rosters and can help teams fill voids when injuries happen during games, making emergency backups and call-ups much more rare at the collegiate level.

ELIGIBILITY/PROFESSIONAL CONTRACTS

All players who enroll and sign for a team can be eligible, and all eligibility is forfeited by the player as soon as they sign a professional contract of any kind, For this reason, and others, many foreign players may skip NCAA hockey and use other junior leagues or systems to get to the NHL when they are drafted at 18, signing contracts when teams see them fit to make the jump to pro hockey. Contrary to sports like basketball and football but similar to baseball, there is no requirement for how long a player must be out of high school when signing an NHL contract, so players can sign after their freshman year or even in some cases as free agents in their college careers if they weren't drafted when they were of age. For the most part, many college players come to school after playing junior hockey while around ages 18-20 and are eligible due to the nonprofessional status of many junior leagues.

However, as of August 2025, all CHL players who were previously fully ineligible to compete in the NCAA can play in college provided that they do not receive "above actual and necessary expenses" paid while competing in its member leagues, maintaining the formality of amateurism in college hockey. 

WHAT NOW?

That just about sums up all there is to know about the wonderful world of college hockey. Great players, coaches, fans and storytellers make up a tight-knit community of passionate people. With the game of hockey already growing across the US and an influx of foreign players entering the system following the CHL ruling, it's only a matter of time until new fans create the demand for more programs and grow college hockey to a level it's never seen before. This beginner's guide is only the beginning, and the only way to move in college hockey from here is up.