NCAA Division I Women's Hockey conferences and teams

The following is a list of NCAA women's collegiate ice hockey teams, and conferences they compete in, that compete for the annual National Collegiate Women's Ice Hockey Championship. The championship has existed since the 2000–2001 season and conferences include the university teams of Divisions I and II of the NCAA.[1]

Independents

Sacred Heart is the only Division I independent hockey team of either sex in the 2013–14 season. The last previous independent team, the Penn State men's team, joined the new men's hockey league of its all-sports conference, the Big Ten, for 2013–14. The last previous independent women's team was Lindenwood, which joined College Hockey America (CHA) starting with the 2012–13 season.

Hockey East (HEA)

Hockey East (full name: Hockey East Association) is a college athletic conference which operates primarily in New England, and features men's and women's competition.[2] While the men's side of the conference added Notre Dame, located in Indiana, in 2013, the women's side remains a New England-only organization. It has emerged as one of the top women’s ice hockey conferences in United States. Hockey East continues to send teams to the Frozen Four as well to the NCAA Tournament.

College Hockey America (CHA)

College Hockey America (CHA) is a women’s college ice hockey conference (it participates in the NCAA’s Division I as a hockey-only conference).[3] The conference began as a men's hockey conference in 1999, and added women's competition in 2002. After several of its member schools dropped the sport or moved to other conferences, the men's side of CHA folded after the 2009–10 season. CHA remains in operation as a women-only conference, currently with six teams — two from New York state; one from Missouri; and three from Pennsylvania:

The Lindenwood Lady Lions (from the St. Louis suburb of St. Charles, Missouri), the Rochester (N.Y.) Institute of Technology (RIT) Tigers, and Penn State Nittany Lions joined the conference for the 2012-13 season. The CHA champion will receive an automatic bid to the NCAA Elite 8 Tournament starting in the 2014-15 season.

ECAC Hockey

Located in the northeastern United States, the ECAC Hockey has changed to meet the needs of the exploding collegiate sport as 24 teams have called ECAC Hockey home since the first regional championship was contested in 1984.[4] Clarkson became the first non-WCHA team to win the national championship when it defeated the Minnesota Gophers in the 2014 Frozen Four.

Western Collegiate Hockey Association (WCHA)

The Western Collegiate Hockey Association which operates over a wide area of the Midwestern and Western United States.[5] It participates in NCAA Division I as a hockey-only conference. The WCHA teams won every NCAA Women’s National Championship from 2001-13.

References

  1. ↑ NCAA Division I manual
  2. ↑ women's in Hockey East
  3. ↑ Women's in CHA
  4. ↑ Women's in ECAC Hockey
  5. ↑ Women's in WCHA

External links