COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. - While the National Collegiate Hockey Conference (NCHC) has handed out all of its individual awards for the 2023-24 season, there is still one NCHC honor to be decided by the fans, as the annual NCHC Play of the Year Tournament returns. Over the next two weeks fans will once again select the Play of the Year in the NCHC for the 2023-24 season through a bracket-style tournament.

During the season, the NCHC posted the Top 5 Plays of the Week each Tuesday. From those Top Plays throughout the season, the Conference has selected the top 15, plus one play from the Frozen Faceoff, to create a 16-play, seeded bracket. Each team is represented with at least one play, while North Dakota leads the way with four and Colorado College has three. Starting tomorrow, Wednesday, April 3, fans will vote on which play advances to the next round based on the bracket match-ups. Voting will only last approximately one day for each match-up, culminating in the 2023-24 Play of the Year being announced on Monday, April 15.

The 2023-24 NCHC Play of the Year bracket is below with two match-ups posted on NCHChockey.com each day, leading up to the final.

The schedule for each round of voting is as follows:

• Wednesday, April 3 - Noah Laba, CC vs. Adam Ingram, SCSU & Jackson Blake, UND vs. Cameron Rowe, WMU
• Thursday, April 4 - Matthew Thiessen, UMD vs. Stanley Cooley, CC & Joe Cassetti, WMU vs. Ty Mueller, Omaha
• Friday, April 5 - Cam Berg/Jackson Blake, UND vs. Zeev Buium, DU & Kaidan Mbereko, CC vs. Ludvig Persson, UND
• Saturday, April 6 - Bruno Bruveris, MU vs. Ben Steeves, UMD & Riese Gaber, UND vs. Massimo Rizzo, DU
• Monday, April 8 - Two quarterfinal match-ups
• Tuesday, April 9 – Two quarterfinal match-ups 
• Wednesday, April 10 - Semifinal match-ups
• Thursday, April 11 – Championship match-up
• Monday, April 15 – Play of the Year revealed on social media/NCHChockey.com

Each match-up on NCHChockey.com will show both plays and have a poll for fans to vote on the better play, with the highest vote total advancing. Fans may only vote once per day per match-up with the winners announced in the following day’s match-up story.

The defending Play of the Year champion is former Colorado College forward Hunter McKown, who won with this steal and between-the-legs goal vs. Omaha in 2022-23. It was the second straight year CC claimed NCHC Play of the Year after former Tigers goalie Matt Vernon won it in 2021-22. While McKown and Vernon have moved on from the NCHC, Colorado College does have a pair of goals and one save up for Play of the Year this season as the Tigers look to three-peat.

The video below shows all 16 entries up for 2023-24 NCHC Play of the Year to get you ready for the tournament! The bracket and match-ups are below the video.