COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. - While the NCHC won another National Championship thanks to Western Michigan and the season is complete, there is still one more title to be handed out, as the annual NCHC Play of the Year Tournament returns. Over the next two weeks fans will once again crown the Play of the Year in the NCHC for the 2024-25 season through a bracket-style tournament.

During the season, the NCHC posted the Top Plays of the Week each Tuesday. From those Top Plays during the year, the Conference selected 14 plays, plus two from the Frozen Faceoff, to create a 16-play bracket, with includes nine goals and seven saves. Each team is represented with at least one play, while Denver leads the way with four and four other teams have two plays in the field (Arizona State, Colorado College, North Dakota and Western Michigan). Starting tomorrow, Wednesday, April 16, 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 2024-25 Play of the Year being announced on Wednesday, April 30.

The 2024-25 NCHC Play of the Year bracket is below with one or two match-ups posted on NCHChockey.com each day for voting, leading up to the final.

The schedule for each round of voting is as follows:

• Wednesday, April 16 - T.J. Semptimphelter, UND vs. Austin Burnevik, SCSU + Matt Davis, DU vs. Kaidan Mbereko, CC
• Thursday, April 17 - Klayton Knapp, UMD vs. Jackson Kunz, UND + Matt Davis, DU vs. Cam Mitchell, Omaha
• Friday, April 18 - Bruno Bruveris, Miami vs. Artem Shlaine, ASU + Zeev Buium, DU vs. Owen Michaels, WMU
• Monday, April 21 - Alex Bump, WMU vs. Samu Salminen/Eric Pohlkamp, DU + Bret Link, CC vs. Gibson Homer, ASU
• Tuesday, April 22 - Two quarterfinal match-ups
• Wednesday, April 23 – Two quarterfinal match-ups 
• Thursday, April 24  - First semifinal match-up
• Friday, April 25 – Second semifinal match-up
• Monday, April 28 – Championship match-up
• Wednesday, April 30 - 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 Western Michigan grad student goaltender Cameron Rowe, who won with this stellar blocker save from from Feb. 10, 2024. While Rowe does not have a save in this year's bracket, two of his Broncos teammates have a goal up for Play of the Year in Alex Bump and Owen Michaels.

The video below shows all 16 entries up for 2024-25 NCHC Play of the Year to get you ready for the tournament! The bracket and match-ups are below the video.
 

 

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