CONFERENCE BIO AND HISTORY

The National Collegiate Hockey Conference begins its 13th season of competition in 2025-2026, coming off another National Championship-winning campaign. Now nine members strong, the NCHC is home to seven of the last nine NCAA National Champions.

Last season was a season of firsts for the NCHC. Western Michigan University captured its first National Championship in April of 2025, while it was also the Conference’s first with nine members. Arizona State University completed its first campaign in the NCHC in 2024-25, earning a second-place finish. The Sun Devils were officially added to the NCHC on July 1, 2024, expanding the Conference into the Southwestern United States.

The NCHC’s membership includes Arizona State University, Colorado College, the University of Denver, Miami University, the University of Minnesota Duluth, the University of Nebraska Omaha, the University of North Dakota, St. Cloud State University and Western Michigan University. Next season in 2026-27, the NCHC will expand to 10 teams with the addition of the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota.

With a NATIONAL footprint spanning four time zones and seven states, the last two NCAA NATIONAL champions and seven in 12 years, and more than 100 NATIONAL Hockey League (NHL) alumni, the NCHC is going by the National on second reference beginning with the 2025-26 season. The NCHC unveiled a secondary logo featuring ‘NATIONAL’ in September of 2025 to complement its primary logo.

Since its founding in 2011, the National Collegiate Hockey Conference has established itself as the premier collegiate hockey conferences in the country. North Dakota captured the Conference’s first national title in 2016, followed by Denver in 2017 and Minnesota Duluth in 2018 and 2019. In doing so, the NCHC became the first conference with four straight National Champions (2016-19) since the WCHA from 2002-06. The Pioneers also won national championships in 2022 and most recently in 2024 to earn their 10th National Championship, the most in college hockey history. Western Michigan then made it two straight national titles for the NCHC in 2025.

Long before the NCHC saw national champions being crowned, however, the building blocks had to be put in place. The motivation for forming this new conference came as the landscape of college hockey began to change. When Penn State University announced it was starting a college hockey program in the spring of 2011, the Big 10 hockey conference was created. The seismic shift sent ripples throughout the college hockey world and left many institutions searching for stability.

On July 13, 2011, the leaders from six schools: Colorado College, the University of Denver, Miami University, the University of Minnesota Duluth, the University of Nebraska Omaha and the University of North Dakota, announced the decision to start their own conference beginning in the 2013-14 academic year. The NCHC was built on the principles of excellence both on and off the ice, and a commitment to fostering an environment of integrity, sportsmanship and competition.

On Sept. 22, 2011, still two years before a puck would be dropped, St. Cloud State University and Western Michigan University accepted invitations and the NCHC grew to eight teams, where it stood until 2024. Arizona State University was unanimously accepted into the NCHC by the Board of Directors on July 5, 2023, while the University of St. Thomas was officially announced as the NCHC’s 10th member on May 15, 2024.

Over its first 12 seasons, the NCHC has had tremendous success on the ice. Along with seven national champions, the conference has seen 16 teams earn a trip to the NCAA Frozen Four, the most by any conference during that time (2014-25), and 41 teams make the NCAA Tournament in those seasons. The NCHC had a record-setting year in the conference's second season of competition (2014-15), as six of eight NCHC teams made the 2015 NCAA Tournament, setting a record for percentage of teams from one conference (75 percent) to make the NCAA field.

In the history of college hockey, NCHC schools have combined to win 24 NCAA championships. Only three programs have won more than six NCAA men’s hockey titles and two of them (Denver with 10 and North Dakota with eight) reside in the NCHC.

Individually, the NCHC achieved another first in 2017 when Denver defenseman Will Butcher won the Hobey Baker Award, becoming the first NCHC student-athlete to claim college hockey’s top honor. Minnesota Duluth defenseman Scott Perunovich became the NCHC's second Hobey Baker winner in 2020. North Dakota's Zane McIntyre was the first NCHC netminder to capture the Mike Richter Award as the nation's top goaltender, doing so in 2015, while Denver goalie Tanner Jaillet won the award in 2017. Perunovich also took home the Tim Taylor Award in 2018, making him the first NCHC player to nab National Rookie of the Year honors. 

The infrastructure of the conference began to materialize in August 2011, as Colorado Springs, the birthplace of the NCAA Hockey Championships, was selected as the home of the NCHC’s headquarters and remains there today. Jim Scherr, the former CEO of the U.S. Olympic Committee, was named the conference’s first commissioner in January of 2012.

In June 2012, the NCHC announced that Target Center in Minneapolis, Minn. would be the inaugural home of the conference's championship. In addition, the Conference signed a national television partnership with CBS Sports Network – a partnership that lasted through the 2025 NCHC Championship.

In July 2013, Scherr left the NCHC but the conference didn’t miss a beat, as Josh Fenton, former senior associate athletic director at Miami University, was named the conference’s second commissioner. Fenton played an integral role in the formation of the new conference, making a seamless transition to his new role.

The NCHC officially dropped the puck on Oct. 18, 2013 as Miami hosted North Dakota and Colorado College hosted Minnesota Duluth in the first ever conference games, both of which were nationally televised on CBS Sports Network.

In November of 2013, with the help of fan suggestions and a fan vote, the NCHC’s championship was renamed the NCHC Frozen Faceoff. St. Cloud State became the inaugural NCHC regular-season champions, capturing the Julie and Spencer Penrose Memorial Cup – the NCHC’s regular-season trophy - on the final night of the 2013-14 regular season. Denver then went on to claim the inaugural NCHC Frozen Faceoff title, defeating Miami in the championship game on March 22, 2014 at Target Center.

The final Frozen Faceoff at Target Center took place in 2017. That summer, the NCHC Board of Directors made the decision to relocate the conference’s championship weekend across the river to Saint Paul, Minn. In September of 2017, the NCHC signed an agreement with (then) Xcel Energy Center, home to the NHL’s Minnesota Wild, and Minnesota Sports & Entertainment, to become the new home of the NCHC’s championship weekend. The NCHC held its first Frozen Faceoff at Xcel Energy Center in 2018 and its final one in 2025, with Western Michigan winning the crown.

On Dec. 19, 2023, the NCHC announced it would be moving its postseason tournament entirely to campus sites starting in 2026. Beginning this season (2025-26), the NCHC Playoffs will see each game of the tournament hosted by the higher seed, including the semifinals and championship game, and will take place over three weeks.

In September of 2014, the NCHC announced the launch of NCHC.tv, the conference's fully integrated digital network - a first for a NCAA single-sport conference. NCHC.tv allows fans to watch games online from all nine member schools anywhere in the world throughout each season. NCHC.tv also offers mobile apps and OTT apps, and will air all NCHC Tournament games for the first time in 2026.

The NCHC saw another change in leadership in the summer of 2022, as former St. Cloud State athletic director Heather Weems became the conference's third Commissioner. She replaced Fenton, who departed for the same role with the Summit League after nine years. Under Weems' watch, the NCHC has grown and expanded, adding Arizona State and St. Thomas, while a new conference tournament format on campus sites will debut this season. 

Now in its second decade, the National is poised to remain the premier college hockey conference, building on its rich tradition of excellence, while expanding and evolving to make it even better.