New England Women's Hockey Alliance


The New England Women's Hockey Alliance is a women's college ice hockey conference in the United States. It participates in the NCAA's Division I as a hockey-only conference. The conference is made up of six teams, with two in New Hampshire, two in Connecticut, one in Vermont, and one in New York.

History

Prior to 2017, the women's ice hockey program at Sacred Heart University was a longstanding independent team, part of no conference. In that year, three NCAA Division II colleges and one Division I college were removed from their NCAA Division III hockey conference. Those teams had previously not been eligible for postseason play, but the conference no longer wanted Division I and II teams playing a conference schedule at all. A sixth team, from Post University, announced plans to start playing that year as well.
Sacred Heart, Post, and the other four programs then formed a scheduling alliance called the New England Women's Hockey Alliance. This was not a formal conference affiliation, just an agreement among the teams to schedule each other during the regular season; officially the teams would be classified as Division I or Division II independents.
Holy Cross intended to be independent only for one season, applying for and gaining membership in Hockey East effective 2018. In that year, the other NEWHA members announced plans to adhere to Division I recruiting rules and offer scholarships, and so applied to the NCAA for the NEWHA to be recognized as an official Division I conference. They also announced the conference would include Long Island University's team when it begins play in 2019. NEWHA was approved as a Division I NCAA conference in September 2019. The conference will need to play at least two seasons with the same six members before being granted an automatic bid to the National Collegiate Championship playoffs in women's ice hockey.
The NEWHA is scheduled to expand to seven members in 2021 with the arrival of Stonehill College, which plans to start a varsity women's hockey team in the 2021–22 season.
On February 22, 2020, Saint Anselm and Franklin Pierce broke the record for longest NCAA women's hockey game with a five-overtime contest in the NEWHA Playoff Tournament that went 147:24. The game eclipsed the previous record of 144:32 in a 2010 game featuring RPI and Quinnipiac.

Members

Current members

InstitutionLocationNicknameFoundedAffiliationEnrollmentJoinedMen's Hockey conferencePrimary ConferenceColors
Franklin Pierce UniversityRindge, NHRavens1962Private 2,3812017Northeast-10 Northeast-10
Long Island UniversityBrooklyn/Brookville, NYSharks1926Private 18,5002019TBANortheast Conference
Post UniversityWaterbury, CTEagles1890Private 7,3172017Northeast-10 Central Atlantic Collegiate Conference
Sacred Heart UniversityFairfield, CTPioneers1963Private 5,4282017Atlantic HockeyNortheast Conference
Saint Anselm CollegeGoffstown, NHHawks1889Private 2,0152017Northeast-10 Northeast-10
Saint Michael's CollegeColchester, VTPurple Knights1904Private 1,6002017Northeast-10 Northeast-10

Future member

InstitutionLocationNicknameFoundedAffiliationEnrollmentJoiningMen's hockey conferencePrimary conferenceColors
Stonehill CollegeEaston, MASkyhawks1948Private 2,5002021Northeast-10 Northeast-10

Former members

Membership timeline


DateFormat = mm/dd/yyyy
ImageSize = width:750 height:auto barincrement:20
Period = from:01/01/2017 till:07/01/2022
TimeAxis = orientation:horizontal
PlotArea = right:30 left:0 bottom:50 top:5
Colors =
id:barcolor value:rgb
id:line value:black
id:bg value:white
PlotData=
width:15 textcolor:black shift: anchor:from fontsize:s
bar:1 color:barcolor from:07/01/2017 till:07/01/2018 text:Holy Cross
bar:2 color:barcolor from:07/01/2017 till:end text:Franklin Pierce
bar:3 color:barcolor from:07/01/2017 till:end text:Post
bar:4 color:barcolor from:07/01/2017 till:end text:Sacred Heart
bar:5 color:barcolor from:07/01/2017 till:end text:St. Anselm
bar:6 color:barcolor from:07/01/2017 till:end text:St. Michael's
bar:7 color:barcolor from:07/01/2019 till:end text:LIU
bar:8 color:barcolor from:07/01/2021 till:end text:Stonehill
ScaleMajor = gridcolor:line unit:year increment:1 start:01/01/2017

Champions