Western Collegiate Hockey Association


The Western Collegiate Hockey Association is a college athletic conference which operates over a wide area of the Midwestern and Western United States. It participates in the NCAA's Division I as an ice hockey-only conference.
WCHA member teams have won a record 36 men's NCAA hockey championships, most recently in 2011 by the Minnesota–Duluth Bulldogs. A WCHA team has also finished as the national runner-up a total of 28 times. WCHA teams also won the first 13 NCAA women's titles, which were first awarded in 2001.

History

The league was founded in 1951 as the Midwest Collegiate Hockey League, then was known as the Western Intercollegiate Hockey League until 1958. The 1958–59 season was one of independence for members as a result of recruiting techniques by some teams. The current Western Collegiate Hockey Association was founded for the 1959–60 season. The 2005 NCAA Frozen Four hockey tournament finals were noteworthy when all four teams came from the WCHA.
WCHA teams also won the first 13 NCAA women's titles, which were first awarded in 2001. In 2006, WCHA member Wisconsin was the first school to capture both the men's and women's Division I ice hockey championships in the same season.
The men's regular season conference champion is awarded the MacNaughton Cup, while the league's tournament champion winning the WCHA Final Five takes home the Broadmoor Trophy.

2013 realignment

On March 22, 2011, Minnesota and Wisconsin announced that their men's teams planned to leave the league in order to form a hockey Big Ten Conference in 2013–14, along with Penn State, which would start a varsity hockey program in 2012–13, and Central Collegiate Hockey Association members Michigan, Michigan State, and Ohio State.
In response to the creation of the Big Ten men's hockey conference, Denver, Colorado College, North Dakota, Nebraska-Omaha, Minnesota-Duluth, and St. Cloud State left the WCHA to join Miami University and Western Michigan of the CCHA to create the National Collegiate Hockey Conference. Facing membership at 4 teams for the 2013–14 season, the WCHA conference added one of its former members, Northern Michigan of the CCHA, on July 15, 2011.
On August 25, 2011, the WCHA announced that it had invited the University of Alaska Fairbanks, Bowling Green, Ferris State, and Lake Superior State to join beginning in the 2013–14 season. On August 26, 2011, Alaska-Fairbanks, Ferris State, and Lake Superior State accepted their invitations and joined Northern Michigan in the WCHA in 2013. After much deliberation, on October 4, 2011, Bowling Green decided to join the WCHA as well in 2013. On January 17, 2013, the WCHA admitted Alabama–Huntsville to the league, effective in the 2013–14 season.
This realignment activity only affected the men's side of the WCHA. Even after Penn State took the ice with both men's and women's teams, the Big Ten still had only four members with varsity women's hockey. This meant that the women's side of the WCHA remained intact for the immediate future.

After realignment

The next change in the conference membership came shortly after the 2016–17 season, when North Dakota announced that it would drop women's hockey.
During the 2019 offseason, the future of the men's side of the WCHA fell into serious doubt when its seven Midwestern members—Bemidji State, Bowling Green, Ferris State, Lake Superior State, Michigan Tech, Minnesota State, and Northern Michigan—notified the WCHA that they would leave the league after the 2020–21 season, potentially forming a new men's hockey conference. In February 2020, these seven schools announced they would form a new CCHA.
At the time the seven Midwestern members announced their plans to leave, the two Alaska teams were facing a crisis following the veto by state governor Mike Dunleavy of over $100 million in funding for the University of Alaska system, a move that was seen as potentially ending intercollegiate athletics entirely at both the Anchorage and Fairbanks campuses. The cuts led the UA system to start the process of consolidating the three-campus system into a single accredited institution, with the system president telling local media that a single accreditation would likely lead to the Anchorage and Fairbanks athletic programs being combined into a single program. While both campuses continue to sponsor men's ice hockey in the 2019–20 season, the future of at least one of the teams beyond that point was then seen as uncertain at best. Later developments saw many of the budget cuts pulled back, as well as a temporary halt to work on a single UA system accreditation; this led the UA system to announce that athletics at both campuses would continue as is through the 2020–21 school year.
In November 2019, Alabama–Huntsville submitted a withdrawal letter to the WCHA, stating that it also planned to leave after the 2020–21 season. At the time, UAH was discussing potential future options with the two Alaska campuses. However, UAH subsequently dropped hockey effective immediately on May 22, 2020 due to the financial impacts from the COVID-19 pandemic on its athletic department On May 29, 2020 UAH President Darren Dawson announced that men's hockey would return for the 2020-2021 season after more than $750,000 in private contributions were made during the week prior.
While the future of the men's WCHA remains in serious doubt, the women's WCHA announced a further expansion effective in 2021–22 with the arrival of St. Thomas, a Twin Cities school that received NCAA approval to directly transition from Division III to Division I. St. Thomas had been expelled from its longtime D-III home of the Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference effective with the end of the 2020–21 school year due to perceptions by many members that it had grown too strong for that conference. The Summit League offered the Tommies a D-I home, and backed the school's bid to directly transition from D-III.

Members

The WCHA has 15 member schools in all; the men's division operates with 10 members, while the women's division has 7. Only two schools, Bemidji State and Minnesota State, have both men's and women's teams in the conference.

Men's

Women's

Former men's members

Former women's member

Future women's member

Membership timeline


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bar:Pioneers color:men from:07/01/1951 till:07/01/1958 text:Denver
bar:Pioneers color:men from:07/01/1959 till:07/01/2013
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bar:MTUHuskies color:men from:07/01/1984 till:07/01/2021
bar:Gophers color:men from:07/01/1951 till:07/01/1958 text:Minnesota
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bar:Sioux color:men from:07/01/1951 till:07/01/1958 text:North Dakota
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bar:Wildcats color:men from:07/01/1984 till:07/01/1997 text:Northern Michigan
bar:Wildcats color:men from:07/01/2013 till:07/01/2021
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bar:NMavericks color:men from:07/01/2010 shift: till:07/01/2013 text:Nebraska-Omaha
bar:UAH color:men from:07/01/2013 shift: till:end text:Alabama–Huntsville
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bar:BGFalcons color:men from:07/01/2013 shift: till:07/01/2021 text:Bowling Green
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Conference arenas

Awards (Men's)

At the conclusion of each regular season schedule the coaches of each WCHA team vote which players they choose to be on the two to four All-Conference Teams: first team and second team with a rookie team added in 1990–91 and a third team added in 1995–96. Additionally they vote to award up to 5 individual trophies to an eligible player at the same time. The WCHA also awards a Most Valuable Player in Tournament, which is voted on at the conclusion of the conference tournament. Only the Coach of the Year award has been bestowed in each year of the WCHA's existence, making it the oldest continually-awarded conference award in Division I ice hockey.

All-Conference Teams

Individual Awards

Team Awards

National Championships

WCHA schools have won 38 NCAA Men's Ice Hockey National Championships
YearSchool
1951Michigan
1952Michigan
1953Michigan
1955Michigan
1956Michigan
1957Colorado College
1958Denver
1959North Dakota
1960Denver
1961Denver
1962Michigan Tech
1963North Dakota
1964Michigan
1965Michigan Tech
1966Michigan State
1968Denver
1969Denver
1973Wisconsin
1974Minnesota
1975Michigan Tech
1976Minnesota
1977Wisconsin
1979Minnesota
1980North Dakota
1981Wisconsin
1982North Dakota
1983Wisconsin
1987North Dakota
1990Wisconsin
1991Northern Michigan
1997North Dakota
2000North Dakota
2002Minnesota
2003Minnesota
2004Denver
2005Denver
2006Wisconsin
2011Minnesota-Duluth

WCHA schools have won 16 NCAA Women's Ice Hockey National Championships
YearSchool
2001Minnesota-Duluth
2002Minnesota-Duluth
2003Minnesota-Duluth
2004Minnesota
2005Minnesota
2006Wisconsin
2007Wisconsin
2008Minnesota-Duluth
2009Wisconsin
2010Minnesota-Duluth
2011Wisconsin
2012Minnesota
2013Minnesota
2015Minnesota
2016Minnesota
2019Wisconsin