Sport Ice hockey Number of teams 6 | Conference Big Ten Conference | |
Format Single-elimination tournament Current stadium Xcel Energy Center
Joe Louis Arena Current location Saint Paul, Minnesota
Detroit, Michigan | ||
The Big Ten Men's Ice Hockey Tournament is the conference tournament for the Big Ten Conference. The winner of the tournament receives an automatic berth into the NCAA Tournament.
The tournament was first held in 2014, the first year of conference play. For the first four tournaments hosting duties are split between the Xcel Energy Center in Saint Paul, Minnesota (2014 and 2016) and Joe Louis Arena in Detroit, Michigan (2015 and 2017).
2014–present
All six Big Ten teams participate in the single-elimination tournament, which is held over three days at one host site. Teams are seeded No. 1 through No. 6 according to the final regular season conference standings. In the quarterfinals on Thursday, No. 3 plays No. 6 and No. 4 plays No. 5. On Friday, No. 2 plays the winner of the first game and No. 1 plays the winner of the second game (the teams are not reseeded). The two semifinal winners play each other on Saturday in the final.