College ice hockey

NCAA

The National Collegiate Athletic Association has conducted national championships for men's ice hockey since 1948, and women's ice hockey since 2001.

U.S. college hockey players must be deemed eligible for NCAA competition by the NCAA Eligibility Center, a process that examines a student-athlete's academic qualifications and amateur status. Players who have participated in the Canadian Hockey League or any professional hockey league are considered ineligible.

Men's U.S. college hockey is a feeder system to the National Hockey League. As of the 2010–11 season, 30 percent of NHL players (a total of 294) had U.S. college hockey experience prior to turning professional, an increase of 35 percent from the previous 10 years. That percentage has been maintained the past three seasons, with a record 301 NHL players coming from college hockey in 2011–12.

Men

One hundred thirty-eight colleges and universities sponsor men's ice hockey in the NCAA's three divisions.

Division I

The NCAA Division I has 60 ice hockey teams as of the 2015–16 season. Twenty-one schools are Division II or III athletic programs that "play up" to Division I in hockey, and 16 schools that are full Division I members are in the Football Bowl Subdivision, six of which compete in the Big Ten Conference.

The NCAA Division I Championship is a 16-team, single-elimination tournament, divided into four, 4-team regional tournaments. The winner of each regional advances to the Frozen Four to compete for the national championship. For many years, 5 teams earned automatic bids through winning conference tournament championships, while 11 earned at-large berths through a selection committee. With the addition of the Big Ten Hockey Conference for the 2013–14 season, the tournament now features 6 automatic qualifiers, and 10 at-large bids.

In 2015–16, there were 60 schools competing in Division I, with 59 of them organized into six conferences, plus one team playing as an independent program with no conference affiliation. The conferences are:

The Ivy League recognizes ice hockey champions for both sexes, but it does not sponsor the sport; it instead uses the results of regular-season ECAC Hockey matches involving two Ivy League schools to extrapolate an Ivy champion (all six Ivy League schools that sponsor varsity hockey do so for both men and women, and compete in the ECAC). The Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference sponsored D-I men's hockey, but dropped the sport in 2003.

The Hobey Baker Memorial Award honors the top player in men's Division I hockey. The Mike Richter Award honors the top goaltender in Division I.

Division II

The NCAA does not currently sponsor a championship in Division II, as there is only one conference that currently sponsors hockey, the Northeast-10 Conference. Several other schools that normally compete in Division II play up to the Division I level in hockey. The NCAA conducted a Division II national championship from 1978 to 1984 and also from 1993 to 1999.

Division III

The 74 programs in Division III hockey are part of 9 conferences:

The NCAA has conducted a Division III national championship since 1984. The current championship format is an 12-team (formerly 11-team), single-elimination bracket.

Women

Eighty-eight colleges and universities sponsor women's ice hockey in two divisions: National Collegiate and Division III.

National Collegiate

There are 36 teams in the National Collegiate division (commonly referred to as Division I). Thirty-five teams play in four conferences, with one team playing as an independent:

The National Collegiate championship is an 8-team, single-elimination tournament to determine the national champion.

The Patty Kazmaier Memorial Award is awarded annually by USA Hockey to the top player in women's Division I hockey.

The most recent school to add varsity women's hockey was Merrimack, which upgraded its women's club team to full varsity status for the 2015–16 season and joined the school's men's team in Hockey East.

Division III

There are 49 teams in Division III, plus three other programs from Divisions I and II, in seven conferences:

The Division III championship is an 8-team, single-elimination tournament to determine the national champion.

U Sports

University hockey teams in Canada compete in leagues as part of U Sports, the national governing body for Canadian university athletics (in Canadian English, the term "college" is reserved for schools that would be called "junior", "community", or "technical" colleges in the U.S.). U Sports sponsors both men's and women's hockey.

Like in the United States, teams compete in athletic conferences based on geographical locations of the schools. Unlike the NCAA, U Sports does not award players with athletic scholarships, resulting in a lack of divisional separation such as found between NCAA divisions. Individual conferences hold postseason tournaments, followed by the round-robin U Sports championship tournament in late March.

NAIA

In 2015, a group of member schools in the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) began working to add the sport to the organization. The NAIA originally sponsored a men's ice hockey championship from 1968 to 1984 when it was discontinued due to many of the schools with teams leaving the NAIA for the NCAA. A few NAIA schools continued to sponsor the sport as varsity-club teams in the ACHA. A growing number of schools have added ice hockey as members of the ACHA over the past 5–10 years.

ACHA

The American Collegiate Hockey Association (ACHA) is the sanctioning body for non-NCAA, club ice hockey in the United States. The organization provides structure, regulations and promotes the quality of collegiate ice hockey.

Teams separated into three men's and two women's divisions with over 300 teams from across the United States. The recruiting process, rules and regulations, and player eligibility standards parallel that of NCAA division 3. Sometimes, ACHA and NCAA will play games against each other to complete each of their season schedules.

NJCAA

The National Junior College Athletic Association (NJCAA) sponsors men's ice hockey at the NJCAA Division I level. Five schools play hockey as members of the NJCAA, many also playing games against members of the ACHA and NCAA Division III JV teams. NJCAA ice hockey schools are: Dakota College at Bottineau, Erie Community College, Hudson Valley Community College, Mohawk Valley Community College, and SUNY Broome Community College. With the recent drop in sponsorship, the NJCAA will discontinue men's hockey following the 2016-17 season.

NCHA

The National Collegiate Hockey Association (NCHA) was originally established in 2011 as an alternate league from the ACHA. The organization is made up of 22 college ice hockey teams located in the Northeastern United States, most of which being ACHA Division III teams. Beginning with the 2014-15 season, the league is now sanctioned by the United Hockey Union.

Men's

Women's

Longest-running annual international rivalry

A rivalry between the United States Military Academy (Army) Black Knights and the Royal Military College of Canada (RMC) Paladins resulted in an annual West Point Weekend hockey game. The series was first played in 1923, and was claimed to be the longest-running annual international sporting event in the world. Army and RMC played continuously from 1949 until 2007, when scheduling conflicts forced the academies to abandon the scheduled game. The series will resume in 2011–12 and continue for the next two seasons at least.

Leagues outside Northern America

In Europe the first college hockey league called EUHL was founded in 2013.

In the United Kingdom, college hockey league is operated by BUIHA (British Universities Ice Hockey Association). It was founded in 2003 and currently includes 23 clubs across the UK.