Established 1951 Division Division I | Association NCAA Members 16 | |
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Sports fielded Ice hockey (men's: 10 teams; women's: 8 teams) Region Midwestern United States, Alaska, and Alabama | ||
The Western Collegiate Hockey Association (WCHA) is a college athletic conference which operates over a wide area of the Midwestern, Western, and Southeastern United States. It participates in the NCAA's Division I as an ice hockey-only conference.
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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 (MCHL), then was known as the Western Intercollegiate Hockey League (WIHL) 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 (Michigan and Michigan State field only men's teams). This means that the women's side of the WCHA will remain intact for the foreseeable future.
Members
The WCHA has 16 member schools in all; the men's division operates with 10 members, while the women's division has 8. Only 2 schools, Bemidji State and Minnesota State, have both men's and women's teams in the conference.
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.