Women's College Hockey in the USA


More general information and results for Women's College hockey in the USA may also be found in the Women's University Hockey page. The page that you are viewing now primarily contains information about the teams that participate in each league. The championship page lists the collegiate winners by year. Please see Mitzi Witchger's and Richard Hungerford's information for lists of which colleges have women's varsity hockey teams.

Contact information for most teams that are listed on this page is available through Richard Hungerford's College Hockey Directory. Richard also provides other great college hockey information.

If anyone has information about new teams for next season, or teams that will be in different leagues, please send it to me, and I'll try to keep this page as up-to-date as possible. Thanks in advance.

The USA Hockey web page also has information about Women's College hockey teams. See the College Sports TV web page for information about women's college hockey TV coverage.


Related Articles


Hockey East (HE) Division I


Eastern College Athletic Conference (ECAC) Division I

Teams:

# == ivy league

Past ECAC Division I Tournament Champions:


Western Collegiate Hockey Association (WCHA) Division I

[April 29, 1999] In an historic vote, the Western Collegiate Hockey Association established a new women's league at its 1999 annual meeting in Marco Island, Florida. The unanimous vote followed a year-long planning process.

"This is indeed a significant development for the WCHA," said Darrell Smith, Chair of the Association and Faculty Representative from Michigan Tech University. "We are all looking forward to playing a major role in the continuing evolution and development of women's ice hockey at all levels and the opportunity to build on, and add to, the great history and tradition of the Western Collegiate Hockey Association."

Inaugural members of the WCHA women's league are Minnesota State University, University of Minnesota; University of Minnesota-Duluth; St. Cloud State University; and University of Wisconsin. In addition, Bemidji State University and Ohio State University have been invited to join the women's league.

The women's league will begin play for the 1999-2000 season and will included a 24-game conference schedule and a year-end league tournament.


College Hockey America (CHA) Division I


Division I Independent Varsity

The following universities are varsity teams that are not associated with a particular conference:


New England Small College Athletic Conference (NESCAC) Division III


Eastern College Athletic Conference (ECAC) Division III

East

West

Past ECAC Alliance Champions:


Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (MIAC) Division III

The Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (MIAC) was started during the 1998-99 season. The MIAC website can be found at www.stkate.edu/miac/whockey.html. Here is an article that outlines the new MIAC league.


Northern Collegiate Hockey Association (NCHA) Division III


US Clubs Teams


Central Collegiate Women's Hockey Association (CCWHA)

The CCWHA is made up of club teams from Michigan, Ohio, Illinois, and Wisconsin. The championship for the CCWHA took place at Michigan State on the weekend of February 21-23, 1997. Ohio State University claimed the 1997 CCWHA Championship.

Women's Collegiate Club Championship

The 1998 US Collegiate Club Championship was held in Lake Placid, NY. CCHA representative (Western Michigan University) won, going undefeated. In attendance as representatives of their respective alliances were, Mid-West Alliance rep St. Cloud State (Minn.), NCCC (North Country Comm College), and the ECAC club rep the Univ. of Mass. Tim Garish, Director of the Lake Placid facility, hosted the championship, and said he would host again in 1999.

Ohio State University hosted the 1997 Women's Collegiate Club Championship. Their goal was to have two teams from the east coast, two teams from the CCWHA (Central Collegiate Womens Hockey Associtation), the Ohio State team, and two teams from the west. The championship was organised by Jen Bradbury (bradbury.5@osu.edu).

Past CCWHA Champions:


Midwestern Collegiate Women's Hockey Alliance (MCWHA)

The Midwestern Collegiate Women's Hockey Alliance started in the 1996-97 season. The league consists of teams from Minnesota (10), Wisconsin (4), Iowa (1). Mankato State (now called Minnesota State University) won the 1998 Midwest Alliance Championship.

"The University of Minnesota hopes to pick its first varsity coach in October. The new coach will spend this season recruiting, scheduling and helping with the planning of the new rink. Minnesota's varsity will play its first games in Mariucci in 1997. They hope to be in their new "mini-Mariucci" in 1998. This season the Minnesota club team will play in the All-American tourney and the new Midwest Alliance."
-- from USA Today Sports, September 1996

MCWHA Teams:

Minnesota

Wisconsin

A note from Richard Hungerford (rhun@angelfire.com):
"This season the league will have one varsity program at Augsburg while the other teams will be club programs. The MCWHA joins the varsity ECAC League and Alliance to make three college leagues now available to women. A post season tournament between the ECAC Alliance and the Midwest Alliance may be the next step as women's hockey progresses towards a national championship."

Past MCWHA Champions:


Midwestern Collegiate Women's Hockey Alliance (MCWHA)

The Mid-Atlantic Women's Collegiate Hockey Association is a club league. The MAWCHA features teams from: Buffalo SUNY, Penn State, Pittsburgh, Rutgers, Syracuse, Maryland, and America University. Dave Retone, icepanthers@hotmail.com, is the current contact for Pittsburgh and the conference.


American College Hockey Association (ACHA)

The ACHA began as a men's collegiate club hockey league in 1992, and quickly grew to a league of over 150 teams in three men's divisions. The Women's Division will be initially modeled after the Men's Division II format and will hopefully expand into multiple women's divisions as women's hockey continues to grow.

The ACHA developed a women's division which started in the 2000-2001 season. Rules, regulations and eligibility requirements were mapped out at the ACHA Annual Meeting in Naples FLA, April 29 & 30, 2000 during the American Hockey Coaches Convention. The women's division will include a national championship each year for women's club teams in the United States. A polling system will be developed to rank each team, which will decide the top teams to compete for the national title.

A web site has been developed to post all results, news and information relevant to the division. The site is at: http://www.achahockey.org/.

We hope that the inclusion under a nationally recognized association will not only allow for a national championship for women's club teams, but will also legitimize the organization and development of women's club ice hockey at the university level. ACHA also lends credibility to its programs through national sponsorships, promotion and adherence to certain eligibility standards for its student-athletes.

Misc:

Central Teams:

East Teams:

West Teams:


Other US Clubs Teams

The Clarkson University Women's Hockey Club hosted the 1998 AWCHA All-East Club Championship on February 27, 28, and March 1 1998 in Potsdam, NY. There wassn't a 1998 Women's Collegiate Club Championship.

MIT hosted the first club championship for the 1996-97 season. Please visit the 1997 AWCHA All-East Club Championship page for more information. Here is some older information from Jill Depto about the 1997 championship. And here is a quote from USA Today about the 1997 championship:

"The MIT Women's Ice Hockey Club team is organizing the 1997 AWCHA Women's National Collegiate Club Championship. The tournament is tentatively scheduled to take place at Johnson Rink at MIT (Cambridge, Mass) the weekend of March 6-9, 1997. The championship will have an A and B division to accommodate differing levels of play. Some schools will be sending teams in both divisions which indicates the increasing level of participation in the women's college game."
-- from USA Today Sports, September 1996

Here is a link for the 1995 AWCHA Championship tournament that was held in Troy, NY.

Past AWCHA Champions:

Past Club Championship Details:

East Teams:

West Teams:

South Teams:

New Club/Varsity Teams

More recent news is listed first.


1995-96 ECAC Season

Here is some information that was provided by Richard Hungerford (rhun@angelfire.com) (Sept 95) about the ECAC league organisation for the 1995-96 season:

In the 1995-96 season, in the ECAC League 12 teams will not be playing each other twice, but "one and a half times". Meaning 16 games will count in the league. The result is the league is broken into two pods: (Brown, PC, UNH, Colby, Princeton, Yale) and (Northeastern, Harvard, Dartmouth, BC, Cornell St. Lawrence). I know which pod I'd prefer to have the extra game against! The problem of playing home and home games (22 games count) is that many ECAC teams already have commitments to tournaments. So they plan to phase in the 22 games counting over the next couple of years. I thought they might come to that as the schools were going to have to come up with several more weekends of ice time.


News Tidbits


Will there be an NCAA for women's hockey soon?

This information was provided by Richard Hungerford (rhun@angelfire.com) on May 1st, 1998:

It appears that women's ice hockey has reached 40 varsity teams today. Vermont upgraded its ECAC Alliance club side to a varsity squad today with Dennis Miller continuing as coach.

In recent weeks, Bemidji State became an independent DI varsity side and St. Thomas became a DIII varsity in the new MIAC league.

The result is:
ECAC League: 14 DI varsity sides
ECAC Alliance: 15 DIII varsity sides (only Bates will be a club)
Minnesota Intercollegiate: 6 DIII varsity sides
Independent DI varsities: 3 - Minnesota, Mankato State, Bemidji State
Independent DIII varsities: 2 - Chatham, Wisconsin-Superior

Add that all up and you have the 40 varsity teams we need for an NC$$ National Title!

Get the red flags ready as May Day is upon us!!!


Other Misc. Links for Universities

These pages are general pages for these universities, not specific information about women's hockey.


This page is maintained by © 1998 Andria Hunter (andria@cs.toronto.edu).

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