Hockey, Men's Sports

ICYMI – NCHC Moving to Home Rinks for Playoffs, NCAA Regionals Next?

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In two years, the National Collegiate Conference (NCHC) will be moving away from a neutral site Frozen Faceoff to an all-campus conference tournament format. Denver head coach David Carle has been a vocal proponent using home rinks for NCAA Tournament regionals in the past because he believes student-athletes want to play in front of larger crowds instead of empty neutral sites. Now, his conference’s tournament is transitioning to all-campus playoff sites.

With the addition of Arizona State as the NCHC’s ninth team, the new playoff format, effective 2026, is as follows:

The Central Collegiate Hockey Association (formerly the Western Collegiate Hockey Association), Big Ten, and Atlantic Hockey have all shifted their league tournaments to campus sites in recent years. Once the NCHC shifts to home sites, only two leagues will have their semifinals and finals at a neutral site — the ECAC and Hockey East. The ECAC plays its semifinals and championship in Lake Placid, N.Y. while Hockey East plays at TD Garden, where Denver recently won its 9th title in 2022. Both conferences play in a very tight geography so travel is much less burdensome than it is for western conferences.

Older Denver fans will remember the excitement of hosting raucous home playoff games during the Western Collegiate Hockey Conference (WCHA) days. With the addition of Arizona State, it is now possible for more teams outside the St. Paul, Minnesota region to play for a conference title in front of their fans on home ice. The current Frozen Faceoff is often stocked by teams from a great distance from Minneapolis-St Paul, exposing the conference to attendance volatility and financial risk. In 2022, Denver and Western Michigan qualified for the Frozen Faceoff along with local teams Minnesota-Duluth and North Dakota.  The semifinal games averaged 10,000 fans and 8,000 went to see the final Western Michigan against Minnesota Duluth. In 2023, Denver and Colorado College made the Frozen Faceoff (along with St. Cloud and North Dakota). The semifinals averaged 10,000 fans each and the final 7,000 with St Cloud St against Colorado College. Add the cost of travel and stadium rental and two Colorado teams that do not travel well on short notice and the NCHC, which receives much of its operating revenue from the tournament, has a potential revenue problem on its hands.

By moving the semifinal venues to top seeds, only one team will be traveling and the cost of arena rental (Xcel Energy Center) is mitigated by campus home ice. Home teams will be able to draw local crowds and, if properly marketed, the NCHC tournament should be a more consistent revenue producer, especially if a team with a big draw like North Dakota gets eliminated early. Student-athletes will be playing in more size-appropriate home arenas and directly rewarded for advancing by securing higher seeds and the home ice advantage.

The Grand Forks Herald reported, “As the membership discussed the future of the NCHC in an increasingly competitive NCAA Division-I environment, the rest and recovery available to our student-athletes in the final weeks of the season became of paramount importance,” NCHC commissioner Heather Weems said. “The expansion to a three-week playoff immediately preceding NCAA regional play maintains the competitiveness of our Frozen Faceoff Championship while providing our teams with a better schedule for travel and rest. NCHC member institutions are excited to battle for home-site seeding and to play in front of loyal fans and supporters as they chase the Frozen Faceoff Trophy and automatic qualification into the NCAA Tournament.”

The article went on to state the revised format will require an extra week for the tournament so the conference schedule will commence a week earlier than normal.

Minnesota Duluth coach Scott Sandelin also said he’s pleased with the change. “We’re looking forward to the new format,” he said. “It rewards your top seeds with more home games and less travel. It also allows our passionate fans to enjoy championship hockey in their home venues. I’ll certainly miss playing at Xcel Energy Center, but we think the change will be good.”

This brings up the obvious question, should neutral sites be eliminated from the NCAA Regionals as well for the same reasons?

5 thoughts on “ICYMI – NCHC Moving to Home Rinks for Playoffs, NCAA Regionals Next?”

  2. This change is very good for the NCHC, where the schools are too far apart to guarantee a neutral site’s success, and while the Xcel in St. Paul is a great rink, it also certainly favours the upper midwestern schools, whose fans can drive to the games. It would also be nice to see more playoffs on campus for the home fans, although Spring Break will be a factor in most years, which can kill student attendance, at least in Denver.

    NCAA regionals at home sites are not so cut-and-dried (at least for me) with both advantages and disadvantages. Sure, it’s great to host if your team is really good, but it is much harder on the visitors, when you are facing a one-and-done situation. The reason NCAA regionals are held at neutral sites is to protect smaller schools from having to play at big schools on the big school’s home ice in the playoffs. And there are more small schools than big schools in hockey, so the coaches’ voting numbers have not been there to change the format. I remember DU losing to Michigan at Yost in 2002 and it was horrible, although that was a year that DU was the higher seeded team and still had to play a lower seeded Michigan team on its home ice, in the years where there were only 12 teams in the NCAAs. That year was also screwy due to post 9/11 “regionalization”, where all teams were kept in their own side of the country in regionals. I will tell you that the 7,000 Michigan fans in Yost were a HUGE factor in the Michigan upset of the top-ranked Pioneers. Had that game had been played a neutral site, I think DU would have won it and gone to the Frozen Four as a favorite, although Minnesota hosted the Frozen Four in St. Paul that year and ended up winning the trophy just a few miles from its campus.

    Put it this way — you rather play at Michigan at Ann Arbor, Cornell at Ithaca or North Dakota at Grand Forks in a one-and-done, or face them at Allentown, Albany or Worcester with a quiet rink and plenty of open seats? Some coaches and players love to play in hostile rinks (including Carle and the Denver team), others, obviously less so…

    That said, I vividly remember DU beating Cornell at the old DU Arena in 1986 in a two-game, total-goals NCAA West regional series, the last time DU hosted an NCAA hockey playoff game on home ice. It was a wild series (DU won it 7-6), and some DU students stormed the ice when DU clinched it, and there was also a memorable curtain call when the 5,000+ DU fans’ standing ovation called the DU team out the locker room for a final lap of cheers. To see NCAA hockey on home ice would be special again…

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    2. 1986–Cornell chaos, wild games indeed. NCAA qtrs on campus is great only if WE have home ice!
      2002–#1 DU got hosed. Thank you Osama. Sleep with the fishes!

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