# 2002 NCAA Division III men's ice hockey tournament

The 2002 NCAA Division III Men's Ice Hockey Tournament was the culmination of the 2001–02 season, the 19th such tournament in NCAA history. It concluded with Wisconsin-Superior defeating Norwich in the championship game 3-2 in overtime. All First Round and Quarterfinal matchups were held at home team venues, while all succeeding games were played in Middlebury, Vermont.

## Qualifying teams

The following teams qualified for the tournament. Automatic bids were offered to the conference tournament champion of seven different conferences with one at-large bid for the best remaining team from each region.
| East | East | East | East | East | East | East | West | West | West | West | West | West | West |
| Seed | School | Conference | Record | Berth Type | Appearance | Last Bid | Seed | School | Conference | Record | Berth Type | Appearance | Last Bid |
| 1 | Middlebury (1) | NESCAC | 24–1–1 | Tournament Champion | 8th | 2001 | 1 | St. Norbert (3) | NCHA | 23–4–2 | At-Large | 4th | 1999 |
| 2 | RIT (2) | ECAC West | 23–2–0 | Tournament Champion | 12th | 2001 | 2 | Wisconsin–Superior | NCHA | 20–5–4 | Tournament Champion | 10th | 2001 |
| 3 | Norwich (4) | ECAC East | 24–4–0 | Tournament Champion | 5th | 2000 | 3 | St. Thomas | MIAC | 22–5–0 | Tournament Champion | 10th | 2000 |
| 4 | Bowdoin | ECAC East | 18–4–3 | At-Large | 2nd | 1996 |
| 5 | Plattsburgh State | SUNYAC | 20–8–2 | Tournament Champion | 11th | 2001 |
| 6 | Wentworth | ECAC Northeast | 18–7–2 | Tournament Champion | 2nd | 2000 |

## Format

The tournament featured four rounds of play. In the Quarterfinals, teams played a two-game series where the first team to reach 3 points was declared a winner (2 points for winning a game, 1 point each for tying). If both teams ended up with 2 points after the first two games a 20-minute mini-game was played to determine a winner. Mini-game scores are in italics. All other rounds were Single-game elimination. For the three eastern Quarterfinals, the teams were seeded according to their rankings with the top three teams serving as hosts. For the western quarterfinal, the top-ranked team awaited the winner of a play-in game between the lower-ranked teams. The quarterfinal brackets were arranged so that were all higher-seeded teams to advance, the first overall seed would play the fourth overall seed in the semifinals.
The third place game ceased to be held with this tournament.

## Tournament bracket

| First Round | First Round | First Round | Quarterfinals | Quarterfinals | Quarterfinals | Quarterfinals | Quarterfinals | Semifinals | Semifinals | Semifinals | National Championship | National Championship | National Championship |
| | | | W1 | St. Norbert (3) | 4* | 2 | - | | | | | | |
| W2 | Wisconsin–Superior | 2 | W2 | Wisconsin–Superior | 4 | 4 | - | | | | | | |
| W3 | St. Thomas | 1 | | | | | | W2 | Wisconsin–Superior | 5 | | | |
| | | | | | | | | E5 | Plattsburgh State | 0 | | | |
| | | | E2 | RIT (2) | 4* | 2* | 0 | | | | | | |
| | | | E5 | Plattsburgh State | 4 | 2 | 1 | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | | | | | | W2 | Wisconsin–Superior | 3* |
| | | | | | | | | | | | E3 | Norwich (4) | 2 |
| | | | E1 | Middlebury (1) | 6 | 9 | - | | | | | | |
| | | | E6 | Wentworth | 0 | 0 | - | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | | | E1 | Middlebury (1) | 2 | | | |
| | | | | | | | | E3 | Norwich (4) | 5 | | | |
| | | | E3 | Norwich (4) | 3 | 7 | - | | | | | | |
| | | | E4 | Bowdoin | 0 | 0 | - | | | | | | |
Note: * denotes overtime period(s) Note: Mini-games in italics

## Record by conference

| Conference | # of Bids | Record | Win % | Frozen Four | Championship Game | Champions |
| NCHA | 2 | 4–1–2 | .714 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| ECAC East | 2 | 3–3–0 | .500 | 1 | 1 | - |
| NESCAC | 1 | 2–1–0 | .667 | 1 | - | - |
| ECAC West | 1 | 0–0–2 | .500 | - | - | - |
| SUNYAC | 1 | 0–1–2 | .333 | 1 | - | - |
| ECAC Northeast | 1 | 0–2–0 | .000 | - | - | - |
| MIAC | 1 | 0–1–0 | .000 | - | - | - |