Western Collegiate Hockey Association The Western Collegiate Hockey Association , or WCHA is one of the Big Four conferences in the NCAA Men ' s Division I and is one of four conferences in Women ' s Division I . The league was established as the Midwest Collegiate Hockey League in 1951 . In 1953 , the league was renamed the Western Intercollegiate Hockey League . The league played until 1958 when the league broke up over recruiting practices . The league was reorganized for the 1959 - 60 season , this time under the Western Collegiate Hockey Association name . Each team made its own schedule up until the league office took over scheduling in 1973 . League Structure . Men . The 10 WCHA men ' s teams compete in what has been the largely dominant conference in all of Division I since the first NCAA Tournament s . Each team plays 28 league games . Due to the geographical realities of a league where the members stretch from Alabama to Alaska , the majority of weekend series consist of full road or home series , with both teams meeting on Friday and Saturday nights . Some opponents within a short drive of each other ( such as Minnesota State and St . Cloud State ) will play home and home series much like the standard hockey weekend for the eastern leagues . The WCHA plays an unbalanced schedule that varies from year to year to combat the problems of a 10 team league with only 28 league games to schedule . Each team has a designated rival that they will see for 4 games each season , one series at home and one series away . For any given team , the remaining 8 opposing teams after the ' designated rival ' rotate through the schedule so that in a 4 year span , a given team will have two seasons with a full four games against a certain opponent , and two seasons with only 2 games against that opponent . The end result is that every team plays every other at least twice each season , and in any given span of four years , fans of any given team will see every other team in the league visit their arena for at least three of those four seasons . After the 28 game league schedule , the winning team is awarded the MacNaughton Cup . The WCHA Tournament consists of seeding the top eight teams based on their regular season finish . The top four seeds host best of three playoff series the weekend after the regular season ends , with # 1 hosting # 8 , # 2 vs . # 7 , etc . The four teams that advance out of the first round are then re - seeded again based on regular season results , and placed in a bracket for the WCHA Final Five . At the Final Five , held at a neutral site ( The Van Andel Arena in Grand Rapids , Michigan hosted the 2014 event ) , The top seed meets the # 4 seed ; while # 2 and # 3 play in the other semifinal , with both a championship and third - place game . The winner of the WCHA tournament earns the Broadmoor Trophy , as well as the WCHA ' s automatic bid to the NCAA tournament . The tournament despite being four teams kept the WCHA Final Five name for at least the 2014 tournament Women . The women ' s side of the WCHA , with only 8 teams , does a better and more equitable job of scheduling than the men . Like the men , each team plays 28 league games , but with only eight teams , each team plays four games against every other , in the form of two home games and two road games . The women ' s WCHA seeds all 8 teams , and conducts an standard 8 team tournament at a single site over 4 days . The winner receives the league ' s automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament . History . Men . The WCHA has for a long time been the dominanat conference in college hockey . While the membership of the league has changed over the years , featuring great rivalries , feuds , defections , and additions , the end product of WCHA hockey has dominated the landscape of college hockey . After the league ' s 53rd season in 2004 - 05 , WCHA teams had won NCAA championships in 35 of those 53 years . Formation . The WCHA as it is known today began in 1951 as the Midwest Collegiate Hockey League ( MCHL ) , comprised of Colorado College , Denver , Michigan , Michigan State , Michigan Tech , Minnesota and North Dakota . After two years , the league changed its name to better reflect the actual geographic area of the conference , and became the Western Intercollegiate Hockey League . WIHL teams dominated the NCAA tournament in the 1950s . However , the beginings of long standing quarrels were starting to show . Minnesota and the Michigan schools , each with a very strong local hockey history and local talent pool to recruit from , accused North Dakota and the Colorado schools of recruiting overage Canadian players . Such recruiting was not against NCAA rules , but did represent a stong difference in philosophy . The quarrel grew so bad that the league temporarily disbanded in 1958 , thus there was no 1958 - 59 season . However , the negatives of a philosophical differences in recruiting practices was not enough to overcome the benefit of having a conference to play in , so the league reformed as the Western Collegiate Hockey Association . Despite the hiatus , the WCHA still refers to the old MCHL formation as its birth , as it celebrated its 50th Birthday in 2001 . Feuding and Growth . Even with the re - birth of western hockey , there were still substantial differnces on recruiting philosophies , and the primary combatants in the feud were Minnesota and Denver . Despite the common agreement that a league was good for all of the western hockey schools , the WCHA was initially only a loose confederation , where individual schools set their own league schedules . Minnesota , with its tradition of only recruiting and playing with kids from the state of Minnesota , was in direct opposition to the philosophy of Denver . The two schools , still bitter over the fued , would refuse to schedule each other for more than a decade . Still , the WCHA was dominant . WCHA teams won 10 consecutive NCAA titles between 1957 and 1966 , untill Cornell won in 1967 . After Cornell broke up the WCHA party , Denver went on to win back to back titles in 1968 and 1969 . Such great success on the ice also made the league very attractive to new teams . Minnesota - Duluth joined the league in 1966 , followed by Wisconsin in 1969 , and Notre Dame in 1971 . Wisconsin quickly picked up on the WCHA ' s tradtion of excellence , qualifiying for the NCAA tournament in thier very first year in the WCHA , and winning their first NCAA title in 1973 . With that growth and continued dominance on the national scene , 1973 was also the year the WCHA adopted a more formalized structure , forcibly ending the feud between Denver and Minnesota . Defection . Despite strong showings on the national scene in the 1970s , 1979 dealt a strong blow to the WCHA . Michigan , Michigan State , Michigan Tech , and Notre Dame all left the powerful WCHA to bolster the then fledgling Central Collegiate Hockey Association . The schools , as the easternmost constituents of a western league , felt that they could do better financially in the CCHA , with more opponents in the immediate vicinity . The WCHA had always been a " plane " league with large travel expenses , and the CCHA presented an opportunity to join a " bus " league and build rivalries around the state of Michigan . Michigan Tech ' s defection hurt twice as much , since the school owns the MacNaughton Cup . Still , the WCHA survived as a six team league , with Wisconsin and North Dakota alternating the honors of winning NCAA titles between 1980 and 1983 . More Expansion . In 1984 , Michigan Tech returned to the WCHA after their experiment with the CCHA , and also brought Northern Michigan with them . The addition of NMU would prove to fit in with the WCHA ' s tradition of excellence , as NMU won the NCAA title in 1991 . 1984 also saw the WCHA and Hockey East experiment for five years with an interlocking schedule , where games between Hockey East schools and WCHA schools counted in the standings of each conference . The WCHA continued to grow . In 1988 , the league began to host their own single - site tournament that would enventually become the WCHA Final Five . St . Cloud also joined the WCHA in 1988 . The expansion would continue , with the addition of Alaska - Anchorage in 1993 . UAA ' s membership further reinforced the mold of the WCHA as a " plane " league , although UAA ' s memberhsip was contingent on helping to pay for teams to come visit the Seawolves . Although Northern Michigan would depart for the CCHA in 1997 , the void would soon be filled by traditional NCAA Division II power Minnesota State . The Mavericks participated in the league tournament in 1997 , to fill the 10th spot vacated by NMU . The Mavericks officially joined the league in 1999 . Today , the WCHA is still regarded as one of the best conferences in Division I . WCHA teams , thanks to back to back title runs by both Denver and Minnesota , have won the last four NCAA titles . The geographical realities of a conference covering such large distances requires strong financial commitments to hockey from each of the member institutions . This is shown not just in the products on the ice , but also in the facilites that the teams play in . The WCHA has seen most of its teams move into new , state of the art arenas , including North Dakota ' s Ralph Englestad Arena , Wisconsin ' s Kohl Center , and Minnesota ' s Mariucci Arena . Additionally , the brand of hockey seen in the WCHA is often fast paced and exciting . Six of the ten WCHA teams play on Olympic or nearly - Olympic sized ice sheets . Major Re - organization for 2013 - 14 . The WCHA was hit hard by the NCAA Division I men ' s hockey realignment of the 2010 ' s . The league was at one point down to as few as four teams on paper going into the 2013 - 14 season , which would cost the league its automatic bid to the NCAA tournament . The conference lost the Wisconsin Badgers and the Minnesota Golden Gophers to the newly formed Big Ten Conference hockey conference . The conference also lost the Colorado College Tigers , Denver Pioneers , Minnesota - Duluth Bulldogs , Nebraska - Omaha Mavericks , and the University of North Dakota to the newly formed National Collegiate Hockey Conference . Saint Cloud State University later accepted an invitation to join the NCHC and left the WCHA . The conference added the Alaska - Fairbanks Nanooks , Ferris State Bulldogs , Lake Superior Lakers , Bowling Green Falcons , and the Northern Michigan Black Bears from the disolving Central Collegiate Hockey Association . The conference also added the previously Division I Independent , Alabama - Huntsville Chargers . The addition of the teams from the CCHA and the Alabama - Huntsville Chargers restored the league to ten teams as it was befor the realignment . Women . The Women ' s side of the WCHA began competition in the 1999 - 2000 season . The league began with seven members , five of which also compete in the men ' s WCHA : Bemidji State , Minnesota , Minnesota - Duluth , Minnesota State , Ohio State , St . Cloud State , and Wisconsin . Bemidji State ' s men ' s team competes in College Hockey America , while Ohio State ' s men ' s team competes in the CCHA . The WCHA , like the men ' s conference , has dominated the college hockey landscape . Now five years after the formation of the conference , the WCHA has laid claim to all five national titles during that span . For the 2004 - 05 season , the WCHA added North Dakota to the league , giving the WCHA 8 teams , all with fine hockey pedigrees . Despite the realtively short history of the women ' s WCHA and women ' s college hockey in general , the WCHA has still done an excellent job of holding up the reputation of the WCHA . On March 29 , 2017 ; the University of North Dakota announced that the school is cutting the women ' s ice hockey program effective the end of the 2016 - 17 academic year . The reason stated was a $ 1 . 3 million budget shortfall due to the school attempting to meet minimum standards of the Summit League which most of the school ' s athletic teams are moving to for 2017 - 18 . The men ' s and women ' s swimming and diving programs were also cut at the school . The school announced UND will honor all athletic scholarships for the discontinued sports “ at their present equivalencies for returning student - athletes . " External Links . WCHA Official Site website with historical standings http : / / www . augenblick . org / chha / wcha _ his . html a site that also has information on other D - 1 leagues as well