Pentagonal League

The Pentagonal League is a defunct NCAA Division I ice hockey-only conference. The league was formed by Dartmouth, Harvard, Princeton and Yale as a way of determining which team, among the oldest ice hockey programs, was the best. The league is a precursor to the Ivy League.
==History==
The four schools involved can trace the beginning of their ice hockey teams to at least 1905 with Yale's inaugural season in 1895–96 serving as the unofficial dawn of college ice hockey. All four teams ere able to lay claim to a championship since their inception but no formal structure existed to dictate whether one team was superior to another. At the height of the depression, while many programs were in danger of ending, the ice hockey teams at four of the wealthiest institutions in the United States were able to stabilize their schedules by forming the Quadrangular League, an outgrowth of the previous Triangular Hockey League.
The four team league remained in place until 1943 when both Harvard and Princeton suspended their ice hockey programs due to America's participation in World War II. The league resurfaced after the war and was expanded by the addition of Army for the 1946–47 season, becoming the Pentagonal League. The Cadets left the league after two seasons and were promptly replaced by Brown. The league continued in this fashion until 1955, a year after the Ivy League was formally created.
Because the Ivy League never officially supported ice hockey as a sport, the Quadrangular and Pentagonal league are considered informal organizations and not recognized as NCAA conferences.
==Members==
Institution	Nickname 	Location 	Founded	Tenure 	Fate 	Current conference
 	Cadets † 	West Point, New York 	1802 	1946–1948 	Independent	Atlantic Hockey
 	Bears 	Providence, Rhode Island	1764 	1948–1955 	Ivy League 	ECAC Hockey
 	Indians †	Hanover, New Hampshire 	1769 	1933–1943, 1946–1955	Ivy League 	ECAC Hockey
 	Crimson 	Boston, Massachusetts 	1636 	1933–1943, 1946–1955	Ivy League 	ECAC Hockey
 	Princeton	Princeton, New Jersey 	1746 	1933–1943, 1946–1955	Ivy League 	ECAC Hockey
 	Bulldogs 	New Haven, Connecticut 	1701 	1933–1943, 1946–1955	Ivy League 	ECAC Hockey
† both Army and Dartmouth have changed their athletic team names in the years since the Pentagonal League was dissolved.
===Membership timeline===
DateFormat = mm/dd/yyyy
ImageSize = width:800 height:auto barincrement:20
Period = from:01/01/1933 till:06/01/1955
TimeAxis = orientation:horizontal
PlotArea = right:30 left:0 bottom:50 top:5
Colors =
 id:men value:rgb(0.6,0.6,1) legend:men
 id:women value:rgb(0.5,0.8,0.5) legend:women
 id:both value:rgb(0.5,0.8,0.8) legend:both
 id:line value:black
 id:bg value:white
PlotData=
 width:15 textcolor:black shift:(5,-5) anchor:from fontsize:s
 bar:DAR color:men from:06/01/1933 till:06/01/1943 text:[[Dartmouth Big Green men's ice hockey|Dartmouth]] (1933–1943, 1946–1955)
 bar:HAR color:men from:06/01/1933 till:06/01/1943 text:[[Harvard Crimson men's ice hockey|Harvard]] (1933–1943, 1946–1955)
 bar:PRI color:men from:06/01/1933 till:06/01/1943 text:[[Princeton Tigers men's ice hockey|Princeton]] (1933–1943, 1946–1955)
 bar:YAL color:men from:06/01/1933 till:06/01/1943 text:[[Yale Bulldogs men's ice hockey|Yale]] (1933–1943, 1946–1955)
 bar:DAR color:men from:06/01/1946 till:06/01/1955 text:
 bar:HAR color:men from:06/01/1946 till:06/01/1955 text:
 bar:PRI color:men from:06/01/1946 till:06/01/1955 text:
 bar:YAL color:men from:06/01/1946 till:06/01/1955 text:
 bar:ARM color:men from:06/01/1946 till:06/01/1948 text:[[Army Cadets men's ice hockey|Army]] (1946–1948)
 bar:BRO color:men from:06/01/1948 till:06/01/1955 text:[[Brown Bears men's ice hockey|Brown]] (1948–1955)
ScaleMajor = gridcolor:line unit:year increment:2 start:01/01/1933
==See Also==
* Intercollegiate Hockey Association
* Intercollegiate Hockey League
* Triangular Hockey League
==References==
Category:Defunct NCAA Division I ice hockey conferences
Category:Sports in the Eastern United States