Welcome back to another season of D3 hockey! If you need a refresher of what D3 is all about, take a look at D3 Hockey 101 from last year.

New teams

This year brings a pair of new teams on line, as St. John Fisher University and Beloit College begin to play varsity women’s hockey this year. Unfortunately, this year also brings about the loss of Northland College’s team, as the school closed after last year. This is a net addition of one team, bringing the total from 78 last year to 79 this year. Both new teams have already notched their first-ever wins: St. John Fisher’s Cardinals by sweeping their opening weekend series at Neumann, and Beloit’s Buccaneers at Lawrence. 

Keep your eyes on things happening at Western Connecticut State University and Hiram College, both of which have announced their intent to begin playing women’s hockey next season.

Postseason changes

The D3 access ratio for all sports is one NCAA tournament berth for every six teams playing a sport. Since 78 teams played women’s hockey last season, there should now be 13 bids available, one more than last year. (Fans of Oswego, the first team left out of last year’s tournament, will either rejoice or gnash their teeth.) And in fact, the skeleton structure for this season’s tournament shows 13 slots available, with only three schools now getting a first-round bye. As per the prechampionship manual, these three byes will go to the top three schools.

Looking ahead, there are more changes coming to the D3 women’s hockey postseason. For the last couple of seasons and continuing ahead a couple of seasons more, both men’s and women’s D3 hockey have been piloting a program under which the championship site (semis and final) alternate between a predetermined site and the home of the highest remaining seed with acceptable facilities. Under this pilot program, men’s and women’s D3 hockey were the only sports of the NCAA’s 91 total where the championship sites were not always known in advance. (Before the pilot program, the men always had their site preselected and the women always went to the site of a high seed.) As the pilot program was set up, one championship is at a predetermined site while the other is at someone’s home rink. Over the summer, the men’s and women’s D3 hockey committees met jointly to discuss the results to date of this pilot, since both men and women have now each had one championship at a preselected site and one at a high seed. Together, the committees determined that once the pilot program concludes at the end of the 2027-28 season, both men and women should preselect all championship sites. 

The driving factor in this decision was that having a lead time of at least a year for the NCAA and hosts to line up hotels and other facilities for the participating teams (whoever they turn out to be), rather than a few days, should improve the experience for everyone. The added lead time means that hotels could be less expensive than trying to book blocks of rooms at essentially the last minute. Anyone who needs to be at the championship will be able to book flights in advance, if necessary. And as the D3 men learned last year, choosing a site ahead of time means that there are no questions about whether the highest seed has a suitable rink available that weekend, and that regional preference for the championship site can be honored. Not mentioned in the document is the fan experience, but that should also be improved as fans will also be able to make travel plans in advance.

I believe this is a good change. Hosting a championship is an honor but also a big undertaking, and assigning that responsibility ahead of time gives a better chance at a good outcome for everyone. To make this work, I hope the NCAA can shoulder much of the responsibility for making all the arrangements required of a host, so schools don’t hesitate to submit bids and the NCAA has options to choose from. On the women’s side, one of the perks of hosting (and a payback for all the work involved) has historically been home rink advantage and everything that goes along with it. Change can be hard, especially at first, and the NCAA should work to ease the transition until a preselected site feels like the norm.

Conference upheaval

This offseason brought one of the largest reorganizations of D3 hockey conferences in recent memory, in which half the conferences saw changes. Continuing just as they were from last year are the Conference of New England, Middle Atlantic Conference, Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference, Northern Collegiate Hockey Association, and New England Small College Athletic Conference. As for the changes, we’ll take them mostly in alphabetical order:

Goodbye, NEHC

The New England Hockey Conference has dissolved, its ten members dispersed. This is important from a postseason standpoint because the NEHC held an automatic qualifier bid to the NCAA tournament. This year, without the NEHC, the number of AQs is down to seven. Since there are now a total of 13 bids available, 6 at-large berths will go to the schools with the highest NPI but without an AQ.

Welcome, LEC

The Little East Conference is a multisport conference that has existed since 1986, but this is the first year they will sponsor ice hockey (for both men and women). Five of their core members (Keene State, Plymouth State, UMass Boston, University of Southern Maine, and Castleton State) have women’s hockey teams. New England College and Norwich University became associate members for women’s hockey this year, bringing the conference up to seven teams in all. Last year, Keene State played their inaugural year as an independent team and Plymouth State won the inaugural MASCAC title. The other five schools were all members of the NEHC last year.

A multisport conference with seven members looks, on the surface, like it should be eligible for an immediate AQ. But the LEC is in a waiting period for women’s hockey because only five of their members are core members; associate members don’t count towards the immediate AQ. Looking ahead, Western Connecticut State, another core member of the LEC, plans to begin playing women’s hockey next season. They would be the sixth core conference member with a team, which may mean that the waiting period only lasts this season.

MASCAC, SUNYAC, UCHC, & WIAC modifications

The MASCAC saw former associate member Plymouth State leave for the LEC, where it is a full member, but gained Salem State, a full member of the MASCAC, from the now-defunct NEHC. Anna Maria College was an associate member last year, but has upgraded to full membership this year, the only private school with full membership in the conference. Thus, the number of overall MASCAC members is still at six, but now only Rivier University is an associate member. The MASCAC is still waiting to receive an AQ, which could happen as early as next season. Looking ahead, core member Fitchburg State plans to start playing women’s hockey in the 2027-28 season, the eighth member and sixth core member to do so.

The SUNYAC added William Smith, formerly of the NEHC, as an associate member. William Smith is the only associate member and the only private school in the women’s hockey SUNYAC. Now that eight teams are playing women’s hockey, the playoffs have expanded from four members getting in last year to six members getting in this year. Look for a pair of first-round conference playoff games coming up on a Wednesday in late February, with the top two teams now getting a bye to the semis that Saturday.

The UCHC saw the biggest changes of the reorganization, adding four new teams to double in size. Last year, as a four-team conference, the UCHC had a legacy AQ but was racing the clock to get back over the six-team threshold to keep it. These additions mean that the members of the conference can breathe a sigh of relief, as their AQ is secured. Albertus Magnus and Elmira both came from the NEHC. Hilbert, an independent last year, got a conference. And St. John Fisher, a new team this year, brings the total tally to eight. The UCHC’s playoffs will also have a midweek first round, with semifinals and finals on the two following weekends. The other massive improvement from being an eight-team conference is that now, each team’s conference schedule is 14 games, playing every other team twice, rather than having a 12-game schedule with four games against every other team.

And the WIAC got a straightforward swap over the offseason, replacing defunct associate member Northland College with new team and associate member Beloit College. This is still a five-team conference without an AQ; for that they’d need to add another school and wait a few years.

On their own

The last of the former NEHC schools, Salve Regina, will be playing this year as an independent. Next season, they’ll (re)join CNE as an affiliate member. This year, they were able to put together a full 25-game schedule, something that isn’t a given for an independent team. Next year they’ll have an easier schedule to construct, as their base of conference games will be set, and they’ll only need to fill in around that. Salve is the only independent team this year, as last year’s independents both found conference homes: Keene State with the Little East and Hilbert in the UCHC.