The Seawolves began their ice hockey program in 1979, playing 8 of its 31 games against Division IIAlaska–Fairbanks, of which they won all of them, before beginning a full D-II schedule the following season. The Seawolves rose quickly in the Division II ranks, narrowly missing out on the NCAA tournament in 1984. The team was promoted to Division I that summer following the collapse of Division II hockey.[3]
Anchorage played as an Independent for a year before being a founding member of the first West Coast conference, the Great West Hockey Conference. The league was very short-lived, lasting only three seasons before the two non-Alaska schools dropped hockey entirely, but it did provide UAA with its first league title in 1987.[4] The Seawolves were once again without a conference.
A year later in 1990, they posted their first 20-win season at the D-I level and were selected to the NCAA Tournament, where they would be swept by Lake Superior State. They returned to the national tournament the following year after another 20-win campaign. This time they were able to win their first NCAA playoff game, sweeping Boston College, before being swept themselves by Northern Michigan. The 1991–92 season provided UAA with its best record in program history, with the team going 27–8–1 and garnering a third consecutive NCAA berth, a 3–7 loss to Lake Superior State. This would mark the Seawolves most recent NCAA playoff berth. After one more winning season, the Seawolves joined the Western Collegiate Hockey Association.
The stability of their new conference came as a double-edged sword, however, as the Seawolves would spend the next 20 years finishing with losing records. To make matters worse, the team frequently lost both games in the opening round of the WCHA tournament, losing their first 20 consecutive WCHA playoff games. The 2003–04 season proved to be a surprising one, as despite finishing 8th in the WCHA, the Seawolves made it all the way to the WCHA semifinals.
College hockey underwent a major re-alignment in 2013, when the CCHA collapsed due to the formation of the Big Ten, leading many WCHA members to leave and create the NCHC.[5] This caused the WCHA to replace many of its departing members with former CCHA teams but even in the new, weaker WCHA, the Seawolves were still a bottom-half team. After finishing with a winning record and making the conference semifinals in the first season, the Seawolves would miss the playoffs each of the next five years.
Beginning in the 2019–20 season, the Seawolves began playing in the 800-person capacity on-campus Avis Alaska Sports Complex, rather than their old home of the Sullivan Arena. The university announced this move would save an approximate $200,000 per year.[6] Further financial issues would crop up, as in 2020, the university announced plans to cut the hockey program, along with skiing and gymnastics, due to sharp reductions in state funding. The University of Alaska Board of Regents offered the hockey team a chance at reinstatement if they could raise two seasons worth of expenses, approximately $3 million by February 2021. The hockey program as a whole went on hiatus and did not compete for both the 2020–21 and 2021–22 seasons as its future was being determined. The fundraising was divided into 2 parts: $1.5 million in cash and the remainder in firm pledges. In December 2020, the team began fundraising for the needed money,[7] and on August 31, 2021, the university announced that enough donations had been received to save the program.
The team returned to the ice in the 2022–23 season[8] as an Independent program, following the collapse of the men's side of the WCHA after the CCHA's revival in 2021. Additionally, the Seawolves performed several upgrades on the small Avis Alaska Sports Complex to improve the fan and player experience. In 2023–24, the Seawolves posted their best season in a decade, with a 15–17–2 record. The team is currently pursuing plans to build a new arena.[9]
GP = Games played; Min = Minutes played; W = Wins; L = Losses; T = Ties; GA = Goals against; SO = Shutouts; SV% = Save percentage; GAA = Goals against average
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