 | |
| Association | NCAA |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1984 |
| Commissioner | Katie Boldvich |
| Sports fielded |
|
| Division | Division III |
| No. of teams | 12 |
| Headquarters | Marshfield, Massachusetts |
| Region | New York and New England |
| Official website | http://www.nehockeyconference.com/ |
| Locations | |
 | |
New England Hockey Conference (formerly the ECAC East) was a college athletic conference which operates in the northeastern United States. It participates in the NCAA's Division III as a hockey-only conference. [1]
The New England Hockey Conference began as ECAC East in 1984 when ECAC 2 was split in two and both new conferences dropped down to Division III. The conference was fairly stable for the first decade but began to grow in the mid 1990s. In 1998 four teams left to become Division I programs in the new MAAC conference. A year later, nine more teams split off to join their primary athletic conference, NESCAC, followed by the women's programs in 2001. Membership numbers held steady over the succeeding 15 years, though several teams came and went. In 2015 the conference rebranded itself as the New England Hockey Conference, but no internal changes occurred. Two years later 6 women's and 2 men's programs left to join a variety of conferences, dropping league membership to 11 schools, the lowest number in conference history.
In 2022, Johnson & Wales University announced that they would join Commonwealth Coast Conference as a full-member starting in 2024-25 and sponsor both men's ice hockey and women's ice hockey. [2] In the summer of 2023, Keene State announced that they would begin sponsoring men's and women's ice hockey starting with the 2024–25 season. [3] This gave the Little East Conference six member schools that supported men's ice hockey, the minimum number required for an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament. Shortly afterwards, the Little East announced that they would begin sponsoring men's ice hockey as a sport and begin play in the 2025-26 season. [4] In early 2024, New England College was accepted by the Little East as an affiliate ice hockey member, enabling the conference to also support women's hockey. [5] Less than a month later, two more NEHC teams announced that they would be joining the Little East as affiliate members and both Babson and Norwich would be leaving in 2025. [6] The bleeding continued when, in April and May, Hobart, Skidmore and William Smith announced their move to the SUNYAC, [7] while Albertus Magus (who had yet to play a game in the NEHC) and Elmira both announced that they would be leaving to join the UCHC, all in 2025. [8] Salem State also announced that they will leave in 2025 to join their primary conference (MASCAC) and will also start to sponsor women's ice hockey the same year. [9] With just one school remaining for the start of the 2025–26 season, the future of the NEHC is in doubt.
From the time it formally split from ECAC 2 until 1992 all games played between members of ECAC East and ECAC West counted for conference standings. In 1992, after the ECAC West split into two conferences, ECAC East only counted games within their conference for the standings, but because a formal schedule was not yet in place all games between members were still counted. For the 1993–94 season ECAC East had its first official conference schedule with all 18 teams playing each other once. Teams could schedule additional inter-conference games but only one would count in the standings. In 1999, when 9 teams left to form the ice hockey division of the NESCAC, the two conferences continued to count games between one another in their respective standings. This arrangement continued even after the addition of more programs.
There are 14 member schools; the men's and women's divisions each have eleven members. (as of March 2025)
Note: schools in red are planning to leave after the 2024-25 season
† (as of March 2025)
Men Women Both
