The Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference is an intercollegiate athletic conference that competes in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division III. All 13 of the member schools are located in Minnesota and are private institutions, with only two being non-sectarian.
The Central Collegiate Hockey Association (CCHA) is a college athletic conference in the Midwestern United States that participates in the NCAA's Division I as a hockey-only conference. The current CCHA began play in the 2021–22 season; a previous incarnation, which the current CCHA recognizes as part of its history, existed from 1971 to 2013. Four of its nine members are located in the state of Michigan, with three in Minnesota and one each in Ohio and South Dakota. It has also had teams located in Alaska, Illinois, Indiana, Missouri and Nebraska over the course of its existence.
The Western Collegiate Hockey Association (WCHA) is a college ice hockey conference which operates in the Midwestern United States. It participates in the NCAA's Division I as a women's-only conference.
The annual NCAA women's ice hockey tournament—officially known as the National Collegiate Women's Ice Hockey Championship—is a college ice hockey tournament held in the United States by the National Collegiate Athletic Association to determine the top women's team in the NCAA.
NCAA Division I independent schools are four-year institutions that compete in college athletics at the NCAA Division I level, but do not belong to an established athletic conference for a particular sport. These schools may however still compete as members of an athletic conference in other sports. A school may also be fully independent, and not belong to any athletic conference for any sport at all. The reason for independent status varies among institutions, but it is frequently because the school's primary athletic conference does not sponsor a particular sport.
Sports in Minnesota include professional teams in all major sports, Olympic Games contenders and medalists, especially in the Winter Olympics, collegiate teams in major and small-school conferences and associations and active amateur teams and individual sports. The State of Minnesota has a team in all five major professional leagues. Along with professional sports, there are numerous collegiate teams including the University of Minnesota Golden Gophers and St. Thomas Tommies in NCAA Division I, as well as many others across the Minnesota public and private colleges and universities.
College ice hockey is played principally in the United States and Canada, though leagues exist outside North America.
The Minnesota Duluth Bulldogs men's ice hockey team is an NCAA Division I college ice hockey program that represents the University of Minnesota Duluth. The Bulldogs are a member of the National Collegiate Hockey Conference (NCHC). The team plays home games at the 6,800-seat AMSOIL Arena at the Duluth Entertainment Convention Center.
The Bemidji State Beavers men's ice hockey team is a National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I college ice hockey program that represents Bemidji State University. The Beavers are a member of the Central Collegiate Hockey Association and play at Sanford Center in Bemidji, Minnesota, as of the 2010 season, after previously playing at the John S. Glas Field House.
The St. Thomas Tommies football program represents University of St. Thomas in Saint Paul, Minnesota. Football began at the university in the late 1890s and the first official varsity intercollegiate games were played in 1904. St. Thomas was a charter member of the Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference, formed in 1920. The Tommies also appeared at the 1949 Cigar Bowl. In 2019, the MIAC announced that St. Thomas would be "involuntarily removed" from the conference at the end of the spring 2021 athletic season citing "athletic competitive parity" concerns. St. Thomas received approval from the NCAA to begin competing at the NCAA Division I FCS level as a member of the Pioneer Football League starting with the 2021 season and became the first program to jump from NCAA Division III to Division I FCS.
The NCAA Division III women's ice hockey is a college ice hockey competition governed by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) as part of the NCAA Division III. Sixty-seven teams competed in NCAA Division III women's hockey across eight conferences in the 2023–24 season.
The St. Thomas Tommies are the intercollegiate athletic teams that represent University of Saint Thomas. The school's athletic program includes 21 varsity sports teams. Their mascot is a tiger named Tommie, and the school colors are purple and gray. The university participates in the NCAA's Division I as members of the Summit League in all varsity sports except for football, which competes in the Pioneer Football League, the men's ice hockey team, which competes in the Central Collegiate Hockey Association, and the women's ice hockey team, which competes in the Western Collegiate Hockey Association. St. Thomas offers 10 varsity sports for men and 11 for women.
The following is a list of teams that have made appearances in the National Collegiate Women's Ice Hockey Championship listed by their conference. The championship has existed since the 2000–2001 season and groups include the university teams of Divisions I and II of the NCAA.
The following is a list of women's college ice hockey programs (teams) that participate in Division I ice hockey of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and compete for berths in the annual National Collegiate Women's Ice Hockey Championship. Programs (teams) are sorted by the conferences in which they play.
Joel Johnson is an American ice hockey coach. He is the former head coach for St. Thomas and for the United States women's national ice hockey team.
The 2021–22 CCHA season was the 43rd season of play for the Central Collegiate Hockey Association and part of the 2021–22 NCAA Division I men's ice hockey season. The regular season began on October 2, 2021, and concluded on February 26, 2022. The conference tournament began on March 4 and ended on March 19, 2022.
The 2021–22 NCAA Division I women's ice hockey season began in September 2021 and ended with the 2022 NCAA National Collegiate Women's Ice Hockey Tournament's championship game at Pegula Ice Arena in State College, Pennsylvania on March 20, 2022.
Many of the Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (MIAC) schools developed club teams over the years, and eventually varsity hockey programs at the Division III level of the NCAA. Most of these varsity teams were established in the late 1990s. After Title IX gave equal access to women's sports, the MIAC, being one of the oldest conferences in the NCAA, finally had enough programs to offer women's ice hockey as a conference starting with the 1998–99 season. Six member programs began play at the time.
The St. Thomas (Minnesota) Tommies men's ice hockey team represents the University of St. Thomas (Minnesota) in NCAA Division I ice hockey.
