NCAA Frozen Four Preview – Altantic Hockey, College Hockey America Primer

READING, Pa – In our continued efforts to get you ready for the 2009 NCAA Frozen Four tournament, today we focus on Atlantic Hockey and College Hockey America (CHA).
 
The reason we decided to combine the two leagues into one article is due to the fact that two of the schools that currently play in the CHA will be moving to Atlantic Hockey in the near future.
 
In January, the Atlantic Hockey Board of Directors voted to accept both Niagara University and Robert Morris University as members of the Atlantic Hockey Association to start play for the 2010-11 season.
 
Atlantic Hockey
 
The following is from Atlantic Hockey’s web site’s History link.
 
The Atlantic Hockey Association was created on June 30, 2003, by nine charter members. The sixth Division-I men’s ice hockey conference arose when the founding members – American International, Bentley, Canisius, Connecticut, Holy Cross, Mercyhurst, Quinnipiac, Sacred Heart, and the United States Military Academy (Army) – required an organization that represented their specific hockey needs.  Now in its sixth year of existence Atlantic Hockey members are known throughout the NCAA landscape. Quinnipiac after a two-year stay in Atlantic Hockey announced on August 24, 2004 that the Bobcats would be leaving and joining the ECAC Hockey League.  Four months later the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) announced their hockey program will be making the jump to Division I and will join Atlantic Hockey starting in the 2006-07 season.
 
At the end of the 2004-05 season the Air Force Academy will also be joining Atlantic Hockey making the move from the College Hockey America conference, announcing its move on April 12, 2005.  With the addition of RIT and Air Force beginning with the 2006-07 season the league increase its membership to ten (10) teams. Last season, Air Force became the first Atlantic Hockey squad to win back-to-back tournament championships and for the second year in a row nearly pulled an upset in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.  The Falcons fell to Miami, 3-2 in overtime in 2008, and during the 2007 NCAA Regionals nearly upset top ranked Minnesota.
 
In 2005, Holy Cross earned its second Atlantic Hockey Association Regular Season and Tournament Crowns.  The Crusaders posted the first ever NCAA Tournament victory as Holy Cross defeated top-seed Minnesota, 4-3 in overtime at the West Regional in Grand Forks, N.D.  Quinnipiac earned its first Atlantic Hockey Association Regular Season crown during the 2004-05 season, but fell in the title game to Mercyhurst, as the Lakers earned the automatic berth in the NCAA Tournament.  Mercyhurst drew top-seeded Boston College and nearly upsetting the Eagles in the First Round of the East Regional. The inaugural season for Atlantic Hockey showed that the conference has a bright future on the horizon. Robert DeGregorio, a former commissioner of Hockey East, was named the conference’s first commissioner and held an integral role in the development of the league as play between the nine squads began in the Fall of 2003.
 
As the season unfolded, the fledgling conference made its mark in college hockey with victories over non-conference opponents, such as Ohio State and Western Michigan (CCHA), Rensselaer (ECAC), Merrimack (Hockey East) and Wayne State (CHA), along with an exciting chase to claim the first-ever regular season title. Holy Cross secured the league’s first regular season title, and followed up the feat by capturing the tournament championship, sending the Crusaders to the NCAA Tournament for the first time in the program’s, along with the league’s, history. Success in the classroom is as important as success on the ice among the member institutions of Atlantic Hockey as on average 109 student-athletes garner All-Academic over the last five seasons.  Last season, a record 130 student-athletes garnered the 3.0 GPA during both the Fall and Spring semester to earn All-Academic honors.  Atlantic Hockey athletes have also contributed their time off the ice to numerous charitable organizations as a way of saying thanks to their many supporters. Currently, Atlantic Hockey spans a total of five states, reaching from the Atlantic Ocean to the Rocky Mountains. Members reside in Colorado (Air Force), Connecticut (University of Connecticut, Sacred Heart), Massachusetts (American International, Bentley, Holy Cross), New York (Army, Canisius, RIT), and Pennsylvania (Mercyhurst).
 
CHA
 
The following is from CHA’s web site regarding its history.
 
College ice hockey’s continuing development and expansion received another boost during the summer of 1999 with the formation of College Hockey America. The seven charter members of College Hockey America were the United States Air Force Academy ( Colorado), University of Alabama-Huntsville, United States Military Academy ( New York), Bemidji State University ( Minnesota), University of Findlay ( Ohio), Niagara University ( New York), and Wayne State University ( Michigan).
The CHA encompasses programs steeped in tradition, such as Bemidji State former Division II power Alabama-Huntsville, to relative newcomers to the college hockey landscape, Niagara and Robert Morris.
Bemidji State and Alabama-Huntsville competed for the Division II national championship six times in the 1990’s with the Beavers winning four and the Chargers winning two, and the two teams have now carried that rivalry to Division I. Bemidji State, which began playing hockey in 1948, had won a total of 13 national championships at the small college level before making the jump to Division I. 
Those two clubs boast two of the highest all-time winning percentages among all 58 teams which comprise Division I hockey.
Niagara began its Division I hockey program in 1996 and posted a winning season each of its first four years.  The Purple Eagles have rocketed to the top of the conference becoming the first team in the league to earn three berths into the NCAA Tournament (2000, 2004, 2008).
Beginning its program for the 2004-05 season, Robert Morris has quickly established itself as a team that cannot be taken lightly having routinely knocked off ranked opponents since the programs conception.
In addition to a challenging non-conference schedule and a rugged conference slate, College Hockey America will conduct a postseason championship tournament for the ninth consecutive year.
In 2000, Niagara became the first CHA team to earn a berth into the NCAA tournament as the Purple Eagles earned a well-deserved at-large bid to the 2000 NCAA Championship during the CHA’s inaugural season. Niagara showed right out of the gate that the newly formed conference could not be taken lightly as NU stunned New Hampshire 4-1 in Minneapolis, MN before falling to eventual national champion North Dakota, 4-1 in the regional finals.
In 2003 the CHA received its first automatic bid to the NCAA tournament when Wayne State earned the inaugural berth after winning the 2003 CHA Tournament Championship in Kearney, Neb.  The Warriors would advance to the Midwest Regional and take on  Colorado College, dropping a 4-2 decision to the Tigers.
A familiar CHA face returned to the NCAA’s in 2004 as Niagara made its second trip in to “The Dance” falling in the first round, 5-2, to Boston College.
Both 2005 and 2006 would see the first back-to-back NCAA participants for the league as Bemidji State won back-to-back league tournament titles in Grand Rapids, Minn. and Detroit, Mich.  The 2005 Northeast regional would see the Beavers hand eventual national champion Denver all they wanted and then some but the Pioneers staved off Bemidji State‘s bid to be the second CHA team to advance to a regional final with a 4-3 win over BSU.  After winning the title in the ” Motor City” in 2005, the Beavers advanced to the Midwest Regional and would again run into the eventual national champion as Wisconsin handed BSU a 4-0 loss.
In 2007 with long-time coach Doug Ross retiring, Alabama-Huntsville pulled off a Hollywood ending to their season winning the CHA Tournament Championship in Des Moines, Iowa becoming the first No. 5 seed to do so in league history.  The Chargers then took on then top-ranked Notre Dame in the Midwest Regional taking the Fighting Irish to double overtime before falling 3-2. The 2008 season saw the tournament return to Niagara’s Dwyer Arena for the second time in league history and it would mark the first time in CHA lore that a tournament host institution would earn the Peter’s Cup and the CHA Tournament Championship as Niagara triumphed on home ice.  The Purple Eagles advanced to the East Regional in nearby Albany, N.Y. where they dropped a 5-1 decision to Michigan.
Contact the author at Brian.Jennings@prohockeynews.com