List of NCAA Division II men's ice hockey seasons contains all seasons of Division II men's ice hockey and the champions of each respective season.
Schism In 1964, after three years of existence, the 29-team conference ECAC Hockey was split in two. This was done partly due to its ponderous size but also because many of the programs in the conference were competing with differing levels of investment. The conference was divided between teams that, in essence, had indoor, artificial-ice arenas and those that didn't. A special provision was made for a few programs but by and large the 14 teams that were placed in ECAC 2 either couldn't or wouldn't fund their programs to a level where they could compete with the upper-echelon programs. The split resulted in the first official delineation of divisions in college ice hockey.
At the start there was no NCAA-sponsored tournament. Between the two extant conferences (ECAC 2 and MIAC) only ECAC 2 played a conference tournament, making the ECAC champion a de facto College Division champion (the MIAC would not hold a conference tournament until 1986).
No. Season Finish De Facto Champion (number) Champion Record 11964–65-None- 21965–66March 1213–12–1 31966–67March 1113–9–0 41967–68March 9 (2)18–8–0 51968–69March 815–8–0 61969–70March 1416–8–0 71970–71March 1319–4–1
Second Schism Less than a decade after splitting from ECAC Hockey, ECAC 2 had swollen to more than 30 teams and a further, lower division was made (ECAC 3). ECAC 3 began its conference tournament immediately, however, as they were lower-tier than their parent conference, the ECAC 2 champion was still the de facto College Division champion.
In 1973 the NCAA reclassified its sporting divisions numerically. The first official Division II season was 1973–74 yet no second-tier national championship was held until 1978.
No. Season Finish De Facto Champion (number) Champion Record 81971–72March 1119–7–0 91972–73March 10 (2)24–7–0 101973–74March 9 (3)28–5–0 111974–75March 8 (2)14–9–0 121975–76March 6 (3)18–9–0 131976–77March 16 (3)23–11–1
Tournament Play Begins The NCAA began holding a lower-tier national tournament in 1978. While most of the teams that played as Division II ice hockey programs actually belonged to schools who were classified as Division III, due to the relatively small number of programs the NCAA did not require the teams to be D-II.
The NAIA had been holding an ice hockey tournament since 1968 which was used mostly by western schools. With the advent of the NCAA tournament many western programs began to gravitate back to the NCAA and eventually caused the discontinuation of the NAIA Championship.
In 1983 the NCAA created a championship for the Division III level and began requiring that teams participate only in the championships at their level. Due to the low numbers of teams at the Division II level, the D-II tournament survived for only one more season before being discontinued.
No. Season Tournament Start Finish NCAA Champion (number) ChampionConference ChampionRecord Championship Site 141977–781978March 18 ECAC 2(21–9–2)Springfield, Massachusetts 151978–791979March 17 ECAC 2(27–6–0)North Andover, Massachusetts 161979–801980March 15 Independent(30–9–1)Elmira, New York 171980–811981March 14 (2) ECAC 2(27–5–0)North Andover, Massachusetts 181981–821982March 20 (3) ECAC 2(31–4–0)North Billerica, Massachusetts 191982–831983March 19 ECAC 2(23–9–0)North Billerica, Massachusetts 201983–841984March 18 NCHA(31–0–0)Bemidji, Minnesota
Tournament Returns The NCAA agreed to restart the NCAA tournament due to increased interest from Division II programs. With no D-II conferences, the selection committee was left with only the overall records of teams to use when deciding the participants. Bemidji State participated in the first 6 championships, winning 4, but by 1998 most of the teams at the Division II level had left to join the top division, leaving the second tier with just a handful of programs and the tournament was, once again, discontinued.
No. Season Tournament Start Finish NCAA Champion (number) ChampionConference ChampionRecord Championship Site 211992–931993March 20 (2) NCHA(24–7–0)Bemidji, Minnesota 221993–941994March 12 (3) NCHA(22–10–3)Huntsville, Alabama 231994–951995March 18 (4) NCHA(25–7–2)Erie, Pennsylvania 241995–961996March 9 Independent(26–0–3)Huntsville, Alabama 251996–971997March 15 (5) NCHA(25–7–2)Bemidji, Minnesota 261997–981998March 14 (2) Independent(24–3–3)Huntsville, Alabama 271998–991999March 13 ECAC Northeast(16–10–2)Colchester, Vermont
Northeast 10 After the NCAA Division II tournament was discontinued in 1999, the few remaining D-II programs were barred from participating in conference tournaments in order for those conferences to retain automatic qualifiers. As a result, the eastern teams began holding a separate cross-conference tournament. This arrangement continued until the teams formally created the ice hockey division of the Northeast 10 in 2009. Because there were no Division II teams outside the conference there was no need for the NCAA to resurrect the National Championship leaving the tournament champion as the de facto Division II champion.
No. Season Start Finish De Facto Champion (number) Champion Record 282009–10November 3March 6 (15–11–1) 292010–11October 29March 5 (2) (13–11–2) 302011–12October 22March 3 (3) (14–8–5) 312012–13October 26March 2 (4) (16–8–3) 32 2013–14 November 1March 1 (17–8–1) 33 2014–15 October 31February 28 (5) (11–13–3) 34 2015–16 October 23February 27 (13–9–4) 35 2016–17 October 28February 25 (6) (12–12–2) 36 2017–18 October 27March 3 (7) (17–9–1) 37 2018–19 October 26March 2 (2) (16–13–2) 38 2019–20 November 1March 7 (2) (13–11–5) 39 2020–21 February 5March 14None N/A 40 2021–22 October 17March 3 (16–12–2) 41 2022–23 October 15March 4 (8) (18–8–2) 42 2023–24 October 14March 2 (2) (25–7–0) 43 2024–25 October 25March 1 (18–11–2)
Conference Timeline
See also List of NCAA Division II men's ice hockey champions List of NCAA Division I men's ice hockey seasons List of NCAA Division III men's ice hockey seasons
References
External links USCHO.com