NCAA Division I independent schools



NCAA Division I independent schools are teams that compete in NCAA college ice hockey but are not members of a conference. There are several current schools who, at one time or another, competed as Division I independents.

Men
The Sun Devils moved up from club hockey in the ACHA to full varsity status. Arizona State began playing a full Division I schedule in 2016–17. ASU had expected to join a hockey conference by 2017–18, but no conference move has yet materialized. LIU, which had launched a women's hockey program in 2019–20, added men's hockey for 2020–21. With the 2020–21 season dramatically affected by COVID-19, both teams became scheduling partners of existing Division I hockey conferences for that season. ASU will partner with the Big Ten Conference, playing a road-only schedule of seven games against each of the conference's seven hockey members. LIU will partner with Atlantic Hockey.

Women
As of the 2019–20 season, no programs compete as independents in the National Collegiate division of NCAA women's hockey, the de facto equivalent of Division I in that sport.

Five schools competed as independents in the 2018–19 season, all participating in the New England Women's Hockey Alliance, which had been established in 2017 as a scheduling alliance between the then-current National Collegiate independents. The NEWHA had been founded with six members, but Holy Cross left after the alliance's first season to join Hockey East. It formally organized as a conference in 2018–19 with the remaining five members, but was not officially recognized by the NCAA until 2019–20, by which time the newly established LIU women's team had returned the NEWHA membership to six.