The Northeast Women's Hockey League is an NCAA Division III women's hockey only conference that began play in the fall of 2017. The conference was officially announced on June 15, 2017. The conference began operations on July 1, 2017.
All of the charter members of the conference were members of the ECAC West women's conference for the 2016-17 season. The move was brought about by the formation of the United Collegiate Hockey Conference which was announced in early October of 2016. This move took 5 of ten members out of the ECAC West.
The conference will maintain an automatic bid to the NCAA Division III Women's Ice Hockey Tournament for the 2017-18 and 2018-19 seasons. This is despite the league being under the required threshold for an automatic bid to the conference. The conference will have to add at least two more members prior to the start of the 2019-20 season to be able to keep the automatic bid, which will be accomplished with the addition of one team for each of the next two seasons.
The present commissioner of the State University of New York Athletic Conference, Tom DiCamillo, is the commissioner of the new conference which is run separate of the SUNYAC despite all of the teams being full members of that conference.
The Canton Kangaroos were to join the conference for the 2018-19 season from the Colonial Hockey Conference but it was pushed back to 2019-20
The Morrisville Mustangs will be joining the conference for the 2019-20 from the Colonial Hockey Conference.
On May 12, 2023 the State University of New York Athletic Conference announced it would be adding women's ice hockey for the 2023-24 season. The league is being formed out of the current members of the Northeast Women's Hockey League plus the Canton Kangaroos women's ice hockey team. The change over to the new conference will take place at the change over of the academic year on July 1, 2023.[1]
Membership[]
League champions[]
Season | Regular Season | Tournament | NCAA Tournament Teams |
2017-18 | Plattsburgh Cardinals | Plattsburgh Cardinals | Plattsburgh Cardinals (Lost Semifinals) |
2018-19 | Plattsburgh Cardinals | Plattsburgh Cardinals | Plattsburgh Cardinals (Won Championship) |
2019-20 | Plattsburgh Cardinals | Plattsburgh Cardinals | Plattsburgh Cardinals (Tournament cancelled) |
2020-21 | Season cancelled due to COVID-19 pandemic[2] | ||
2021-22 | Plattsburgh Cardinals | Plattsburgh Cardinals | Plattsburgh Cardinals |
2022-23 | Plattsburgh Cardinals | Plattsburgh Cardinals | Plattsburgh Cardinals |
Northeast Women's Hockey League | |
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Teams | Buffalo State Bengals - Canton Kanaroos - Cortland Red Dragons - Morrisville Mustangs - Oswego Great Lakers - Plattsburgh Cardinals - Potsdam Bears |
Venues | Buffalo State Sports Arena (Buffalo St) - SUNY Canton Athletic and Recreation Center (Canton) - Alumni Arena (SUNY Cortland) (Cortland) - Morrisville Iceplex (Morrisville) - Marano Campus Center Ice Arena (Oswego) - Ronald B. Stafford Ice Arena (Plattsburgh) - Maxcy Ice Arena (Potsdam) |
Seasons | 2017–18 - 2018–19 - 2019–20 - |