Midwest Collegiate Hockey Association was a college athletic conference which operated in the midwestern United States. It participated in the NCAA's Division III as a hockey-only conference. The conference included only men's teams.
In 2007, in order to meet NCAA guidelines and receive an automatic bid for the Division III tournament, the NCHA mandated that all member programs be Division III by the end of the 2008–09 season.[1] Minnesota–Crookston continued to play in the conference for the next two years but after the '09 season the university dropped varsity hockey and were replaced by Lake Forest.
In the summer of 2012, the five hockey-playing schools in the University of Wisconsin System announced that they would leave the Northern Collegiate Hockey Association (NCHA) to begin playing hockey in their all-sports conference, the Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference.[2][3] The move would have left only two men's teams in the NCHA, leading St. Norbert College and the College of St. Scholastica to join the MCHA.[4] In April 2013, the NCHA and MCHA announced a merger, where the NCHA would absorb the MCHA's teams (of the MCHA's 10 schools, all seven who also sponsored women's hockey played in the NCHA).[5] The men's and women's sides will retain separate administrative structures, as well as their automatic bids to the NCAA Tournament.[6]
