NCAA Division I Hockey: the National Collegiate Hockey Conference (NCHC): attendance map (2015-16 regular season), with arena capacities & percent-capacities
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By Bill Turianski on 23 November 2016; twitter.com/billsportsmaps.
Links…
-Teams in NCHC, etc…National Collegiate Hockey Conference (en.wikipedia.org).
-NCHC page at USCHO.com.
-My recent post of D1-hockey (map with all 60 teams & 2015-16 attendance.
Conference-maps for NCAA Division I (aka D1) men’s ice hockey
(Note: already-posted D1-hockey conference maps are linked-to, below.)
I am making a location-map for each of the 6 D1-hockey conferences, which are…
∙Atlantic Hockey Association (11 teams/est. 1998-99/ zero titles).
∙Big Ten Conference hockey (6 teams [7-teams in 2017-18]/est. 2013-14/ 23 titles won amongst its six teams).
∙ECAC Hockey (12 teams/est. 1961-62/ 7 titles won amongst its twelve teams).
∙Hockey East Association (12 teams [11 teams in 2017-18]/est. 1984-85/ 13 titles won amongst its twelve teams).
∙National Collegiate Hockey Conference (aka NCHC) (8 teams/est. 2013-14/ 18 titles won amongst its eight teams).
∙Western Collegiate Hockey Association (aka WCHA) (10 teams/est. 1951-52/ 8 titles won amongst its ten teams).
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The map-page here shows the eight-team National Collegiate Hockey Conference (NCHC) + a chart of all-time D1-hockey titles-&-Frozen-Four-appearances…
The NCHC has teams spread through 6 states: 2 teams from Colorado (Denver and Colorado College [of Colorado Springs, CO), 2 teams from Minnesota (Minnesota-Duluth and St. Cloud), 1 team from North Dakota (North Dakota [of Grand Forks, ND]), 1 team from Michigan (Western Michigan [of Kalamazoo, MI]), 1 team from Ohio (Miami of Ohio [of Oxford, OH]), and 1 team from Nebraska (Omaha). In 2013, Miami of Ohio and Western Michigan left the now-defunct CCHA to join the newly-formed NCHC. Also in 2013, 6 others joined the newly-formed NCHC – Denver, Colorado College, Minnesota-Duluth, North Dakota, Omaha, and St. Cloud. Those 6 teams came from the Western Collegiate Hockey Association (WCHA). The WCHA still exists, but is vastly different from what it was before 2013 – the WCHA now has a vast spread of teams in Alaska, Alabama, Michigan, Minnesota, and Ohio {see WCHA former-members and WCHA timeline}.
The NCHC team the North Dakota Fighting Hawks were champions in D1-hockey in 2016…
{See this recent illustration I made for 2015-16 North Dakota: D1-hockey champions.} As to the all-time records, Michigan (now of Big Ten hockey) has the most D1-hockey titles, but the Wolverines have not won a hockey title in eighteen years (last in 1998). Meanwhile, with North Dakota winning the title last season, North Dakota has moved past Denver up to second-most D1-hockey titles, with 8. The NCHC team the Denver Pioneers won the last of their 7 D-1 hockey titles in 2004 and 2005. There are 2 other NCHC teams which have won D1-hockey titles…the Colorado College Tigers, and the Minnesota-Duluth Bulldogs. Colorado College has won 2 D1-hockey titles (albeit both were won over a half century ago, in 1950 and 1957). Minnesota-Duluth won their sole D1-hockey title 6 seasons ago, in 2011.
North Dakota has 22 Frozen Four appearances, which is tied for 4th-best (with Boston University). (The D1-hockey team with the most Frozen Four appearances is the Hockey East team the Boston College Eagles, with 25 Frozen Four appearances.) Another NCHC team is high on the list of Frozen Four appearances – the Denver Pioneers, with 15 (6th-best). To round out the Frozen Four appearances of NCHC teams, the Colorado College Tigers have 10 (last in 2005), and 3 others have one each: the Miami RedHawks (in 2005), the St. Cloud State Huskies (in 2013), and the Omaha Mavericks (in 2015). An indication of the power of the NCHC is that in the 3 seasons it has existed, it has produced 5 of the last 12 Frozen Four qualifiers, with North Dakota qualifying for 3 straight Frozen Fours (2014-16), and with Denver (last season) and Omaha (two seasons ago) also making it to the Frozen Four since the NCHC began operating in 2013-14. So the NCHC is brand new, and it already is basically one of the elite D1-hockey conferences.
NCHC teams draw pretty well too…
Every NCHC team draws above 75 percent-capacity. And 4 of the 8 NCHC teams draw crowds that place them in the top 6 of D1-hockey…#1-best-drawing-team North Dakota Fighting Hawks (drawing 11.6-K, at an impressive 100.5 percent-capacity), #4-best-drawing-team Omaha Mavericks (6.9-K, at 87.6 percent-capacity), #5-best-drawing-team Minnesota-Duluth Bulldogs (6.1-K, at a solid 92.6 percent-capacity), and #6-best-drawing-team Colorado College Tigers (6.1-K, at 83.2 percent-capacity). Colorado College’s attendance numbers are even more respectable than it first appears, once you realize that there actually is another D1-hockey team in their home-city of Colorado Springs – Air Force Academy (of the Atlantic Conference).
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Thanks to all at the following links…
-Thanks to AMK1211 for blank map of USA, ‘File:Blank US Map with borders.svg”>File:Blank US Map with borders.svg‘ (commons.wikimedia.org).
-Thanks to Two Hearted River at en.wikipedia.org/[each teams' page at Wikipedia], for small segments of jersey illustrations of several teams (Wisconsin, Minnesota-Duluth, Cornell, Maine, Minnesota State, Vermont, Yale, UMass, Western Michigan, Canisius College, American International), such as at File:ECAC-Uniform-Cornell.png.
-Thanks to USCHO site for attendance data, Men’s Division I Hockey Attendance: 2015-2016 (uscho.com).