at
Brown University In fall of 1892,
Malcolm Greene Chace, then a freshman at
Brown University, and
Robert Wrenn, of
Harvard University, were participating in a
tennis tournament in
Niagara Falls, Ontario. The next winter, during Christmas break 1894–1895, Chace (who had by then transferred to
Yale University) and Wrenn returned to
Canada with a group of college students from several universities. Yale has served as a bedrock of college hockey ever since, playing continually including through the
Great Depression and two
world wars. Yale's 125-year continuous streak was broken for the
2020-21 season, when all
Ivy League winter sports were cancelled due to the
COVID-19 pandemic. Another game often cited as the "first game of intercollegiate ice hockey played in the United States" is a well-documented contest on January 19, 1898, at
Franklin Park, Boston. Students from Brown took the train to Boston, where they commandeered a patch of a frozen pond in Franklin Park, asked pleasure skaters to give them room, and played students from Harvard. The details and outcome of the game were recorded in the following day's
Boston Herald: Brown 6, Harvard 0.
Early style of play For at least the first 25 years of intercollegiate play the teams used a 7-on-7 format, a typical setup for
turn of the century ice hockey. On a faceoff players were typically arranged as either four
forwards, two
point men and one
goaltender or three
forwards, one
rover, two
point men and one
goaltender. In the four forward setup the players were arranged from a faceoff as a left and right wing (or end) on the outside and a left and right center on the inside. The two point men and goaltender were typically arrayed in a line from center ice to the goal as cover point, point and goaltender. If viewed from above, the players would form a T. If a rover was used instead there would only be one center. The rover would line up either in a defensive or offensive position depending on the need. The remaining five positions would be unchanged. By the 1921–22 season college hockey adopted the increasingly more common six–a–side format with the abandonment of the second center/rover position and the two point men being renamed as 'defensemen'. The change from point men to defensemen came as a result of an alignment change where instead of lining up one in front of the other, the two defensive players would play beside one another. The ice surfaces that the players played on were not of a uniform size. Rinks like the
St. Nicholas Rink or
Duquesne Gardens were few and far between and quite often teams would only be able to play on frozen ponds. Slightly more consistent were the length of games, however, there was no set game time. Most were played as two 20-minute halves but some games had 15- or 25-minute halves and others were one 40-minute period. Occasionally games were not able to be played entirely at one time so the teams would arrange to meet at a later date to finish the match. Overtime after a tie did not always occur, as ice times at public skating rinks were constrained, but even when teams were able to play extra frames the rules were somewhat flexible; because there were no lights illuminating the ponds, games could only be played while the sun was shining and in the winter months dusk came quickly. The teams would attempt to finish the game with a winner decided but even after multiple overtimes ties did result.
Stabilizing the game From the start college hockey teams were rarely in a place of surety. In the 10 years since
Johns Hopkins University's exit in 1898 at least a dozen teams were forced to cancel seasons or suspend their program entirely, including some of the more financially sound institutions like
Cornell University and
Brown University. The two main factors in this were interest from the student body and the lack of available or good ice. While the interest conundrum required a more nuanced solution, the ice troubles had a more tangible answer. Teams near to public skating rinks would be able to hold their games at venues where ice conditions could be ensured but at the start, with so few available, some programs came up with novel solutions. One such idea came from
Harvard University who, after completing construction of their
football stadium in 1904, decided to erect two open-air rinks on the field for the team to use. As rinks continued to be built in areas near to the colleges, specifically the
Boston Arena,
New Haven Arena and
Philadelphia Ice Palace, college teams had more and more ice rinks available to them and with most using artificial ice the teams were no longer dependent on weather conditions. Owing to the popularity of the game the first on-campus, purpose-built arena was constructed by
Princeton University in 1923. Most schools were content with buying ice time from local rink operators while others simply didn't want to fund the building of their own version of the
Hobey Baker Memorial Rink. As the weather warmed in the 1930s and 40s many of these teams would be forced to decide whether they were willing to financially support their ice hockey programs or not.
Army, for instance, had
Smith Rink built in 1930 while
Cornell struggled with the ice on
Beebe Lake until after
World War II.
World War I aftermath The vast majority of teams ceased operating in 1917 after the
United States entered
World War I. This made sense as many of the students who would otherwise have been playing had instead joined the military. Because the war ended in November 1918 many of the teams returned to the ice for the 1918–19 season and, while the game continued to grow around
New England, an interesting development happened shortly after the armistice was signed. Colleges in the
midwest began their own ice hockey programs. At the beginning these were typically restricted to upper-echelon universities like the
University of Minnesota or the
University of Michigan but some of the smaller schools got into the game as well. From the
MIAC's foundation in 1920, member schools have played ice hockey and were able to establish the first consistent lower-tier competition in college hockey.
Great Depression While college ice hockey flourished in the 1920s the
Great Depression did have an impact on the game in the '30s. Most schools that had established programs made the effort to keep their teams going but some less-acclaimed teams like
Pennsylvania or
Columbia decided that ice hockey wasn't worth the cost. Some of the smaller schools like
Rensselaer had no choice but to suspend their programs as they did not have the resources that a
Harvard or
Yale did. After the first half of the 1930s, however, the depression lessened and schools were able to found or restart their programs. The game continued to expand west with the addition of
Gonzaga,
USC,
UCLA and others, however, none of the Pacific-coast teams would make it to the 1950s.
World War II hiatus As was the case during
World War I, the majority of universities suspended their ice hockey teams during
World War II. Most of teams that were active just prior to the U.S.' entry played during the 1942–43 season but were mothballed afterwards. There were notable exceptions such as Yale and
Dartmouth, who continued to play through the duration of the war, but many teams returned to the ice for an abbreviated 1945–46 season. One benefit to college hockey that resulted from the war was the
G.I. Bill which helped returning servicemen pay for a college education. With a much larger student body and a resulting influx in cash, colleges were more able to afford to support an ice hockey team.
NCAA tournament By 1947, college ice hockey was still a regional sport, being localized in the northeast and northern Midwest (with a few exceptions) but despite the low number of teams playing, the NCAA finally instituted a national tournament. At the start the tournament invited two participants from the two regions: east and west. The east region was loosely defined as any college east of the
Pennsylvania-
Ohio border with all other teams being lumped into the west region. The tournament was held at the
Broadmoor World Arena for the first ten years. Partially due to a lack of competition,
Michigan was invited to participate in each of the first ten tournaments and won six
National Championships in that time. ==NCAA==