RIT added women's varsity
ice hockey for the 1975–1976 season. After many years in the
ECAC East, RIT moved to the
ECAC West league for the 2007–08 season. The team made three NCAA tournament appearances at the Division III level, in 2007, 2011, and 2012, with a record of 5–2 in tournament games. They lost their lone game in the 2007 campaign to Amherst College. In their 2011 campaign, the lady Tigers lost at home, in the Frozen Four final, to
Norwich University. In 2012, the Tigers won their first national championship, on home ice, against Norwich University. It was the third-ever national championship for RIT's athletic program and first in women's sports. On March 20, 2012, RIT announced that the women's team would move up to Division I for the 2012–13 season, as the men's team had six years prior, and join the College Hockey America conference. After a successful first season at the Division I level in which the team went 16–16–5, even after losing their first DI game 6–2 to the
Mercyhurst Lakers, the Tigers advanced to the CHA semifinals where they fell to the
Syracuse Orange, 2–1 in
overtime. The next season was yet another season to remember. The Tigers participated in the Frozen Frontier, a ten-day hockey festival at Rochester's
Frontier Field. The Tigers fell 2–6 to the
Clarkson Golden Kights. The Tigers went on to win eleven out of their last eighteen games and won the CHA championship 2–1 in double overtime against the team that defeated them in their first ever Division I game, the Mercyhurst Lakers. In 2014–15, their first season at the 4,300-seat Gene Polisseni Center, the Tigers went 15–19–5 and finished in last place in the CHA. But they won every game in the 2015 CHA Tournament, beating
Robert Morris and Mercyhurst in the leadup to their 2–1 victory over Syracuse in double overtime, to capture their second straight CHA championship. The trophy this year came with the CHA's first-ever automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament, where the Tigers fell 2–6 to the eventual champions, #2
Minnesota. In 2015, Bruce Bates, an MIT trustee emeritus and women's ice hockey season ticket holder, donated RIT's first athletic endowment to the women's ice hockey team, to support the head coach position. On July 10, 2018, it was announced that long-time head coach Scott McDonald would be stepping down as head coach of the women's hockey team. He left as the all-time victory leader for the women's team, compiling a 205-154-29 record in 12 seasons. Chad Davis was announced as his replacement on August 22, 2018 with former
Buffalo Beauts player
Hannah McGowan being hired as assistant coach. On April 30, 2020, it was reported that RIT parted ways with Davis and McGowan as coaches. Davis compiled a 24-37-9 record in two seasons as head coach. On July 17, 2020, former RIT hockey player and captain
Celeste Brown was named the next head coach of the program. ==Season-by-season results==