Central Collegiate Hockey Association
| Central Collegiate Hockey Association (CCHA) |
|
|---|---|
 |
|
| Established | 1971 |
| Dissolved | 2013 |
| Association | NCAA |
| Division | Division I |
| Sports fielded | Ice hockey (men's: yes; women's: no) |
| Region | Midwestern United States and Alaska |
| Headquarters | Farmington Hills, Michigan |
The Central Collegiate Hockey Association (CCHA) was a college athletic conference that participated in the NCAA's Division I as a hockey-only conference. The majority of its members were located in the states of Michigan and Ohio, although it also had teams located in Alaska, Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, and Nebraska over the course of its existence.
The CCHA was disbanded after the 2012–13 season as the result of a conference realignment stemming from the Big Ten Conference (of which three CCHA schools; Michigan, Michigan State, and Ohio State, were primary members) choosing to sponsor Division I ice hockey beginning in the 2013-14 season. The remaining CCHA members received invitations to other conferences, such as the newly formed National Collegiate Hockey Conference (NCHC), Hockey East, and the Western Collegiate Hockey Association (WCHA), which itself had been depleted by the Big Ten and NCHC. The conference's last ever game was the final of the 2013 CCHA Men's Ice Hockey Tournament at Joe Louis Arena in Detroit, where Notre Dame beat Michigan 3-1 to win the final Mason Cup championship.
Pennsylvania State University announced on September 17, 2010 the transition of its men's and women's American Collegiate Hockey Association (ACHA) programs to NCAA Division I status in 2012. Just over a month earlier, then-commissioner Tom Anastos publicly stated that the CCHA would strongly consider adding Penn State as the conference's 12th member. Instead, the league was left to deal with the imminent departures of Michigan, Michigan State and Ohio State when the Big Ten Conference disclosed on March 21, 2011 its intention to establish a men's ice hockey circuit to begin play in the 2013–14 season, as the conference now had enough hockey teams to earn an automatic bid in the NCAA tournament for its champion. Joining the existing CCHA members will be the University of Minnesota and the University of Wisconsin from the WCHA, as well as Penn State.
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