Tri-State League (ice hockey)

Tri-State League
Established	1950
Dissolved	1972
Association	NCAA
Division	Division I
Members	6 (1950–51), 5 (1951–52), 4 (1952–53 through 1958–59), 3 (1959–60 through 1971–72)
Sports fielded	Ice hockey
Region	Northeastern United States

The Tri-State League is a defunct NCAA Division I ice hockey-only conference. The league was the first attempt at creating a conference for hockey programs and, while it did not succeed in its goals, succeeding conferences were able to learn from the mistakes made and flaws in its design to form effective and long-lasting divisions.

Formed in 1950 by the six colleges, all located in the Northeast, the Tri-State League was named for the three states represented by the schools: Massachusetts with Williams, New York with Clarkson, Colgate, Rensselaer and St. Lawrence and Vermont with Middlebury. In the first season each school played one another once, resulting in five conference games for every team. After the 1950–51 season, however, Colgate left the conference, leaving the league with only five member teams. The following year seven western teams formed the MCHL and while it wasn't a direct rival to the Tri-State League it had several advantages over its eastern counterpart. For one the MCHL contained the majority of the regional schools playing D-I ice hockey so its league champion would almost assuredly be invited to the NCAA tournament whereas the Eastern region had more than 30 schools playing at the top level, giving the Tri-State League a much smaller footprint. Its influence grew even smaller after the second season when Williams left the conference, not only reducing its numbers to four, but no longer making the conference's title geographically correct.

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