The National Collegiate Hockey Conference is pleased with the direction of its postseason tournament.
The league made $1.2 million out of its second-ever conference playoff with roughly half of the revenue coming from four best-of-three, first-round series and the other half from the NCHC Frozen Faceoff in Minneapolis’ Target Center.
The Frozen Faceoff exceeded the first season in attendance by 6,000 this season and the league plans to continue building its annual event at the downtown Minneapolis venue.
The NCHC detailed the postseason tournament and other areas of its operation during an annual review.
The league did say that it would be looking to address ongoing issues with the Target Center’s ice.
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“With all the data collected regarding ice and building temperatures, this element will be addressed for next year’s tournament,” according to a league statement.
The league also has started work on improving ticket-buying and venue-entry processes. Last season, the gates were so backed up that many fans missed the entire first period of the UND-St. Cloud State afternoon matinee trying to get into the building.
The league also said it is exploring different avenues of transportation for the first round of the playoffs.
Competition changes
The league is looking at making three changes on the competitive level in the near future.
The league will continue holding a shootout for conference points, but it has informed the NCAA Rules Committee that it would like to experiment with a three-on-three, five-minute overtime after the NCAA-mandated five-on-five, five-minute extra session.
The three-on-three overtime would be for conference points only. The game would go down as a tie for NCAA-tournament selection purposes.
Other hockey leagues have experimented with it. The NCHC would need to get approval from the Rules Committee to be able to try it.
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As previously reported, the league also will increase the travel roster by one person for conference games from 22 to 23. It will also decrease the depth of the nets to allow more space behind the nets. The NCHC will go to NHL-style nets.
