ECAC 2


ECAC 2 was an intercollegiate athletic conference affiliated with the NCAA's College Division. The league was created as a way to fairly divide the upper- and lower-class programs that had been members of ECAC Hockey. In 1984 the conference was split in two, creating ECAC East and ECAC West as completely independent leagues.

History

Foundation

In 1950 college ice hockey received its first official conference, the Tri State League, and while the conference possessed a minimal number of teams it routinely received one of the two eastern bids to the NCAA tournament. Concurrently, once seven western schools formed their own conference they were able to earn both western bids each year because there were no other colleges in competition for tournament berths. This situation left one eastern bid available for at least two dozen eastern schools. The arrangement came to a head in 1961 when both eastern bids were given to Tri State League teams and very soon thereafter ECAC Hockey was formed. Following the same pattern as the western schools, every available eastern college joined the league, including the three remaining members of the Tri State League, and the 28-team mega conference was born.
Due to the sheer number of universities in the conference none of the teams could guarantee playing each other so from the outset the conference standings were deemphasized and the eight teams that played in the conference tournament were selected by a committee based upon their perceived strength. This led to some schools like Williams, who finished 4th in the standings in 1962, not being invited to the tournament despite a 16–3–1 record against other ECAC schools because of their assumed weaker competition.

Split

The giant league remained in place for three seasons before being split in two. 15 teams that were willing to invest greater amounts of time, effort and money to their ice hockey programs remained in ECAC Hockey while the remaining 14 schools joined in a new league, ECAC 2. ECAC 2 was the first ice hockey conference formed for the NCAA College Division and was virtually the only collection of schools in the country that played at the lower tier. After only seven years the conference had doubled in size and once again created a lower tier though only six schools chose to leave for the lesser division in 1971.

Further Growth and Dissolution

ECAC 2 remained the sole conference outside Division I for several years but started getting some competition in the 1970s. In that time, however, the conference continued to grow larger until it possessed over 30 members by 1975 and divided itself internally into two divisions which would continue for another decade.
In 1978, five years after dividing the college division into two numerical divisions, the NCAA began the NCAA Division II Men's Ice Hockey Championship and the inaugural title was won by ECAC 2 member, Merrimack. ECAC 2 would win four more championships over the next five years but by the mid 1980s many of the league members wanted to reclassify the league as Division III due to the scholarship and funding requirements for Division II teams. In 1984 the conference was split in to ECAC East and ECAC West as separate Division III conferences. At the same time the NCAA dissolved the Division II tournament and instituted the Division III tournament which then caused the NAIA to end its sponsorship of ice hockey.

Legacy

Most of the 46 programs that played in the ECAC 2 are still going as of 2018, with many having jumped up to the Division I ranks. While several schools have won Division III national titles in the years since the conference ended, both Maine and Union have won Division I national titles.

ECAC 2 Tournament

The ECAC 2 played a conference tournament from 1967 through its final season in 1984. The tournament served as the de facto Division II National Championship until the NCAA instituted a national tournament in 1978. That year ECAC 2 effectively split its conference in two by having two division tournaments with all games between the two divisions counting for the regular season.

Member schools

In its 20-year existence ECAC 2 had 45 individual schools as members.
  1. enrollment in 2018
† as of 2018

Membership timeline


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bar:2 color:Full from:08/01/1964 till:05/01/1971 text:MIT
bar:3 color:Full from:08/01/1964 till:05/01/1972 text:Amherst
bar:4 color:Full from:08/01/1964 till:05/01/1974 text:Vermont
bar:5 color:Full from:08/01/1964 till:05/01/1979 text:Massachusetts
bar:6 color:Full from:08/01/1964 till:05/01/1984 text:American International
bar:7 color:Full from:08/01/1964 till:05/01/1984 text:Bowdoin
bar:8 color:Full from:08/01/1964 till:05/01/1984 text:Colby
bar:9 color:Full from:08/01/1964 till:05/01/1984 text:Connecticut
bar:10 color:Full from:08/01/1964 till:05/01/1984 text:Hamilton
bar:11 color:Full from:08/01/1964 till:05/01/1984 text:Merrimack
bar:12 color:Full from:08/01/1964 till:05/01/1984 text:Middlebury
bar:13 color:Full from:08/01/1964 till:05/01/1984 text:Norwich
bar:14 color:Full from:08/01/1964 till:05/01/1984 text:Williams
bar:15 color:Full from:08/01/1966 till:05/01/1982 text:Boston State
bar:15 color:Full from:08/01/1982 till:05/01/1984 text:UMass Boston
bar:16 color:Full from:08/01/1967 till:05/01/1971 text:Assumption
bar:17 color:Full from:08/01/1967 till:05/01/1971 text:Nichols
bar:18 color:Full from:08/01/1967 till:05/01/1971 text:Worcester State
bar:19 color:Full from:08/01/1967 till:05/01/1976 text:Ithaca
bar:20 color:Full from:08/01/1967 till:05/01/1983 text:New Haven
bar:21 color:Full from:08/01/1967 till:05/01/1984 text:Holy Cross
bar:22 color:Full from:08/01/1967 till:05/01/1984 text:Oswego State
bar:23 color:Full from:08/01/1967 till:05/01/1984 text:Salem State
bar:24 color:Full from:08/01/1968 till:05/01/1975 text:Lowell Tech
bar:24 color:Full from:08/01/1975 till:05/01/1983 text:Lowell
bar:25 color:Full from:08/01/1968 till:05/01/1984 text:Babson
bar:26 color:Full from:08/01/1969 till:05/01/1971 text:Lehigh
bar:27 color:Full from:08/01/1969 till:05/01/1984 text:Saint Anselm
bar:28 color:Full from:08/01/1970 till:05/01/1981 text:Bridgewater State
bar:29 color:Full from:08/01/1971 till:05/01/1984 text:Buffalo
bar:30 color:Full from:08/01/1971 till:05/01/1984 text:New England
bar:31 color:Full from:08/01/1973 till:05/01/1980 text:Army
bar:32 color:Full from:08/01/1975 till:05/01/1980 text:Bryant
bar:33 color:Full from:08/01/1975 till:05/01/1984 text:North Adams State
bar:34 color:Full from:08/01/1975 till:05/01/1984 text:Union
bar:35 color:Full from:08/01/1976 till:05/01/1984 text:Brockport State
bar:36 color:Full from:08/01/1976 till:05/01/1984 text:Cortland State
bar:37 color:Full from:08/01/1976 till:05/01/1984 text:Elmira
bar:38 color:Full from:08/01/1976 till:05/01/1984 text:Geneseo State
bar:39 color:Full from:08/01/1976 till:05/01/1984 text:Plattsburgh State
bar:40 color:Full from:08/01/1976 till:05/01/1984 text:Potsdam State
bar:41 color:Full from:08/01/1977 till:05/01/1979 text:Maine
bar:42 color:Full from:08/01/1978 till:05/01/1984 text:Westfield State
bar:43 color:Full from:08/01/1979 till:05/01/1982 text:Framingham State
bar:44 color:Full from:08/01/1980 till:05/01/1984 text:RIT
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