Arizona State will become the ninth member of the NCHC for the 2024-25 season, the league announced earlier this week.
The conference plans to retain its 24-game schedule with three clusters of three teams that will play home-and-home series each season. Each team will play four of the six remaining opponents at home and four on the road.
That means each league member will travel to its non-cluster foes two out of every three years.
Miami, Western Michigan and Omaha comprise one cluster. Arizona State-Colorado College-Denver and North Dakota-St. Cloud State-Minn.-Duluth are the others.
The RedHawks and Broncos were already paired up to play four times every season.
The NCHC’s vote to accept Arizona State was unanimous, Brad Schlossman of the Grand Forks Herald reported. Miami athletic director David Sayler told VFTG last year that he was opposed to admitting ASU because of the distance.
Miami had already signed a home-and-home contract with Arizona State, starting this season. The teams will play in Oxford in October and were slated to meet in Tempe in 2024-25.
It’s unclear how the league will alter its playoff structure. With nine teams, the NCHC could use the old ‘Final Five’ WCHA format in which the top seed gets a bye to the semifinals, the other eight teams play each other to cut down to five total and the lowest two remaining seeds play for the final semifinal spot.
The league could have a play-in game or series for the eight and nine seeds to get to an eight-team bracket. It could also freeze the field at eight teams, leaving the ninth-place team out of the tournament, but that seems unlikely.
View From the Glass 