The ECAC Northeast was an intercollegiate athletic conference affiliated with the

NCAA The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. It also organizes the athletic programs of colleges ...

's Division III as a

hockey Hockey is a term used to denote a family of various types of both summer and winter team sports which originated on either an outdoor field, sheet of ice, or dry floor such as in a gymnasium. While these sports vary in specific rules, numbers o ...

-only conference. For many years it was one of the three men's hockey conferences that operated under the umbrella of the

Eastern College Athletic Conference The Eastern College Athletic Conference (ECAC) is a college athletic conference comprising schools that compete in 15 sports (13 men's and 13 women's). It has 220 member institutions in NCAA Divisions I, II, and III, ranging in location fr ...

; the others were the

ECAC East New England Hockey Conference (formerly the ECAC East) is a college athletic conference which operates in the northeastern United States. It participates in the NCAA's Division III as a hockey-only conference. __TOC__ History The New Englan ...

(now the

New England Hockey Conference New England Hockey Conference (formerly the ECAC East) is a college athletic conference which operates in the northeastern United States. It participates in the NCAA's Division III as a hockey-only conference. __TOC__ History The New Englan ...

), and the ECAC West (soon to be the

United Collegiate Hockey Conference The United Collegiate Hockey Conference (UCHC) is a college athletic conference which operates in Maryland, New York, and Pennsylvania in the eastern United States. It participates in NCAA Division III as a hockey-only conference. The confer ...

). Member institutions were located in the New England region of the

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, in the states of

Massachusetts Massachusetts (Massachusett: ''Muhsachuweesut Massachusett_writing_systems.html" ;"title="nowiki/> məhswatʃəwiːsət.html" ;"title="Massachusett writing systems">məhswatʃəwiːsət">Massachusett writing systems">məhswatʃəwiːsət'' En ...

and

Rhode Island Rhode Island (, like ''road'') is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is the List of U.S. states by area, smallest U.S. state by area and the List of states and territories of the United States ...

. Unlike the ECAC East and ECAC West, there was no women's division of the ECAC Northeast. Most ECAC Northeast schools did not sponsor women's ice hockey; the two that did ( Nichols &

Salve Regina The "Salve Regina" (, ; meaning 'Hail Queen'), also known as the "Hail Holy Queen", is a Marian hymn and one of four Marian antiphons sung at different seasons within the Christian liturgical calendar of the Catholic Church. The Salve Regina ...

) played in the ECAC East. The ECAC Northeast dissolved in 2016 when The Commonwealth Coast Conference, a Division III all-sports conference and the primary conference of most ECAC Northeast members, decided to sponsor men's ice hockey as a varsity sport. Becker, Johnson and Wales, and Suffolk joined the CCC as associate members for ice hockey, while CCC member University of New England moved their men's team from the ECAC East to play in the CCC league.

History

The foundation of the ECAC Northeast was laid in 1971 when ECAC 2, the college division of the ECAC created a third conference called

ECAC 3 The ECAC Northeast was an intercollegiate athletic conference affiliated with the NCAA's Division III as a hockey-only conference. For many years it was one of the three men's hockey conferences that operated under the umbrella of the Eastern Col ...

. When the NCAA created Division III in 1973 ECAC 3 was placed at that level and remained there for the rest of its existence. In 1985, as a result of the NCAA beginning a Division III Tournament, ECAC 2 was reorganized into two separate conferences,

and ECAC West, with each becoming D-III leagues. To prevent confusion, ECAC 3 was renamed as ECAC North/South with all members split into North and South divisions (similar to how ECAC 2 had been divided into East and West divisions). This arrangement continued until 1992 when ECAC North/South was rearranged into three divisions (North, South and Central) and renamed ECAC North/South/Central. Over the course of the 1997–98 season the South Division lost 6 of its 8 teams, mostly to Division I, but rather than return to a two-division arrangement the league rebranded as ECAC Northeast. A year later the four member schools who were from Division II schools began playing in a separate tournament which allowed the other programs to play in an NCAA-sanctioned D-III conference tournament for the first time. As a result, ECAC Northeast got its first automatic bid to the tournament in

2000 File:2000 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Protests against Bush v. Gore after the 2000 United States presidential election; Heads of state meet for the Millennium Summit; The International Space Station in its infant form as seen from S ...

. In 2009 the nine schools whose primary conference was either MASCAC or

Northeast-10 The Northeast-10 Conference (NE-10) is a college athletic conference affiliated with the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) at the Division II level. Member institutions are located in the northeastern United States in the states ...

left when those two leagues began sponsoring ice hockey. The remaining teams stayed on for another seven years but in 2016 the

Commonwealth Coast Conference The Commonwealth Coast Conference (CCC) is an intercollegiate athletic conference affiliated with the NCAA’s Division III. Member institutions are located in New England in the states of Maine, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island, with a Connectic ...

, the primary conference for seven of the nine member teams, began sponsoring ice hockey. All nine teams joined CCC as either full or associate members and the ECAC Northeast was dissolved.

ECAC Northeast Tournament

Upon its founding, ECAC 3 instituted a tournament. Originally only a single game the championship slowly expanded along with the league.

Members

There were nine member schools as of the conference's final season in 2015–16. † as of 2018 ''* Assumption, Franklin Pierce, Southern New Hampshire, and Stonehill are Division II schools; and were not allowed to participate in the ECAC Northeast playoffs after 1999, nor were they eligible for the Division III national tournament.''

Membership timeline

DateFormat = mm/dd/yyyy ImageSize = width:1600 height:auto barincrement:20 Period = from:06/01/1971 till:06/01/2018 TimeAxis = orientation:horizontal PlotArea = right:30 left:0 bottom:50 top:5 AlignBars = late Colors = id:men value:rgb(0.5,0.8,0.8) id:time value:rgb(0.2,0.9,0.2) id:line value:black id:bg value:white LineData = layer:back color:line at:06/15/1985 at:06/15/1992 at:06/15/1998 at:06/15/2016 PlotData= width:15 textcolor:black shift:(5,-5) anchor:from fontsize:s bar:tim color:time from:06/01/1971 till:06/01/1985 text:ECAC 3 (1971-85) bar:tim color:time from:07/01/1985 till:06/01/1992 text:ECAC North/South (1985-92) bar:tim color:time from:07/01/1992 till:06/01/1998 text:ECAC North/South/Central (1992-98) bar:tim color:time from:07/01/1998 till:06/01/2016 text:ECAC Northeast (1998-2016) bar:Mit color:men from:06/01/1971 till:06/01/1975 text:

MIT The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the m ...

(1971-75) bar:NAS color:men from:06/01/1971 till:06/01/1975 text: North Adams State (1971-75) bar:Leh color:men from:06/01/1971 till:06/01/1986 text: Lehigh (1971-86) bar:Wes color:men from:06/01/1971 till:06/01/1995 text:

Wesleyan Wesleyan theology, otherwise known as Wesleyan– Arminian theology, or Methodist theology, is a theological tradition in Protestant Christianity based upon the ministry of the 18th-century evangelical reformer brothers John Wesley and Charle ...

(1971-95) bar:Ass color:men from:06/01/1971 till:06/01/2009 text:

Assumption Assumption, in Christianity, refers to the Assumption of Mary, a belief in the taking up of the Virgin Mary into heaven. Assumption may also refer to: Places * Assumption, Alberta, Canada * Assumption, Illinois, United States ** Assumption Town ...

(1971-2009) bar:WSU color:men from:06/01/1971 till:06/01/2009 text: Worcester State (1971-2009) bar:Nic color:men from:06/01/1971 till:06/01/2016 text: Nichols (1971-2016) bar:NSN color:men from:06/01/1972 till:06/01/1974 text: Nasson (1972-74) bar:USM color:men from:06/01/1972 till:06/01/1975 text: Maine at Portland–Gorham (1972-75) bar:USM color:men from:06/01/1985 till:06/01/1995 text: Southern Maine (1985-95) bar:Fra color:men from:06/01/1972 till:06/01/1979 text: Framingham State (1972-79, 1982-2009) bar:Fra color:men from:06/01/1982 till:06/01/2009 text: bar:RIT color:men from:06/01/1972 till:06/01/1980 text: RIT (1972-80) bar:Amh color:men from:06/01/1972 till:06/01/1992 text:

Amherst Amherst may refer to: People * Amherst (surname), including a list of people with the name * Earl Amherst of Arracan in the East Indies, a title in the British Peerage; formerly ''Baron Amherst'' * Baron Amherst of Hackney of the City of London, ...

(1972-92) bar:Bry color:men from:06/01/1973 till:06/01/1975 text: Bryant (1973-75) bar:Ply color:men from:06/01/1973 till:06/01/2009 text:

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(1973-2009) bar:WfS color:men from:06/01/1974 till:06/01/1978 text:

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Southeastern Massachusetts Southeastern Massachusetts consists of those portions of Massachusetts located along Buzzards Bay, including the cities of New Bedford and Fall River and their respective suburbs. Despite the location of Cape Cod and the islands to its south, ...

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UMass Dartmouth The University of Massachusetts Dartmouth (UMass Dartmouth or UMassD) is a public research university in Dartmouth, Massachusetts. It is the southernmost campus of the University of Massachusetts system. Formerly Southeastern Massachusetts Un ...

(1991-2009) bar:MMA color:men from:06/01/1975 till:06/01/1978 text: Massachusetts Maritime (1975-78) bar:Fit color:men from:06/01/1975 till:06/01/2009 text: Fitchburg State (1975-2009) bar:NYC color:men from:06/01/1976 till:06/01/1977 text:

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(1977-98) bar:SNH color:men from:06/01/1977 till:05/01/2001 text: New Hampshire College (1977-2001) bar:SNH color:men from:07/01/2001 till:06/01/2009 text:

Southern New Hampshire New Hampshire is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Gulf of Maine to the east, and the Canadian province of Quebec to th ...

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UMass Boston The University of Massachusetts is the five-campus public university system and the only public research system in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The university system includes five campuses (Amherst, Boston, Dartmouth, Lowell, and a medical ...

(1980-82) bar:CtC color:men from:06/01/1980 till:06/01/1991 text:

Connecticut College Connecticut College (Conn College or Conn) is a private liberal arts college in New London, Connecticut. It is a residential, four-year undergraduate institution with nearly all of its approximately 1,815 students living on campus. The college w ...

(1980-91) bar:SJU color:men from:06/01/1980 till:06/01/1992 text: St. John's (1980-92) bar:Suf color:men from:06/01/1980 till:06/01/2016 text:

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Scranton Scranton is a city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Lackawanna County. With a population of 76,328 as of the 2020 U.S. census, Scranton is the largest city in Northeastern Pennsylvania, the Wyoming V ...

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(1986-2001) bar:WIT color:men from:06/01/1992 till:06/01/2016 text: Wentworth (1992-2016) bar:SHU color:men from:06/01/1993 till:06/01/1998 text:

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(2002-09) bar:Bec color:men from:06/01/2006 till:06/01/2016 text: Becker (2006-16) bar:End color:men from:06/01/2015 till:06/01/2016 text: Endicott (2015-16) ScaleMajor = gridcolor:line unit:year increment:5 start:01/01/1975

References

{{NCAA Division III hockey conferences NCAA Division III ice hockey conferences