The 2021 NCHC Tournament was the eighth

tournament A tournament is a competition involving at least three competitors, all participating in a sport or game. More specifically, the term may be used in either of two overlapping senses: # One or more competitions held at a single venue and concentr ...

in league history. Typically the tournament is scheduled across two separate weekends in mid-march with quarterfinal games hosted on campus locations, while the final four games are played at the

Xcel Energy Center Xcel Energy Center (also known as "The X") is a multipurpose arena in Saint Paul, Minnesota, United States. Completed in 2000, it is named for its locally based corporate sponsor Xcel Energy. With an official capacity of 17,954, the arena has four ...

Saint Paul, Minnesota Saint Paul (abbreviated St. Paul) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital of the U.S. state of Minnesota and the county seat of Ramsey County, Minnesota, Ramsey County. Situated on high bluffs overlooking a bend in the Mississip ...

. However, on February 8, 2021, NCHC announced that the tournament would be played entirely in

Grand Forks Grand Forks is the third-largest city in the state of North Dakota (after Fargo and Bismarck) and the county seat of Grand Forks County. According to the 2020 census, the city's population was 59,166. Grand Forks, along with its twin city o ...

. By winning the tournament,

North Dakota North Dakota () is a U.S. state in the Upper Midwest, named after the Native Americans in the United States, indigenous Dakota people, Dakota Sioux. North Dakota is bordered by the Canadian provinces of Saskatchewan and Manitoba to the north a ...

earned NCHC's automatic bid to the 2021 NCAA Division I Men's Ice Hockey Tournament.

Format

Due to the

COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was COVID-19 pandemic in Hubei, identified in Wuhan, China, in December ...

pandemic, changes to the traditional tournament format were made for this season. All games will be

single-elimination A single-elimination, knockout, or sudden death tournament is a type of elimination tournament where the loser of each match-up is immediately eliminated from the tournament. Each winner will play another in the next round, until the final matc ...

as opposed to a best-of-three games quarterfinals, and no third-place game will occur. All eight conference teams participate in the tournament. Teams are seeded No. 1 through No. 8 according to their final conference standing, with a tiebreaker system used to seed teams with an identical number of points accumulated. The top four seeded teams each earn home ice and host one of the lower seeded teams. The winners of the quarterfinals round series will advance to the NCHC Frozen Faceoff. Teams are re-seeded No. 1 through No. 4 according to the final regular season conference standings.

Standings

Bracket

Teams are reseeded for the Semifinals * denotes overtime periods

Results

Quarterfinals

(1) North Dakota vs. (8) Miami

(2) St. Cloud State vs. (7) Colorado College

(3) Minnesota Duluth vs. (6) Western Michigan

(4) Omaha vs. (5) Denver

Semifinals

(1) North Dakota vs. (5) Denver

(2) St. Cloud State vs. (3) Minnesota Duluth

Championship

(1) North Dakota vs. (2) St. Cloud State

Tournament awards

Frozen Faceoff All-Tournament Team

*F: Collin Adams (North Dakota) *F: Gavin Hain (North Dakota) *F:

Riese Gaber Riese may refer to: *Project Riese, a German Nazi World War II economic project *Riese Pio X, a municipality in Italy *Adam Ries (1492–1559), German mathematician *'' Riese: Kingdom Falling'' (originally named ''Riese''), an American science fict ...

* (North Dakota) *D: Nick Perbix (St. Cloud State) *D: Jake Sanderson (North Dakota) *G:

Adam Scheel Adam; el, Ἀδάμ, Adám; la, Adam is the name given in Genesis 1-5 to the first human. Beyond its use as the name of the first man, ''adam'' is also used in the Bible as a pronoun, individually as "a human" and in a collective sense as " ...

(North Dakota) * Most Valuable Player(s)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:NCHC Tournament, 2021 NCHC Tournament National Collegiate Hockey Conference Tournament College sports in Minnesota Ice hockey competitions in Saint Paul, Minnesota NCHC Tournament NCHC Tournament