The Intercollegiate Hockey Association was a loose collection of ice hockey programs from schools in the

Northeastern United States The Northeastern United States, also referred to as the Northeast, the East Coast, or the American Northeast, is a geographic region of the United States. It is located on the Atlantic coast of North America, with Canada to its north, the Southe ...

. The colleges involved would schedule one another at least once during the season with and the team with the best record would be declared the champion. As this was the only championship for college hockey at the time, however unofficial the designation may have been, the victor served as the

de facto ''De facto'' ( ; , "in fact") describes practices that exist in reality, whether or not they are officially recognized by laws or other formal norms. It is commonly used to refer to what happens in practice, in contrast with ''de jure'' ("by la ...

National Champion. The IHA was called both the Intercollegiate Hockey Association and the Intercollegiate Hockey League during its existence. It is referred to here as the IHA to distinguish from the later Intercollegiate Hockey League. Although all of the IHA member colleges would later become members of the

Ivy League The Ivy League is an American collegiate athletic conference comprising eight private research universities in the Northeastern United States. The term ''Ivy League'' is typically used beyond the sports context to refer to the eight schools ...

, all of the Ivy League colleges were never members of the IHA at the same time.

History

The league began in February 1898 while the season was in progress.

Brown Brown is a color. It can be considered a composite color, but it is mainly a darker shade of orange. In the CMYK color model used in printing or painting, brown is usually made by combining the colors orange and black. In the RGB color model used ...

, Columbia,

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...

, and

Yale Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wor ...

agreed to form the league after some of their intercollegiate game had already been played but counted all of the matches played that season for the inaugural championship. Brown was the initial victor, finishing with an undefeated record on play among the squads. After the first full season of play the league started holding a championship series at the end of the season for the two best teams. Yale won the first three series. The series was eventually reduced to a single game before being abandoned altogether after 1904. Beginning with the 1904–05 season the league champion would simple be the team with the best record against conference opponents. The league expanded to include other future

schools like

Harvard Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

and

Princeton Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the nine ...

then welcomed Dartmouth after Brown suspended its program in 1906. At the same meeting where Dartmouth was admitted the committee also decided to disallow freshmen from participating on varsity squads.

Cornell Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to teach an ...

joined the league a few years later and everything appeared to be going well for the league. In 1911 restrictions imposed by the Harvard faculty forced the college to resign from the league. The following year both Columbia and Yale left for various reasons, dropping membership back to just three teams. The league continued until the end of the year before disbanding.

Members

† Dartmouth's athletic teams did not possess a moniker until the 1920s.

Membership timeline

DateFormat = mm/dd/yyyy ImageSize = width:800 height:auto barincrement:20 Period = from:01/01/1898 till:06/01/1914 TimeAxis = orientation:horizontal PlotArea = right:30 left:0 bottom:50 top:5 Colors = id:men value:rgb(0.6,0.6,1) legend:men id:women value:rgb(0.5,0.8,0.5) legend:women id:both value:rgb(0.5,0.8,0.8) legend:both id:line value:black id:bg value:white PlotData= width:15 textcolor:black shift:(5,-5) anchor:from fontsize:s bar:BRO color:men from:02/20/1898 till:06/01/1906 text:

(1898–1906) bar:COL color:men from:02/20/1898 till:06/01/1912 text: Columbia (1898–1912) bar:YAL color:men from:02/20/1898 till:06/01/1912 text:

(1898–1912) bar:PEN color:men from:06/01/1898 till:06/01/1899 text:

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...

(1898–1899, 1900–1901) bar:PEN color:men from:06/01/1900 till:06/01/1901 text: bar:PRI color:men from:06/01/1899 till:06/01/1913 text:

(1899–1913) bar:HAR color:men from:06/01/1901 till:06/01/1911 text:

(1901–1911) bar:DAR color:men from:06/01/1906 till:06/01/1913 text: Dartmouth (1906–1913) bar:COR color:men from:06/01/1909 till:06/01/1913 text:

(1909–1913) ScaleMajor = gridcolor:line unit:year increment:2 start:01/01/1900

References

{{NCAA Division I hockey conferences Defunct NCAA Division I ice hockey conferences Sports in the Eastern United States

History

Members

Membership timeline

See also

References