The New England Intercollegiate Hockey League is a defunct

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 an ...

Division I

ice hockey Ice hockey (or simply hockey) is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an ice skating rink with lines and markings specific to the sport. It belongs to a family of sports called hockey. In ice hockey, two opposing teams use ice hock ...

-only

conference A conference is a meeting of two or more experts to discuss and exchange opinions or new information about a particular topic. Conferences can be used as a form of group decision-making, although discussion, not always decisions, are the main p ...

. The league was an early attempt by second-tier programs to form a conference and stabilize their schedules during the

Great Depression The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...

. The champion of the league received the Donald Sands Memorial Trophy.

History

While the upper echelon of college hockey teams had been creating formal leagues for decades, many of the 'lesser' schools were frozen out of these conferences. In the mid-30's, several teams in

New England New England is a region comprising six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York to the west and by the Canadian provinces ...

decided to band together and form their own aggregation, the New England Intercollegiate Hockey League. Originally, The league was made up by eight members, however, there were few requirements with regards to participation. All games between league members were counted in the standings, however, teams were not required to play against all of their conference opponents. This loose policy led to an unbalanced schedule and the teams with the superior records not necessarily being the best. The league continued unaltered until

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

forced several members to suspend operations. In 1942, Hew Hampshire, Colby and Bowdoin were replaced by Tufts and Norwich. The following year, the league was suspended due to most other programs stopping for the duration of the war. The league returned in

1946 Events January * January 6 - The 1946 North Vietnamese parliamentary election, first general election ever in Vietnam is held. * January 7 – The Allies recognize the Austrian republic with its 1937 borders, and divide the country into f ...

, once college hockey resumed in full. A year later, the league held its first postseason and became the first unofficial conference to hold a postseason game in over 40 years. In

1949 Events January * January 1 – A United Nations-sponsored ceasefire brings an end to the Indo-Pakistani War of 1947. The war results in a stalemate and the division of Kashmir, which still continues as of 2022. * January 2 – Luis ...

Boston College Boston College (BC) is a private Jesuit research university in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts. Founded in 1863, the university has more than 9,300 full-time undergraduates and nearly 5,000 graduate students. Although Boston College is classifie ...

became the first league member to win a National Championship. Unfortunately, despite the successes of some members, the league itself was not in a good position. Because members weren't required to play one another, the better programs could ignore the lower clubs, creating an effective class system within the conference. Additionally, upon the creation of the

Tri-State League The Tri-State League was the name of six different circuits in American minor league baseball. History The first league of that name played for four years (1887–1890) and consisted of teams in Ohio, Michigan and West Virginia. The second leagu ...

in 1950, the NEIHL was one of three conferences in the northeast and not the best of the bunch. The conference continued during the early years of the 1950s but, after Boston College didn't bother attending the conference tournament in 1952, the postseason was abandoned. In its place, BC, BU and Northeastern joined with

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 ...

to found the

Beanpot A beanpot is a deep, wide-bellied, short-necked vessel used to cook bean-based dishes. Beanpots are typically made of ceramic, though some are made of other materials, such as cast iron. The relatively narrow mouth of the beanpot minimizes evapo ...

the following year. Largely superfluous by then, the league fizzled and was formally dissolved in 1954. While the conference's demise was unfortunate, most of the league members would eventually join to help form

ECAC Hockey ECAC Hockey is one of the six conferences that compete in NCAA Division I ice hockey. The conference used to be affiliated with the Eastern College Athletic Conference, a consortium of over 300 colleges in the eastern United States. This relati ...

in 1961, a 28-team super-conference. Tufts suspended its program from 1960 to 1986 while Fort Devens State closed its doors in 1949.

Members

Membership timeline

DateFormat = mm/dd/yyyy ImageSize = width:800 height:auto barincrement:20 Period = from:01/01/1936 till:06/01/1954 TimeAxis = orientation:horizontal PlotArea = right:30 left:0 bottom:50 top:5 Colors = id:men value:rgb(0.5,0.9,0.5) legend:men id:line value:black id:bg value:white PlotData= width:15 textcolor:black shift:(5,-5) anchor:from fontsize:s bar:UNH color:men from:06/01/1936 till:06/01/1942 text:

New Hampshire New Hampshire is a U.S. state, 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 t ...

(1936–1942, 1946–1954) bar:BOW color:men from:06/01/1936 till:06/01/1942 text: Bowdoin (1936–1942, 1946–1955) bar:COL color:men from:06/01/1936 till:06/01/1942 text: Colby (1936–1942, 1946–1955) bar:BC color:men from:06/01/1936 till:06/01/1943 text:

(1936–1943, 1946–1954) bar:BU color:men from:06/01/1936 till:06/01/1943 text:

Boston University Boston University (BU) is a private research university in Boston, Massachusetts. The university is nonsectarian, but has a historical affiliation with the United Methodist Church. It was founded in 1839 by Methodists with its original campu ...

(1936–1943, 1946–1955) bar:MID color:men from:06/01/1936 till:06/01/1943 text: Middlebury (1936–1943, 1946–1955) bar:MIT color:men from:06/01/1936 till:06/01/1943 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 mo ...

(1936–1943, 1946–1955) bar:NOE color:men from:06/01/1936 till:06/01/1943 text:

Northeastern The points of the compass are a set of horizontal, radially arrayed compass directions (or azimuths) used in navigation and cartography. A compass rose is primarily composed of four cardinal directions—north, east, south, and west—each se ...

(1936–1943, 1946–1955) bar:BC color:men from:06/01/1946 till:06/01/1954 text: bar:BU color:men from:06/01/1946 till:06/01/1954 text: bar:BOW color:men from:06/01/1946 till:06/01/1954 text: bar:UNH color:men from:06/01/1946 till:06/01/1954 text: bar:COL color:men from:06/01/1946 till:06/01/1954 text: bar:MID color:men from:06/01/1946 till:06/01/1954 text: bar:MIT color:men from:06/01/1946 till:06/01/1954 text: bar:NOE color:men from:06/01/1946 till:06/01/1954 text: bar:TUF color:men from:06/01/1942 till:06/01/1943 text:

Tufts Tufts University is a private research university on the border of Medford and Somerville, Massachusetts. It was founded in 1852 as Tufts College by Christian universalists who sought to provide a nonsectarian institution of higher learning. ...

(1942–1943, 1946–1947, 1949–1954) bar:NOR color:men from:06/01/1942 till:06/01/1943 text:

Norwich Norwich () is a cathedral city and district of Norfolk, England, of which it is the county town. Norwich is by the River Wensum, about north-east of London, north of Ipswich and east of Peterborough. As the seat of the See of Norwich, with ...

(1942–1943, 1946–1954) bar:NOR color:men from:06/01/1946 till:06/01/1954 text: bar:TUF color:men from:06/01/1946 till:06/01/1947 text: bar:TUF color:men from:06/01/1949 till:06/01/1954 text: bar:DSC color:men from:06/01/1947 till:06/01/1949 text: Fort Devens State (1947–1949) bar:AIC color:men from:06/01/1948 till:06/01/1954 text: American International (1949–1954) ScaleMajor = gridcolor:line unit:year increment:2 start:01/01/1936

Champions

* Boston College defeated Northeastern twice during the season and finished with an undefeated record in league play, however, because the Eagles only played 4 games due to issues from the war, they were ruled to have not played sufficient games to qualify for the championship.
^ Rather than a conference tournament, the NEIHL held an invitational tournament that included non-conference teams.

References

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

History

Members

Membership timeline

Champions

See also

References