The Northern Arizona Lumberjacks men's ice hockey team is a

college ice hockey College ice hockey is played principally in the United States and Canada, though leagues exist outside North America. In the United States, competitive "college hockey" refers to ice hockey played between colleges and universities within the g ...

program that represents

Northern Arizona University Northern Arizona University (NAU) is a public research university based in Flagstaff, Arizona. It was founded in 1899 as the final public university established in the Arizona Territory, 13 years before Arizona was admitted as the 48th state. ...

. They are a member of the

American Collegiate Hockey Association The American Collegiate Hockey Association (ACHA) is a college ice hockey association. The ACHA's purpose is to be an organization of collegiate affiliated non-varsity programs, which provides structure, regulates operations, and promotes qualit ...

at the Division II and Division III levels and are former members of the

Pacific Collegiate Hockey Association The Pacific Collegiate Hockey Association (PCHA) is a collegiate hockey conference within Division 2 of the ACHA. The PCHA has been in operation for more than 40 years and administers the PCHA Playoffs at the conclusion of each regular season. T ...

and

West Coast Hockey Conference The West Coast Hockey Conference (WCHC) is an American Collegiate Hockey Association, ACHA Division 2 club hockey league which began play in the Fall of 2010. The six charter schools were Arizona State University, Arizona State, California State Un ...

. The university sponsored

NCAA Division I NCAA Division I (D-I) is the highest level of College athletics, intercollegiate athletics sanctioned by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) in the United States, which accepts players globally. D-I schools include the major ...

ice hockey from 1981–1986.

History

NAU founded its ice hockey program in 1971 after the completion of the Flagstaff Ice Rink. With the popularity of the club increasing, the team moved into the much larger

Walkup Skydome The J. Lawrence Walkup Skydome is an indoor multipurpose stadium in the southwestern United States, located on the campus of Northern Arizona University (NAU) in Flagstaff, Arizona. It is primarily used as the home of the NAU Lumberjacks foot ...

in 1977 and, with continued interest, the university began sponsoring the program as a Division I sport in 1981. Northern Arizona was handicapped with a difficult travel schedule but the school was still supportive of their fledgling program and the Lumberjacks made strides, improving by 11 wins in their second year. Head coach Jimmy Peters Jr. got the team up to 21 wins before leaving the program in 1984 and was replaced by John Mason. In 1985 Northern Arizona joined with Alaska–Anchorage, Alaska–Fairbanks and U.S. International to form the

Great West Hockey Conference The Great West Hockey Conference was a short-lived NCAA Division I college ice hockey conference. The conference was formed in 1985 by the four D-I independent schools west of the Rocky Mountains: the University of Alaska Anchorage, the Univers ...

. NAU finished 3rd in the conference but had several problems: the Walkup Skydome was in need of serious and expensive repair, the state had cut the University's budget for the next fiscal cycle and NAU was required to meet

Title IX Title IX is the most commonly used name for the federal civil rights law in the United States that was enacted as part (Title IX) of the Education Amendments of 1972. It prohibits sex-based discrimination in any school or any other educat ...

guidelines. With all of those issues the University suspended the program and ended the Lumberjacks time in D-I hockey. After several years of nonexistence the program was brought back in 1991 as a club sport and returned to the Flagstaff Ice Rink (since renamed the Jay Lively Activity Center) where it continues as two separate ACHA teams.

Season-by-season results

Source:

Footnotes

Lumberjacks in the NHL

References

{{Great West Hockey Conference 1971 establishments in Arizona Ice hockey clubs established in 1971