| ECAC 2 | |
| Color: |
|
| Font Color: | white |
| Founded: | 1964 |
| Dissolved: | 1984 |
| Conference: | NCAA |
| Division: | Division II |
| Teams: | between 14 and 32 |
| Sports: | Ice hockey |
| Mens: | yes |
| Womens: | no |
| Region: | New England and New York |
ECAC 2 was an intercollegiate athletic conference affiliated with the NCAA's College Division. The league was created as a way to fairly divide the upper- and lower-class programs that had been members of ECAC Hockey. In 1984 the conference was split in two, creating ECAC East and ECAC West as completely independent leagues.
In 1950 college ice hockey received its first official conference, the Tri State League, and while the conference possessed a minimal number of teams it routinely received one of the two eastern bids to the NCAA tournament. Concurrently, once seven western schools formed their own conference they were able to earn both western bids each year because there were no other colleges in competition for tournament berths. This situation left one eastern bid available for at least two dozen eastern schools. The arrangement came to a head in 1961 when both eastern bids were given to Tri State League teams and very soon thereafter ECAC Hockey was formed. Following the same pattern as the western schools, every available eastern college joined the league, including the three remaining members of the Tri State League, and the 28-team mega conference was born.[1]
Due to the sheer number of universities in the conference none of the teams could guarantee playing each other so from the outset the conference standings were deemphasized and the eight teams that played in the conference tournament were selected by a committee based upon their perceived strength. This led to some schools like Williams, who finished 4th in the standings in 1962, not being invited to the tournament despite a 16–3–1 record against other ECAC schools because of their assumed weaker competition.
The giant league remained in place for three seasons before being split in two. 15 teams that were willing to invest greater amounts of time, effort and money to their ice hockey programs remained in ECAC Hockey while the remaining 14 schools joined in a new league, ECAC 2. ECAC 2 was the first ice hockey conference formed for the NCAA College Division (which would later become Division III and Division II) and was virtually the only collection of schools in the country that played at the lower tier.[2] After only seven years the conference had doubled in size and once again created a lower tier (ECAC 3) though only six schools chose to leave for the lesser division in 1971.
ECAC 2 remained the primary conference outside Division I for several years but started getting some competition in the 1970s. In that time, however, the conference continued to grow larger until it possessed over 30 members by 1975 and divided itself internally into two divisions (East and West) which would continue for another decade.
In 1978, five years after dividing the college division into two numerical divisions, the NCAA began the NCAA Division II Men's Ice Hockey Championship and the inaugural title was won by ECAC 2 member, Merrimack. ECAC 2 would win four more championships over the next five years and established itself as the premier league at the Division II level. In 1983, the NCAA announced that it would begin hosting a Division III Championship and require all schools who normally played at that level to submit bids for the new tournament. Even though ECAC 2 technically competed at the D-II level that year, most of its member teams that made tournament appearances did so in the D-III series.
With the vast majority of all programs needing to reclassify for the D-III tournament, ECAC 2 dropped down to the lower level in the summer of 1984. That change, however, was not enough to keep the league as one entity. During the season, it was divided into two conferences with both ECAC East and ECAC West holding separate tournaments at the end of the year.
Most of the 46 programs that played in the ECAC 2 are still going as of 2018, with many having jumped up to the Division I ranks. While several schools have won Division III national titles in the years since the conference ended, Maine, UMass, and Union have won Division I national titles.
The ECAC 2 played a conference tournament from 1967 through its final full season in 1984. The tournament served as the de facto Division II National Championship until the NCAA instituted a national tournament in 1978. That year ECAC 2 effectively split its conference in two by having two division tournaments (East and West) with all games between the two divisions counting for the regular season.
See main article: article and ECAC 2 Tournament.
In its 20-year existence ECAC 2 had 45 individual schools as members.
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bar:1 color:Full from:08/01/1964 till:05/01/1966 text:New Hampshire (1964–1966)
bar:2 color:Full from:08/01/1964 till:05/01/1971 text:MIT (1964–1971)
bar:3 color:Full from:08/01/1964 till:05/01/1972 text:Amherst (1964–1972)
bar:4 color:Full from:08/01/1964 till:05/01/1974 text:Vermont (1964–1974)
bar:5 color:Full from:08/01/1964 till:05/01/1979 text:Massachusetts (1964–1979)
bar:6 color:Full from:08/01/1964 till:05/01/1984 text:American International (1964–1984)
bar:7 color:Full from:08/01/1964 till:05/01/1984 text:Bowdoin (1964–1984)
bar:8 color:Full from:08/01/1964 till:05/01/1984 text:Colby (1964–1984)
bar:9 color:Full from:08/01/1964 till:05/01/1984 text:Connecticut (1964–1984)
bar:10 color:Full from:08/01/1964 till:05/01/1984 text:Hamilton (1964–1984)
bar:11 color:Full from:08/01/1964 till:05/01/1984 text:Merrimack (1964–1984)
bar:12 color:Full from:08/01/1964 till:05/01/1984 text:Middlebury (1964–1984)
bar:13 color:Full from:08/01/1964 till:05/01/1984 text:Norwich (1964–1984)
bar:14 color:Full from:08/01/1964 till:05/01/1984 text:Williams (1964–1984)
bar:15 color:Full from:08/01/1966 till:05/01/1982 text:Boston State (1966–1982)
bar:15 color:Full from:08/01/1982 till:05/01/1984 text:UMass Boston (1982–1984)
bar:16 color:Full from:08/01/1967 till:05/01/1971 text:Assumption (1967–1971)
bar:17 color:Full from:08/01/1967 till:05/01/1971 text:Nichols (1967–1971)
bar:18 color:Full from:08/01/1967 till:05/01/1971 text:Worcester State (1967–1971)
bar:19 color:Full from:08/01/1967 till:05/01/1976 text:Ithaca (1967–1976)
bar:20 color:Full from:08/01/1967 till:05/01/1983 text:New Haven (1967–1983)
bar:21 color:Full from:08/01/1967 till:05/01/1984 text:Holy Cross (1967–1984)
bar:22 color:Full from:08/01/1967 till:05/01/1984 text:Oswego State (1967–1984)
bar:23 color:Full from:08/01/1967 till:05/01/1984 text:Salem State (1967–1984)
bar:24 color:Full from:08/01/1968 till:05/01/1975 text:Lowell Tech (1968–1975)
bar:24 color:Full from:08/01/1975 till:05/01/1983 text:Lowell (1975–1983)
bar:25 color:Full from:08/01/1968 till:05/01/1984 text:Babson (1968–1984)
bar:26 color:Full from:08/01/1969 till:05/01/1971 text:Lehigh (1969–1971)
bar:27 color:Full from:08/01/1969 till:05/01/1984 text:Saint Anselm (1969–1984)
bar:28 color:Full from:08/01/1970 till:05/01/1981 text:Bridgewater State (1970–1981)
bar:29 color:Full from:08/01/1971 till:05/01/1984 text:Buffalo (1971–1984)
bar:30 color:Full from:08/01/1971 till:05/01/1984 text:New England (1971–1984)
bar:31 color:Full from:08/01/1973 till:05/01/1980 text:Army (1973–1980)
bar:32 color:Full from:08/01/1975 till:05/01/1980 text:Bryant (1975–1980)
bar:33 color:Full from:08/01/1975 till:05/01/1984 text:North Adams State (1975–1984)
bar:34 color:Full from:08/01/1975 till:05/01/1984 text:Union (1975–1984)
bar:35 color:Full from:08/01/1976 till:05/01/1984 text:Brockport State (1976–1984)
bar:36 color:Full from:08/01/1976 till:05/01/1984 text:Cortland State (1976–1984)
bar:37 color:Full from:08/01/1976 till:05/01/1984 text:Elmira (1976–1984)
bar:38 color:Full from:08/01/1976 till:05/01/1984 text:Geneseo State (1976–1984)
bar:39 color:Full from:08/01/1976 till:05/01/1984 text:Plattsburgh State (1976–1984)
bar:40 color:Full from:08/01/1976 till:05/01/1984 text:Potsdam State (1976–1984)
bar:41 color:Full from:08/01/1977 till:05/01/1979 text:Maine (1977–1979)
bar:42 color:Full from:08/01/1978 till:05/01/1984 text:Westfield State (1978–1984)
bar:43 color:Full from:08/01/1979 till:05/01/1982 text:Framingham State (1979–1982)
bar:44 color:Full from:08/01/1980 till:05/01/1984 text:RIT (1980–1984)
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