2021 College Hockey Bracketology

Which school sits atop the 2021 college hockey bracketology?

Just like in college basketball, we were robbed of a tournament in this sport in 2020. However, just like hoops, we appear to be on track to getting the championship back in 2021.

This season will feature a little bit of change. In ordinary times, there are 61 teams that would be competing at the Division I level. Make that 51 this season, as ten teams, including all of the Ivy League schools and others like Union and Alaska, cancelled their seasons. However, there was one new addition as the LIU Sharks are in their inaugural season with a D-I hockey program.

Configuring the Hockey Bracket

16 teams will make the 2021 NCAA Hockey Tournament, with six automatic bids from the conferences and ten at-large teams. The USCHO’s PairWise Rankings (PWR) mimic the NCAA’s formula for determining the teams’ rankings. In any ordinary year, you would see a great deal of mention of the PWR here. However, there have been so few games outside of a team’s conference that there’s no reflection in the numbers. You can, and have, had teams high up in the PWR from “lesser” conferences based only on playing its own conference-mates.

Since the PairWise isn’t likely to be accurate this season, we are going to wing it as best we can. The result is a more traditional bracketology where we weigh resumes and seed the contenders.

The four regions, as always, are Northeast (Manchester), East (Bridgeport), Midwest (Fargo), and West (Loveland).

2021 College Hockey Bracketology: S-Curve

Updated February 21, 2021

First Six Out

2021 College Hockey Bracketology: The Bracket