The ECAC Hockey Championship features three rounds of competition, featuring all 12 teams. The 2009 championship will mark the seventh year the league has utilized the 12-team format. From 1998-02, the league conducted a 10-team tournament with five teams advancing to the championship round.
The Princeton Tigers captured the 2008 Bank of America ECAC
Hockey Championship title, defeating Harvard, 4-1, Saturday, March
22, at the Times Union Center in Albany, New York.
The 2009 championship will commence Friday, March 6 when the
conference's Nos. 5-8 seeds, as determined by the final
regular-season standings, host teams ranked Nos. 9-12 in
first-round action. All series will be best-of-three games and will
be played on the campuses of the higher-seeded teams.
The four first-round series winners will advance to quarterfinals
action to face the conference's top four teams as determined by the
final regular-season standings. The best-of-three games
series will be played on the campuses of the top four seeds March
13-15.
The conference's top four teams in 2008-09, as determined by the
outcome of quarterfinals action, will gather at the Times Union
Center to determine the conference tournament's 48th champion.
The 48th championship will comprise four games beginning Friday,
March 20 and concluding Saturday, March 21. On Friday, March
20, the No. 4-seeded team will face the No. 1 seed in the first
semifinals contest, followed by the No. 3 seed versus the No. 2
seed in the second semifinals game. On Saturday, March 21,
the third-place and championship games will be played. The
2009 ECAC Hockey champion receives an automatic bid to the NCAA
Championship.
As part of the championship, ECAC Hockey will conduct its annual
awards banquet.
