The NCAA’s top teams reside in the WCHA and ECAC, while Canada’s U Sports continues to take strides. Here’s a look at North America’s top collegiate conferences and leagues.
1. WCHA
Wisconsin, Ohio State, Minnesota, and Minnesota-Duluth are a top tier of programs loaded each year with national team prospects and future pros. St. Cloud State has been closing the gap, and St. Thomas continues to make strides, as does Minnesota State. Only Bemidji State is outclassed in this group. It’s a league filled with talent including top 2024 PWHL Draft picks like Cayla Barnes, Hannah Bilka, Britta Curl, and Jennifer Gardiner. Still in the league are national team standouts like Caroline Harvey, Laila Edwards, Sanni Ahola, Nelli Laitinen, Kirsten Simms, Abbey Murphey, Lacey Eden, and Josefin Bouveng among others. It’s a top to bottom stacked league.
2. ECAC
The ECAC is a league with haves and have nots. In the upper echelon are Colgate, Clarkson, Cornell, Quinnipiac, and St. Lawrence. Ivy League teams like Princeton and Yale are right there with them. While the WCHA takes it for the waves of depth, the ECAC is perhaps the better developer of good pros. The top three picks in the 2024 PWHL Draft – Sarah Fillier, Danielle Serdachny, and Claire Thompson – along with sixth overall pick Julia Gosling are all ECAC grads. The elite talent is here. The East could form a powerhouse conference if they wanted, but what we see in the ECAC is more beneficial top to bottom for development than the WCHA.
3. Hockey East
There’s a noticeable jump from the top two conferences to Hockey East, but programs like Northeastern, Connecticut and Vermont have all seen their time among nationally ranked programs, and there’s reason to believe Boston College and Boston University will build better programs in the coming years. Aside from Northeastern, there just isn’t a program with year over year, recruiting cycle over recruiting cycle consistency. Northeastern has placed players like Alina Muller, Aerin Frankel, Maureen Murphy, Gwyneth Philips, Megan Carter, and Chloe Aurard into the PWHL in recent years, and their star studded history speaks for itself.
4. AHA
The new Atlantic Hockey America conference continues to take small steps forward, but it’s another drop from Hockey East. Penn State is the top program in the bunch with USA national team standout Tessa Janecke leading the way. Mercyhurst and Syracuse have brought talent forward, but overall, this conference still has room to grow. It’s hard to compete with the recruiting forces of the ECAC and WCHA, but seeing players like Canada’s Abby Stonehouse and Sweden’s Nicole Hall choose Penn State bodes well for the future.
5. RSEQ
Concordia could walk out of U Sports and into any NCAA conference and be competitive. They’d beat their share of teams, as would the best from across U Sports. Bishop’s and Montreal also have growing programs with pro prospects and All-Canadian stars. Emmy Fecteau emerged from Concordia as the lone player drafted from U Sports to the PWHL this season, but there are many alumni from this conference in the PWHL. Bishop’s rookie Gabrielle Santerre was the U Sports player of the year and rookie of the year.
6. Canada West
British Columbia was loaded with talent this season paced by Rylind MacKinnon, while All-Canadian stars such as Emma Bergesen, Mackenzie Kordic, Camryn Drever, and Elizabeth Lang were also Canada West stars. The conference spans four provinces from British Columbia, to Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba. It’s a vast conference meaning the talent pool to draw from is also large. Many provincial team standouts end up in Canada West.
7. OUA
Split into two conferences within Ontario, this season it was Toronto, Nipissing, Guelph and Waterloo who were the power players in Ontario. Feeding from the OWHL, Canada’s top junior league for women, the OUA has an abundance of talented players coming to the league after playing alongside national team prospects and top NCAA recruits. Top to bottom, OUA is stronger than most conferences, with stars like Leah Herrfort, Katie Chomiak, and Italian national team netminder Martina Fedel earning All-Canadian honors the in recent seasons.
8. AUS
At the top, New Brunswick and St. Francis Xavier, along with Saint Mary’s are strong programs. The Maritime system often pulls players from Ontario and Quebec into the mix to supplement top players from New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, and PEI. This season Lillian George and Mackenzie Keenan of New Brunswick were All-Canadians.
9. NEWHA
The NCAA’s youngest conference is also the weakest. Long Island University and Stonehill have taken steps forward, but the problem is, good players like Stonehill’s Alexis Petford and LIU’s Tindra Holm are simply using NEWHA as a development league before they jump to big programs. It’s probable that top NCAA DIII programs could step into NEWHA and win their share of games.
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