College Hockey Spotlight – ACHA Division 2
The American Collegiate Hockey Association (ACHA) was established in 1991 when 15 charter members that had been playing non-varsity hockey for years met and determined that they wanted to legitimize “club” or non-varsity hockey by standardizing some of the rules, regulations and operating procedures. The first year of play was the 1991-92 season with the goal being the establishment of a national governing body to oversee and administer national tournaments, player eligibility and everyday oversight.
Since then, on the men’s side, the ACHA has grown to more than 300 teams spread out across three divisions. ACHA Division 1 has around 70 member programs, with Division 2 boasting almost 200 and Division 3 nearly 130. Division 3 was the last men’s division established in 1999.
A women’s division was created in 2000, and a second women’s division was added in 2006. For the 2019-20 season, there were 25 women’s teams competing at the ACHA Division I level and 51 D2 teams.
With three men’s divisions featuring different philosophies, levels of financial commitment and opportunities, the ACHA truly offers something for any player who wants to continue playing hockey beyond the youth and high school levels and into college.
There also is a non-varsity college hockey organization called the College Hockey Federation, which began player this year and consists of 70-plus former ACHA Division 2 and 3 schools based primarily in the Northeast that have similar philosophies and budgets and broke away to create their own league. Here is an article detailing the opportunities within that organization.
ACHA Division 2
At the ACHA Division 2 level, the hockey and college-experience opportunities literally run the gamut. There are fully or mostly funded programs that provide an experience similar to what NCAA varsity programs offer in terms of equipment, gear and amenities. These programs practice up to three times of week with nearly year-round off-ice training, film sessions and 30-plus game schedules.
Other Division 2 programs may not have the budget that some of the D1 or better-funded D2 teams have, but they still have a strong recruiting network in hockey areas to draw from and are able to pull in top AAA players, junior players and even NCAA Division III transfers. Depending on the program, some of these teams have ACHA Division I aspirations and may draw as many as 2,000 fans per game with the players being treated similarly to the school’s varsity athletes.
“We recruit mostly online and from watching video,” University of Louisville D2 assistant coach Kyle Hughes said. “Both of the coaches are from New England, so knowing the coaches and the hockey up there from first-hand experience really helps.”
Added Joey Mullen, Virginia Tech’s ACHA Division 2 coach: “We have had top players come from all levels of hockey.”
While these teams also offer a near-varsity experience with a high level of commitment required, there are other programs at the D2 level that practice once or twice a week and play 15 to 20 games spread across the fall and spring semesters. These situations can be great for serious hockey players who want to turn their primary focus to academics, but still want to play very competitive hockey.
“Overall, you are looking at about a 50-percent skill difference and a 50-percent commitment advantage when talking about D2 vs. D3,” said Mike Urgo, head coach of Stevenson University’s ACHA Division 2 program. “While at the D1 level, compared to where we are, overall I think any difference is about 90 percent based on skill. With the D1 expectations you’re just able to land more players of a higher caliber with more talent overall.”
While the overall time commitment and ice time throughout the week and season may not be as great as with the more-serious program, all ACHA Division 2 players still get to represent their schools and compete against top teams and high-level players without too much time being taken away from their studies.
Although the level of play at the very top of ACHA Division can rival that of some NCAA Division III programs, the competitive level throughout the rest of ACHA D1 and D2 sill is very high. There is a good amount of crossover play among all three divisions, and it is not unusual for D2 or even D3 teams to win games against Division I programs.
“D2 tends to be way more structured than D3 and a higher level of play,” Hughes said. “D1 is almost all funded, and the top-15ish teams play incredible hockey, with some Tier 1 and Tier 2 junior players included. D2 programs have mostly Tier 3 and high-school kids along with some Tier 2 players.”
Most ACHA Division 2 rosters consist of former Tier 3 junior, AAA, prep school, high AA and high-school players with some higher-level former NCAA and junior players mixed in.
“I think the biggest myth out there is that ACHA D2 hockey isn’t very good,” Virginia Tech Division 2 coach Joey Mullen said. “Some of the kids who come here to play from pretty high-level programs expect to dominate, and they don’t.”
Urgo’s fully funded Division 2 program at Stevenson University near Baltimore shares a rink with the school’s NCAA Division III team and ends up having a few players choose to move from the NCAA program to his team each year.
“We are likely going to be adding another ACHA team here at Stevenson in the next year or so,” he said. “But it will be a D3 team, not D1, because if we went D1 I would be fighting for a lot of the same players that the NCAA team is trying to recruit. We had four kids this year join our program from the NCAA team, but they did not dominate, and that was frustrating for them at times. They were maybe point-a-game players for us, but they thought they would be much more than that.” Louisville is a Power Five school that brings in high school, AAA and junior players from hockey hotbeds such as Minnesota and Massachusetts. The Cardinals draw big crowds, and their players get the full Louisville student-athlete experience. Even with several NCAA D3 transfers this year, though, the Cardinals only managed an 11-20-2-1 record.
“Those NCAA players were not our best players,” Hughes said. “Looking at our roster, you would have thought that we should have done really well, but we were not a very good team. We expect that to change next year, but that’s just the truth. When I came here from the Northeast I didn’t expect the hockey to be very good at all, and I was completely wrong. There is really good hockey being played at this level. I want to go out and recruit the players who think they are NCAA D3 players and are being recruited by those schools. When I bring them here and they see the school and the crowds and the hockey, they will be very surprised.”
A look at the ACHA Division 2 landscape shows that there are more than 190 member institutions broken down into four regions or districts – the Central with 47 teams, the Northeast with 38 teams, the Southeast with 47 teams and the West with 59 teams.
There are brand-name bigger institutions with D2 programs such as Arizona State, Colorado State, Stanford, Kentucky, Maryland, Penn State, Texas A&M, Colorado, Oregon, Ohio State, UCLA, USC, Texas, Michigan, Wisconsin and Washington; smaller well-known schools such as Gonzaga, Seton Hall, Princeton, Georgetown, Duke and George Washington; and colleges you may never have heard of like the University of Mary (North Dakota), Dakota College, Chapman University, Keene State and Winona State - and pretty much everything in between.
A handful of schools offer ACHA teams in multiple divisions. Lindenwood University near St. Louis, a national-power at the ACHA D1 level, also has a D2 program that went 28-5-0-1 and earned a No. 1 ranking in its region this year. Arizona State is a top ACHA D1 program that also offers a D2 option, as does Liberty, Navy, Ohio and some others.
One truly amazing aspect of ACHA non-varsity hockey at all levels is how well the smaller schools stack up against the giants.
For the 2019-20 season, automatic-bid qualifiers for the ACHA Division 2 National Championship included an eclectic group of schools such as the University of Mary, the University of Providence (not Providence College), Lindenwood, Sault College, UMass, Keene State, Liberty and Florida Gulf Coast. Meanwhile, schools such as Cincinnati, Miami (Ohio), Northeastern, Robert Williams, Trine, Davenport, Northern Arizona, Metro State University of Denver and Dakota also played their way to Nationals.
ACHA D2 Nationals were scheduled to be held near Dallas in Frisco, Texas, in March along with the men’s D1 and D3 and women’s tournaments. The two-highest ranked teams from each region advance to the national tournament along with two teams from each region that qualify through regional-tournament play. Teams are then placed into four pools based on their region and ranking, with the team that posts the best record in each pool advancing to the single-elimination finals.
A quick look at rosters for some of the Top ACHA D2 programs is helpful in understanding the types of players competing at that level.
Liberty University ACHA D2 – Southeast #1 Ranking
14 states & Canada represented on roster
10 U.S. Tier 3 junior players (USPHL, EHL, NA3HL)
3 Canadian junior players
1 U.S. AAA player
1 Canadian AAA player
5 U.S. AA/H.S. players
2 U.S. H.S. players (no club)
UMass-Amherst ACHA D2 – Northeast #1 Ranking
16 Massachusetts H.S. players
5 New England prep school players
4 U.S. Tier 3 junior players (EHL, USPHL, WSHL)
5 U.S. AAA players
1 other prep school player
Lindenwood ACHA D2 – Central # 1 Ranking
16 Tier 3 junior players (NA3HL, USPHL, WSHL, RMJHL)
1 NJCAA transfer
1 NCAA D3 transfer
4 AAA players
4 H.S. players
1 ACHA D1 transfer
1 AA player
University of Mary ACHA D2 – West # 1 Ranking
9 Tier 3 junior players (NA3HL, WSHL, NPHL)
3 Canadian junior players
7 North Dakota H.S. players
1 Minnesota H.S. player
1 NCAA D3 transfer
1 AA player
Since they are considered non-varsity or “club” teams by most colleges, most ACHA programs are not funded by an institution’s athletic department. Instead they receive funding out of a campus student activities or student services budget. Whatever money the team gets to pay for coaches, uniforms, practice ice, travel, etc. comes out of that budget, which usually isn’t enough to cover all of the team’s expenses.
Since there are no athletic scholarships for non-varsity sports, usually the remainder of the money needed to cover expenses is paid by the players. There are a small number of schools, such as Stevenson University’s Division 2 ACHA program and Lindenwood, that receive more funding or are “fully funded,” which can bring the cost to the individual player down considerably.
Where it might cost a couple hundred dollars to play for Stevenson, it can cost as much as $3,000 to play at other schools. Finding out the actual price tag to play at an ACHA school should be part of the recruiting and fact-finding process for a player.
“Funding can be a huge difference when it comes to D1 and D2 programs,” Mullen said. “The higher-end schools generally have a lot more financial backing from the university. And a lot will depend on sponsorship and team dues. The more you charge, the more you can do. We try to keep it as affordable as possible, because the kids are paying for school also.”
This potential additional cost – along with theaveragecost of college tuition, which ranges from $25,000 per year for public schools to nearly $50,000 for private institutions – is yet another reason why academics should ALWAYS be a player’s primary focus. There is a lot more academic scholarship money available for strong students than any other form of financial aid.
A player who performs well academically throughout high school can remove a huge financial burden from his family, which then can allow for more ACHA hockey opportunities to be considered as the cost to play becomes more palatable if the tuition bill is 40 or 50 percent lower than expected.
Additional Interesting Links:
ACHA Division I Spotlight
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