The Northern Collegiate Hockey Association will be undergoing significant changes in the next few years as five schools from the Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference are leaving at the end of the 2013-2014 season.

In a press release, the WIAC announced on Feb. 15 that UW-Eau Claire, UW-Stout, UW-Superior, UW-River Falls and UW-Stevens Point’s men’s and women’s hockey teams will form a conference as of 2014-2015 under the WIAC.

“(The decision to leave NCHA) was a combination of a number of things,” WIAC Commissioner Gary Karner said. “Some of the normal factors is the current budget situation that we are all facing. We put a number of measures in place two years ago that was intended to try to reduce our travel costs and at the level of Division III, unlike the Division I, one of the biggest expenditure areas that we have is travel.”

The other part, Karner said, is that the NCHA has become — from the management standpoint — very difficult to deal with.

“There are 12 schools in the NCHA if you combine both men and women schools together. And in those 12 schools you have six different multi-sport conferences that are represented,” he said. “Then you also have the independent. Then you have five schools that only have women’s ice hockey and one school that only has men’s ice hockey. So it kind of creates a real difficult management group because everybody obviously has different interests, different backgrounds.”

Karner said that when all of those conferences come together there are a whole host of different rules, policies and procedures that everybody is used to. The WIAC then looked at this structure and decided that it was in their best interest to take men’s and women’s hockey solely under the WIAC, he said.

NCHA Commissioner Bill Kronschnabel said he wasn’t surprised when the WIAC announced they were pulling out of NCHA, and it was something he saw coming.

“I think the (NCHA) has been a strong college conference for many years,” he said. “It will be unfortunate to see the rivalries that have been created over the years disappear.”

The men’s division of the NCHA will be left with two remaining schools, St. Scholastica (Minn.) and St. Norbert, while the women’s side will be less affected with seven schools still remaining.

Kronschnabel said the men’s hockey division might no longer exist under the NCHA if there are still just two schools by 2014-2015 but said the women’s division will likely remain with the seven schools.

“The athletic directors will explore all of their options, whether it’s moving here or moving there,” he said. “I just hope that all institutions do what is best for each particular institution, for the good of Division III hockey here in the west.”

Karner said the WIAC has invited other schools that remained in the NCHA to join them under an affiliate agreement, but no schools have made a decision yet.

Eau Claire women’s hockey coach Mike Collins said that going from an 11-team conference to just five under the WIAC is something to be concerned about, and that he hopes the WIAC can solicit a few of the teams that remained in the NCHA to join them.

“I just hope in the long run this turns out well for our team, for the league,” he said. “The NCHA has been a long standing conference with a great reputation for many, many years and one that is recognized throughout college hockey.”

The only issue with the WIAC leaving the NCHA is that conference winners won’t automatically qualify for the NCAA tournament anymore.  Conferences must have at least seven members for their winner to automatically qualify for the postseason tournament. That means WIAC schools will have to earn an at-large selection through ranking criteria in order to make it.

“I think that under these economic times obviously saving money is important,” Collins said. “But whether it is best for the hockey, it’s hard to say.”