COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. – The National Collegiate Hockey Conference (NCHC) has announced it will use shootouts to award an extra point within conference standings. The NCHC Board of Directors unanimously approved the use of a shootout to decide games after the NCAA standard five-minute, sudden-death overtime period has expired.

“The conference office and our member institutions are committed to engaging our fans in ways that provide them excitement in our home venues,” said NCHC Commissioner Josh Fenton. “The use of a shootout at the conclusion of our standard overtime to determine an extra point within conference standings will make for an exciting race to determine the NCHC regular season champion. We are confident our passionate fans will enjoy this aspect of the game in similar ways to how it is embraced in the National Hockey League.”

All NCHC regular-season conference match-ups will feature a shootout should the game end in a tie at the conclusion of a five-minute overtime period. Any game that uses a shootout will be officially recorded as a tie within the overall record of each team. The Pairwise ranking will be calculated knowing the game was officially recorded as a tie.

The shootout will feature three shooters pre-selected by each team following the conclusion of overtime. The team that scores the most goals among the three shooters will be declared the winner. Should the shootout be tied at the conclusion of the initial three shooters, a sudden- death round with one shooter from each team will commence until a winner is declared. Goaltenders will remain on the same ends of the ice for the shootout as they were for the five-minute overtime period.

Each conference game will be worth three points. Three points will be awarded to any team that wins a game in regulation or within the five-minute sudden-death overtime period. One point will be awarded to each team in a game that remains tied at the conclusion of the overtime period. One additional point will be awarded to the team who wins the shootout, giving that team two points total for winning the game in a shootout. A team that loses in regulation or during the five-minute overtime period will receive zero points.

Non-conference games held in NCHC venues will also feature a shootout with mutual agreement from the visiting institutions. NCHC Tournament games will not feature shootouts but rather 20-minute sudden death overtime periods will be played until a winner is declared (Exception: The third-place game of the NCHC Championship will use a five-minute sudden death overtime followed by the standard protocol for a shootout).

At the end of the regular season, the team with the most points in the standings will be declared the NCHC regular season champion. If two or more teams are tied for the championship, they shall be considered co-champions. For NCHC Tournament seeding, any ties within the conference standings will be broken based upon the following set of rules. No shootout results will be used to break ties in the standings. Games decided in a shootout will be considered a tie when deciding final seeding for the NCHC Tournament.

The team with the greater number of NCHC regular-season wins shall be the higher seed. Head-to-head competition: The team with the best NCHC regular-season winning percentage against the other teams tied in the standings Goal Differential: The comparison of total goals for and against each team in contests between (among) the other teams tied in the standings in NCHC regular-season play Winning percentage of the teams tied in the standings against the remaining NCHC teams, starting at the top of the standings and working toward the bottom until the tie is broken. Should the teams still remain tied in the standings, the seeding will be decided by a coin flip.

The NCHC Championship will be held on March 21 and 22, 2014 at the Target Center in Minneapolis, Minn. To learn more about the NCHC Championship Tournament, purchasing tickets and reserving a hotel room, please visit the NCHC website at NCHCHockey.com.

The NCHC, which includes member institutions Colorado College, Denver, Miami, Minnesota Duluth, Nebraska Omaha, North Dakota, St. Cloud State and Western Michigan, begins its inaugural season on October 18, 2013, with a double-header featuring North Dakota at Miami and Colorado College hosting Minnesota Duluth. Games times are to be announced.

Follow the NCHC on Twitter (@TheNCHC) and Facebook (The National Collegiate Hockey Conference).

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