COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. – With the 2015-16 season completed and the National Collegiate Hockey Conference (NCHC) coming off its first national championship campaign, the NCHC has unveiled its 96-game 2016-17 conference composite schedule Wednesday for its fourth season of competition. All eight NCHC teams will play a 24-game conference slate, culminating in the fourth annual NCHC Frozen Faceoff in Minneapolis.

While the official start date for the 2016-17 season is Saturday Oct. 1, the first conference games don’t take place for another four weeks with the first two NCHC series set for Oct. 28-29. On that weekend, Western Michigan heads west to face 2016 Frozen Four participant Denver while defending national champion and two-time Penrose Cup champion North Dakota opens on the road at Minnesota Duluth.

The remaining four teams open conference play the following weekend, Nov. 4-5, with three conference series on the schedule. Defending Frozen Faceoff champion St. Cloud State opens at home against in-state rival Minnesota Duluth in a rematch of last year’s Frozen Faceoff championship game, while Miami begins NCHC play at rival Western Michigan and both Colorado College and Omaha start conference play against each other at Baxter Arena.

The first full weekend of conference play with all eight teams in NCHC action is a week later on Nov. 11-12, when the last three NCHC teams to host their conference home opener take place. Miami welcomes Omaha, North Dakota hosts rival Denver in a Frozen Four semifinal rematch and Colorado College entertains SCSU. The other series that weekend has WMU at UMD.

A total of 36 conference games will take place prior to the December holiday break with the final weekend of NCHC play in 2016 taking place Dec. 9-10 when all eight teams are in conference play. NCHC action then resumes Jan. 6-7 with a trio of conference series.

Full weekends of conference play also occur back-to-back Jan. 13-14 and Jan. 20-21, while the final two weekends of the regular season also have all eight teams in NCHC play. The regular season wraps up March 3-4 with Denver at Omaha, CC at St. Cloud State, North Dakota at Miami and UMD at Western Michigan. The regular-season champion receives the Julie and Spencer Penrose Memorial Cup, which was awarded to North Dakota for a second straight season in 2015-16.

Like the first three seasons of NCHC play, all eight NCHC teams will play five teams, including their protected rival, in both home and away series, while facing the other two teams for just one series (one home and one away). All eight teams will play 12 home and 12 away conference games.

The Battle for the Gold Pan between Denver and Colorado College takes place Dec. 2-3 and again Feb. 10-11. In-state rivals UMD and SCSU finish their series Jan. 13-14 in Duluth, while Miami and WMU complete their rivalry series in Oxford Jan. 27-28. North Dakota and Omaha play their protected series Jan. 6-7 in Omaha and Feb. 24-25 in Grand Forks.

Following the regular season, the NCHC Tournament begins with the best-of-three quarterfinal series March 10-12, 2017 with the top four seeds hosting the bottom four seeds on campus sites. The series winners then advance to Target Center in Minneapolis for the fourth annual NCHC Frozen Faceoff with the semifinals Friday, March 17 and the third-place game and championship on Saturday, March 18. The Frozen Faceoff winner receives an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament. The NCHC and Target Center will announce the process to purchase tickets for the 2017 Frozen Faceoff in the coming months.

All dates listed are subject to change and times are all still to be determined. The CBS Sports Network television schedule with NCHC nationally televised games, as well as other nationally and regionally televised games will be unveiled as the season nears. The non-conference portion of the 2016-17 schedule will be added once all NCHC teams announce their own non-conference schedules.

The NCHC is coming off its third season of play in which four NCHC teams made the NCAA Tournament with North Dakota winning its eighth national championship and first for the NCHC. Denver joined UND in the Frozen Four as the NCHC placed two teams in the national semifinals for the second straight season. Four NCHC teams also finished the 2015-16 season ranked in the top 12 nationally in both the USCHO.com Poll and the USA Today/USA Hockey Magazine Poll, including three teams in the top five of both polls.

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