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The NCAA Championship Oversight Committee met in November to expand the National Collegiate Women’s Ice Hockey Championship from eight to 11 teams — a move which may have an effect on Yale’s qualification hopes in the future.

Calls to expand the field gained renewed traction on Oct. 25, when Kaplan Hecker & Fink LLP published Phase II of its NCAA External Gender Equity Review. The KHF report, which was commissioned by the NCAA, came in two phases. The first was a review of gender equity in Division I basketball while the second was a review of the remaining 84 NCAA championships. Each report identified disparities in men’s and women’s NCAA competitions and provided a broad list of recommendations to improve gender equity in collegiate athletics.

“There are also fewer opportunities for women’s ice hockey student-athletes to participate in the championships than there are for men’s ice hockey student-athletes,” the report identified. “[The NCAA should] create a transparent process for reviewing proposals to increase the size of a championship’s bracket/field.”

The observation stemmed from the size of each tournament’s field relative to the total number of teams. On the men’s side of competition, 16 of 60 Division I teams compete in the postseason tournament — meaning the top 26.7 percent of teams make the field. On the women’s side, eight of the 41 programs make the field, meaning only 19.5 percent of teams advance.

Galvanized by the recommendations made in the KHF report, several organizations in the sport — including men’s and women’s collegiate hockey programs, the American Hockey Coaches Association and the NHL Coaches’ Association — took to social media to campaign for an expansion of the field.

“The Bulldogs are in support of the @NCAA expanding its National Championship field,” the Yale women’s ice hockey team posted on Twitter. It ended its tweet with a mainstay of the social media campaign: “#CloseTheGapNCAA #TimeFor12Teams2022.”

While the campaign called for an expansion of the tournament to 12 teams, the Competition Oversight Committee ultimately settled on 11.

Though the size of the field will create an atypical format for a bracketed competition, the decision was made in order to have 27 percent of women’s programs qualifying for the tournament, in line with the men’s counterpart.

“By expanding the bracket, the National Collegiate Women’s Ice Hockey Championship will be in line with the Division I Men’s Ice Hockey Championship in terms of access to the bracket,” the NCAA explained in a statement. “With 11 teams in the bracket, 27 percent of the teams will have access to the championship bracket.”

While the timeline is still in the works, the expansion is slated to occur this season, which could impact the Yale women’s ice hockey team as it works toward its first-ever tournament berth.

The Bulldogs find themselves nationally-ranked for the first time in program history this season, and currently sit in No. 6 in the USCHO poll. Though the poll does not guarantee entry into the tournament, it does give an idea of where the team may be seeded come the end of the season. Under the National Collegiate Women’s Ice Hockey Committee’s proposed format, seeding will gain a new degree of importance.

“The top five seeds in the tournament would receive first-round byes,” the proposal notes. “Three first-round games would be played at the campus sites of three of the top four seeds in the tournament.”

The proposed format has gained support from the Division I Competition Oversight Committee, and could go into effect this season if approved at the Division I Council’s Dec. 15 meeting. If approved, the Bulldogs will look to further improve their ranking to secure a bye into the second round of the tournament.

Regardless of the format, the Bulldogs are confident their team has the makings for playoff contention.

“Our team is looking really strong this year and I have great confidence that we can make our mark in the playoffs,” goaltender Gianna Meloni ’22 wrote to the News. “I think we’ve already faced some tough teams this semester and we will be ready when the time comes… Our team will show that we are strong no matter how many teams get a spot in the playoffs.”

The Bulldogs will return to the rink on Dec. 8 for a home matchup against Boston University.

BILLY KLINE
Billy reports on hockey and cross country. He is a senior in Branford College from St. Petersburg, Florida, and he studies Applied Math.