The 2020 NCHC Tournament was the seventh tournament in league history. It was scheduled to be played between March 13 and 21, 2020. Quarterfinal games were to be played at home team campus sites, while the final four games were to be played at the Xcel Energy Center in Saint Paul, Minnesota. On March 12, 2020, NCHC announced that the remainder of the tournament was cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic, before any games were played.[1]

Format

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The first round of the postseason tournament featured a best-of-three games format. All eight conference teams participate in the tournament. Teams are seeded No. 1 through No. 8 according to their final conference standing, with a tiebreaker system used to seed teams with an identical number of points accumulated. The top four seeded teams each earn home ice and host one of the lower seeded teams.

The winners of the first round series advanced to the Xcel Energy Center for the NCHC Frozen Faceoff. The Frozen Faceoff uses a single-elimination format. Teams are re-seeded No. 1 through No. 4 according to the final regular season conference standings.[2]

Standings

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Conference record Overall record
GP W L T 3/SW PTS GF GA GP W L T GF GA
#3 North Dakota 24 17 4 3 2 56 86 49 35 26 5 4 135 68
#5 Minnesota–Duluth 24 17 5 2 0 53 89 53 34 22 10 2 114 77
#6 Denver 24 11 8 5 4 42 67 54 36 21 9 6 118 81
#16 Western Michigan 24 12 9 3 2 41 84 73 36 18 13 5 125 101
St. Cloud State 24 10 12 2 1 33 61 74 34 13 15 6 94 108
Omaha 24 8 13 3 0 27 63 75 36 14 17 5 108 107
Miami 24 5 16 3 2 20 61 89 34 8 21 5 92 127
Colorado College 24 4 17 3 1 16 48 96 34 11 20 3 86 123
Championship: Cancelled
† indicates conference regular season champion; * indicates conference tournament champion
Rankings: USCHO.com Top 20 Poll

Bracket

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Teams are reseeded for the Semifinals

Quarterfinals
March 13–15
Semifinals
March 20
Championship
March 21
           
1 North Dakota
8 Colorado College
 
 
2 Western Michigan
7 St. Cloud State
 
(Pairings are reseeded after the first round)
 
3 Denver
6 Omaha
  Third Place
 
4 Minnesota–Duluth  
5 Miami  

* denotes overtime periods

References

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  1. ^ "NCHC Tournament Cancelled Effective Immediately". nchchockey.com. March 12, 2020. Retrieved March 12, 2020.
  2. ^ "Format". Archived from the original on June 7, 2014. Retrieved April 14, 2017.