The 2022–23 NCAA Division III men's ice hockey season began on October 27, 2023, and will conclude on March 23, 2024. This was the 51st season of Division III college ice hockey.
MCLA restarted its ice hockey program this season, returning to the ice for the first time since 2003.[2]
Little East
Prior to the start of the season, the Little East Conference announced that it would begin sponsoring ice hockey for the first time.[3] The conference projected to begin play in the 2025–26 season and would coincide with the return of Keene State's ice hockey program. The other five Little East members who already field teams are Massachusetts–Boston, Massachusetts–Dartmouth, Plymouth State, Southern Maine and Vermont State Castleton. Because the conference would begin play with six member teams, the Little east would immediately receive an automatic bid for the NCAA tournament.[4]
Championship: March 2 † indicates conference regular season champion * indicates conference tournament champion
Note: Mini-games are not included in final standings
PairWise Rankings
The PairWise Rankings (PWR) are a statistical tool designed to approximate the process by which the NCAA selection committee decides which teams get at-large bids to the 16-team NCAA tournament. Although the NCAA selection committee does not use the PWR as presented by USCHO, the PWR has been accurate in predicting which teams will make the tournament field.
For Division III men, all teams are included in comparisons starting in the 2013–14 season (formerly, only teams with a Ratings Percentage Index of .500 or above, or teams under consideration, were included). The PWR method compares each team with every other such team, with the winner of each “comparison” earning one PWR point. After all comparisons are made, the points are totaled up and rankings listed accordingly.
With 85 Division III men's teams, the greatest number of PWR points any team could earn is 84, winning the comparison with every other team. Meanwhile, a team that lost all of its comparisons would have no PWR points.
Teams are then ranked by PWR point total, with ties broken by the teams’ RPI ratings, which starting in 2013–14 is weighted for home and road games and includes a quality wins bonus (QWB) for beating teams in the top 20 of the RPI (it also is weighted for home and road).
When it comes to comparing teams, the PWR uses three criteria which are combined to make a comparison: RPI, record against common opponents and head-to-head competition. Starting in 2013–14, the comparison of record against teams under consideration was dropped because all teams are now under comparison.[5]
*A team's RPI has been adjusted to remove negative effect from defeating a weak opponent Note: A team's record is based only on games against other Division III hockey schools which are eligible for the NCAA Tournament.
