Courtesy: D3hockey.com staff

D3sports.com has learned that the University of Wisconsin schools currently playing in the Northern Collegiate Hockey Association (NCHA) are expected to announce tomorrow that they will disassociate from the league following the 2013-14 season to compete solely in the Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (WIAC). The five University of Wisconsin schools currently participating in the NCHA are UW-Eau Claire, UW-River Falls, UW-Stevens Point, UW-Stout (men's only) and UW-Superior.

The UW schools will participate exclusively in the WIAC beginning in 2014-15.

It is believed that finances as well as the complications derived from participation in a single-sport conference are among the factors that may have led to the splinter.

The move will cripple the well-regarded NCHA men's league, and will leave St. Norbert and St. Scholastica as the only remaining members of the conference. It will likely bring an end to a league that began play in 1980 when Bemidji State, Mankato State, St. Cloud State, UW-Eau Claire, UW-River Falls, and UW-Superior left the now-defunct International College Hockey Association and Western Intercollegiate Hockey Association to form the new league.

Three of those teams now compete at the Division I level, while the others remain as current NCHA members. The seven teams currently playing in the NCHA have all been league members since UW-Stout was admitted prior to the 1996-97 season, and the current seven-team league has existed in its current form since Lake Forest's departure in 2009.

At the moment, it is believed that neither St. Norbert nor St. Scholastica has set plans as far as future men's conference affiliation is concerned, though it is suspected that they may be eligible to participate in hockey under the auspices of the WIAC, should they choose.

The move is less devastating for the women's NCHA, which will retain seven teams and likely the automatic qualifier for the NCAA Tournament. The NCHA is likely to survive, while the University of Wisconsin schools are more likely to face an uphill battle for postseason qualification. One of the departing schools has won all but one of the women's regular season and postseason titles in the twelve year history of the league. Lake Forest claimed the 2009-10 regular season crown, while Adrian was last year's playoff champion.

Stay tuned to D3hockey.com as we will have more as this situation unfolds.