COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. – Along with moving its championship tournament entirely to campus sites beginning this upcoming 2025-2026 season, the National Collegiate Hockey Conference (NCHC) is exploring another change for its postseason – officially naming the Conference’s tournament trophy.
 
The NCHC has been awarding the Julie and Spencer Penrose Memorial Cup to its regular-season champion since its inaugural 2013-14 season. And now after 12 years of play, the Conference is looking to give the trophy awarded to the NCHC Tournament champion a proper name. While the NCHC’s championship weekend has historically been called the Frozen Faceoff, the ‘Frozen Faceoff’ Trophy does not have an official name.
 
To help name the trophy, the NCHC is taking suggestions from fans though THIS FORM. Fans can submit names for one week through July 13. The Conference and its membership will then evaluate fan suggestions and its own ideas before deciding upon and revealing the name for the NCHC’s tournament trophy prior to the start of the season.
 
In addition to exploring a trophy name, the NCHC has finalized the date for its 2026 Frozen Faceoff championship game, which is now set for Saturday, March 21 at the highest remaining seed. As previously announced, the semifinals will be held the prior Saturday on March 14, 2026, with the two highest remaining seeds each hosting a single-game semifinal.
 
The 2026 NCHC Frozen Faceoff will get underway with best-of-three quarterfinal series on campus sites, with the top four seeds hosting the bottom four seeds. The NCHC Quarterfinals will take place a week earlier than previous years from Friday-Sunday, March 6-8. The four series winners will then be re-seeded for the semifinals. As in 2025, only the top eight finishers in the NCHC will qualify for the Frozen Faceoff Tournament.
 
Broadcast information for the Frozen Faceoff semifinals and championship will be announced in the coming months.