Could the AHA face realignment?

The Atlantic Hockey America was recently able to bask in the national spotlight of women’s college hockey after its champion just made it to the Frozen Four.

Penn State, led by head coach Jeff Kampersal, was fresh off its fourth-straight AHA tournament title ahead of hosting a regional at Pegula Ice Arena for the NCAA Tournament.

The Nittany Lions ended up winning their first NCAA Tournament game in the 14-year program history by knocking off UConn 3-to-0, providing the newly-named conference its first victory of that kind.

With this special feat for the conference leader, could Penn State reach new heights and leave for greener pastures?

One of the main drivers for Penn State staying in the AHA is for geographical and conference-related reasons.

The AHA is mainly an East Coast conference, including two other Pennsylvania teams in Robert Morris and Mercyhurst, as well as RIT and Syracuse in New York.

Delaware joined the league this year for its inaugural season as a program, and Lindenwood rounds out the conference despite being based in Saint Charles, Missouri.

If that were the case, why not join the Big Ten like all other Penn State sports?

That is not a possibility, though, as only three other member schools sponsor women’s hockey at the Division I level: Ohio State, Minnesota, and the defending champion, Wisconsin.

All three of them are part of the eight-member Western Collegiate Hockey Association, which is also highly geographical, like the AHA is.

Outside of Wisconsin and Ohio State, all six other teams are based in Minnesota. In a sport that could benefit from less travel, it makes sense that this eight-team collection would stay intact.

Plus, though it would even out the AHA at six members, Penn State would need to take another team along for the ride.

Division I women’s college hockey is essentially a collection of four conferences in the Northeast, with Lindenwood in one of those conferences.

Outside of that exists the midwestern bubble of Minnesota teams and two other teams in surrounding states, better known as the WCHA.

The WCHA has been the gold standard of Division I women’s hockey, winning 22 of the 25 NCAA Tournament titles since the inception of the postseason in 2001.

The only team to win it outside of that conference was Clarkson, doing so three times and going back-to-back in 2017 and 2018.

Sure, Penn State would be tested, but it fails to make sense geographically for the squad to leave the AHA with no other teams remotely close to six of the eight WCHA teams.

In addition, all other conferences have an even number of teams. The addition of Delaware this season made the AHA’s program total grow to seven.

There are two sides to this story because the AHA as a whole would suffer if Penn State jumped ship.

The conference had one team finish the season in the Top 10 of NPI, Penn State at No. 3. The next best team was Mercyhurst at No. 12; those two made up the lone AHA teams in the Top 25 out of all 45 teams in Division I for NPI.

With programs in other sports being cut, another school joining the AHA would likely be difficult.

Purdue University Northwest, currently still in ACHA D1 at the club level, will add women’s hockey starting in the 2026–27 season. Perhaps they could fill the void if Penn State leaves?

Even then, the number of quality teams is very low in the AHA. The last team not based in University Park, Pennsylvania, to win the conference title was in 2022 when Syracuse did it.

The Orange would then proceed to drop a 4-to-0 decision to Quinnipiac in the opening round of regionals.

Without Penn State, the AHA would continue to fall in quality and leave the Hockey East Conference and ECAC as the lone challengers to the WCHA dominion.

Bryan Portney is a second-year student majoring in broadcast journalism. To contact him, email bep5295@psu.edu.