Utah W1 qualifies for 2026 WWCHL Championship Tournament

Utah Hockey Posted On February 16, 2026

80 Views

February 16, 2026
Salt Lake City, Utah

The University of Utah Women’s Division 1 team has qualified for the 2026 Western Women’s College Hockey League Championship (WWCHL) in Boulder, Colorado from February 20-22, 2026.

Utah W1 has qualified for this tournament every year since the team began play back in 2019.

Utah has had a breakthrough season with a National Ranking of #16, and finishing the regular season with a record of 17-8-1. Offense has been a power house with 115 goals scored with only 63 goals allowed.

This standings this season have been very tight with parity developing over the last few seasons. The top four teams have been jockeying for 1st place the entire campaign and within 3 games of each other.

Utah secured the 3rd seed and finished their conference schedule with an excellent record of 10-5-0-1.

“I believe this shows how much of a threat we are in the west. Since the program started in 2019 Utah has made the conference playoffs. We plan building off this historic year even more this upcoming weekend,” said Utah Women’s Head Coach Rodney Stedt.

Their first game of the tournament will be against #2 seed Montana State on Friday, February 20th at 4:30 PM MST. Utah is 1-1 against the Bobcats this season.

The second game will be against #1 Seed University of Colorado, with the Utes going 2-2 versus the Buffs this season. Each team won their respective home series.

The WWCHL was founded in 2014 and currently has 7 member programs, residing in Arizona, Colorado, Montana, Wyoming, and Utah. It also has the privilege of an annual auto-bid to the 2026 American Collegiate Hockey Association Women’s Division 1 National Championship Tournament, which occurs in St Louis, Missouri in March.

Format

The WWCHL Tournament will consist of the top 4 teams from regular season rankings. Teams seeded #1 through #4 will receive an invitation to the conference tournament. The top two seeds will play the bottom two seeds, with the two teams with the most wins playing for the Championship game on day 3.

Venue

University of Colorado Boulder Recreation Center
UCB 355, Boulder, CO 80309-0355
303-492-6880

This facility is a multi-use recreation facility featuring indoor basketball and tennis courts, plus a pool, climbing gym, soccer pitch, and ice rink.

Seeding

Ranking	Team	Record	Points
#1	Colorado	12-4-0-0	36
#2	Montana State	10-1-5-0	32
#3	Utah	10-5-0-1	31
#4	Grand Canyon	9-1-5-0	29
#5	Colorado State	8-7-0-1	25
#6	Wyoming	3-12-0-1	10
#7	Denver	0-14-1-0	2

Complete Schedule

Friday, Feb 20, 2026:
Game 1 (4:30 PM): #4 Grand Canyon vs #1 Colorado (Home)
Game 2 (7:30 PM): #3 Utah vs #2 Montana State (Home)

Saturday, Feb 21, 2026:
Game 3 (4:30 PM): #3 Utah vs #1 Colorado (Home)
Game 4 (7:30 PM): #4 Grand Canyon vs #2 Montana State (Home)

Sunday, Feb 22, 2026:
Game 5 (11:00 AM): Championship Game Rank 2 (Away– 2^nd most wins) vs Rank 1 (Home – most wins)
WWCHL All-Star Team will be announced at the Championship Game

Broadcasts

All 2026 WWCHL Championship games are scheduled to broadcasted on the SkoBuffs Sports Youtube Network.

WWCHL Conference Tournament Rules

The WWCHL Conference rules and regulations are as follows:

All teams will follow official ACHA and WWCHL rules and regulations.
All teams will follow official ACHA game protocol for each game.
In the event of a tie at the end of regulation in a pool play game, there will be one (1) 3v3 overtime period for the duration of five (5) minutes. Goalies switch ends.
If there is no goal in overtime, the pool play game will end in a tie.
In the event of a tie at the end of regulation in a semifinal or championship game, there will be one (1) 3v3 overtime period for the duration of five (5) minutes.
Goalies switch ends. If there is no goal in overtime, there will continue to be 3v3 overtime periods for the duration of five (5) minutes until a goal is scored.

In the event of ties in records in tournament competition, the higher standings will be determined by comparing the tied teams in the following order: