EDINA, Minnesota – The Final Five is no more.

The Western Collegiate Hockey Association announced on Tuesday afternoon that starting with next season, its college hockey conference tournament that has been dubbed the Final Five since the 1992-93 season will go through a massive change.

Instead of having four first-round playoff winners – which originally was five, which is where the name came from – advancing to a neutral site for one weekend of single-game semifinals and finals to determine a champion, the entire playoff structure will be played at campus sites.

The first round will essentially remain the same with the top eight teams in the 10-team WCHA advancing to the first round of the playoffs, a best-of-three series played at the home of the higher seed.

After that, things change completely.

Previously, the four winners would travel to either St. Paul, Minnesota, or downstate to Grand Rapids in a single-game elimination tournament to determine who would win the Broadmoor Cup.

The new format will have the four first-round survivors play in another best-of-three series, again at the sites of the two highest remaining seeds. Those two winners will then play a single game at the site of the higher seed for the league championship. The new format will be in place for at least three years.

In a conference call with the media Tuesday afternoon, WCHA President and Men’s Commissioner Bill Robertson said that he felt the new format is “monumental and historic.”

He also said that it will provide better fan access, has potential for increased revenues and could help WCHA teams earn a better Pairwise Ranking, which goes a long ways in determining which teams make it to the NCAA Tournament.

“This current model over three years will assist the conference to better predict revenue streams and expenses,” Robertson said. “For me, personally, I’m excited about this upcoming year.”

Northern Michigan University athletic director Forrest Karr serves as the management council chair for the WCHA men’s league and said the decision was made after a long process.

“WCHA athletic directors and coaches have been vetting various options over the last two years,” Karr said. “The athletic directors voted unanimously to recommend this new format to the presidents after final discussions with coaches on April 25 and 26. The presidents then discussed via conference call and approved the recommendation.”

Karr said that there were many factors that influenced the decision, including decreasing travel and increasing rest for playoff teams, ensuring quality in-arena experiences for student-athletes, increasing the opportunities for more WCHA teams to make the NCAA tournament (through Pairwise), guaranteeing consistent revenue and reducing expenses.

“No tournament format is perfect, but the advantages of this new model far outweigh the disadvantages,” he said. “All 10 athletic directors agree that this plan makes sense and will have a positive impact on our league.”

There was talk for some time about moving the Final Five to a smaller venue such as Duluth, Minnesota, or Green Bay, Wisconsin, and Karr said that it was seriously considered.

“The tournament committee, which includes a small group of athletic directors working alongside conference office staff, gathered detailed information about multiple neutral-site tournament options,” Karr said. “The list was narrowed down to five locations and there was additional analysis and careful consideration of the possibilities. The larger group then discussed these neutral-site options as well as several multiweekend campus site playoff concepts.”

Some may think that this is the WCHA admitting that the league’s once popular tournament isn’t what it used to be. Attendance has dropped steadily since the huge conference realignment of a few years ago where bigger teams left for the Big Ten or the National Collegiate Hockey Conference, but Karr thinks that these new changes could help change that.

“Unfortunately, the number of fans attending neutral-site college hockey tournaments has gone down in recent years, but that doesn’t mean we can’t adapt to the times and ensure a quality playoff experience for student-athletes,” he said.

Ryan Stieg can be reached at 906-228-2500, ext. 246. His email address is rstieg@miningjournal.net.