The1981 NCAA Division I men's ice hockey tournament was the culmination of the1980–81 NCAA Division I men's ice hockey season, the 34th such tournament inNCAA history. It was held between March 19 and 27, 1981, and concluded withWisconsin defeatingMinnesota 6-3. All Quarterfinals matchups were held at home team venues while all succeeding games were played at theDuluth Arena inDuluth, Minnesota.
1981 was the first year that the tournament guaranteed 8 teams to be selected for the championship as opposed the policy put in place in 1977 that gave the selection committee the ability to choose up to 4 additional teams at its discretion (two was the maximum the committee ever choose).
The NCAA permitted 8 teams to qualify for the tournament, four from each region (East and West). From the east theECAC tournament champion and the regular season champions from the two ECAC divisions that did not contain the ECAC champion received automatic bids into the tournament with a fourth at-large bid going to one eastern team. From the west the twoWCHA tournament co-champions and theCCHA tournament champion received automatic bids with a fourth at-large bid going to one western team.
The tournament featured three rounds of play. The two odd-number ranked teams from one region were placed into a bracket with the two even-number ranked teams of the other region. The teams were then seeded according to their ranking. In the Quarterfinals the first and fourth seeds and the second and third seeds playedtwo-game aggregate series to determine which school advanced to the Semifinals. Beginning with the Semifinals all games were played at the Duluth Arena and all series becameSingle-game eliminations. The winning teams in the semifinals advanced to the National Championship Game with the losers playing in a Third Place game.
