TheCanada West men's ice hockey tournament is an annual conference championship held between member teams. The tournament champion received an automatic bid to participate in theUniversity Cup tournament.
In 1972, the Western Canadian Intercollegiate Athletic Association (WCIAA) decided to divide itself into two separate conferences due to the sizable area that the conference covered.[1] The Great Plains Athletic Association (GPAA) was created for eastern schools while the western colleges were placed in theCanada West Universities Athletic Association (CWUAA). Originally a five-team league, the conference was soon down to four members whenVictoria dropped its program in 1973.
1984 saw the conference expanded for the first time, addingLethbridge to the league roster. The next season, due to the collapse of the since-renamed Great Plains Athletic Conference's (GPAC) hockey division, Canada West absorbed the three remaining schools. With the conference doubling its size in just two years, the playoff was expanded to include four teams for the first time in 1986. The conference tournament remained unchanged until 1996 when Canada West expanded the format. The league was reorganized into two divisions with three teams from each grouping now qualifying for the playoffs. This came due mostly to three teams failing to make the postseason virtually every season for a decade. From 1986 through '95, Brandon, Lethbridge and UBC combined for a total of three appearances. In 2000, a third place series was instituted for the first time and would be held in years when needed to determine a wild-card berth.
Brandon, after having spent most of its existence dwelling in the conference cellar, decided to suspend its program in 2002. Because the divisions were now lopsided, the league changed the qualifications for the Great Plains third seed; whichever team that finished last in the two divisions had the better record would receive the final spot in the Great Plains bracket. Only once (2007) did the fourth-place Mountain team qualify for the postseason. The very next year, the conference abandoned the divisional format and returned to a singular division. For over a decade, the conference remained a 7-team league. The quarterfinal round was dropped in 2010 but returned three years later whenMount Royal joined.
After the 2020 season, Lethbridge terminated both its men's and women's ice hockey program due to budget cuts.[2] The following season ended up being cancelled due to theCOVID-19 pandemic,[3] however, when the league finally reconvened in the fall of 2021, Canada West had actually grown. The addition ofMacEwan andTrinity Western brought the conference up to its greatest size at nine teams.
Throughout its history, the league had been dominated byAlberta; the Golden Bears have won 29 championships in 51 years of conference play (as of 2024) and gone on to capture 16 national championships, the most in the history ofU Sports.[4]
† Calgary was forced to forfeit 6 games for using an ineligible player. The games were retroactively recorded as 0–1 losses. As a result, UBC gained 4 points in the standings while Lethbridge gained 2.
