Just a few months after the National Collegiate Hockey Conference held its final neutral site postseason tournament at Xcel Energy Center, the hockey people in St. Paul got some good news about another major college tournament coming to town.
On Thursday, officials from the Western Collegiate Hockey Association announced that the 2026 WCHA Final Faceoff will be hosted by the University of St. Thomas and held at the new state-of-the-art Lee & Penny Anderson Arena. The four-team tournament, which crowns the postseason champion in the nation’s premiere women’s hockey conference, will be played on the St. Thomas campus March 5-7, 2026.
“We are excited for the best of the WCHA to be showcased at the brand-new state-of-the-art Lee & Penny Anderson Arena in 2026 on the University of St. Thomas campus,” said league commissioner Michelle McAteer, in a statement. “The staff from St. Thomas is committed to providing a first-class experience for our student-athletes and fans. The facility will soon be one of the most impressive in college hockey, and this event will help put it on the map.”
The four teams advancing to the tournament will be determined by a quartet of best-of-three series which begin on Feb. 27. The tournament winner receives the WCHA’s automatic bid into the 11-team NCAA women’s tournament.
This will be the first time hosting the tournament for St. Thomas, which is the newest member of the eight-team conference. Ridder Arena in Minneapolis has hosted the Final Faceoff 17 times, with Bloomington, Blaine, Duluth, Bemidji and Grand Forks, N.D., also hosting the tournament since the inaugural event in 2000.
Wisconsin won the 2025 WCHA tournament, beating the Gophers in Duluth on the way to the Badgers besting conference rival Ohio State in the NCAA title game.
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