The NCAA Women's Ice Hockey Committee is recommending a date-formula change for the Women's Frozen Four that the group believes will enhance an already successful event.

Meeting June 8-11 in San Francisco, the women's committee voted to ask the Division I Championships/Competition Cabinet to approve a change in format that would move the 2007 Women's Frozen Four from March 23 and 25 to March 16 and 18. This would put the event a week before the Division I men's ice hockey regionals and reduce conflicts that may arise by having the events on the same weekend.

The Division I Men's Ice Hockey Committee also conducted its annual meeting in San Francisco and discussed ways to provide a more fan-friendly championship event.

Beginning next year, the starting time for the Men's Frozen Four semifinals will be 2 p.m. and 7 p.m., rather than noon and 6 p.m. as it has been in the past. This will mean less downtime for fans between games, as well as making it easier on the student-athletes, who rarely play that early during their regular season. The final will still take place at 7 p.m.

The 2005 Men's Frozen Four will be at the Schottenstein Center April 7 and 9 at Ohio State University.

The men's committee also discussed tentative start times for the four regional sites for next year's championships. The 2005 regional sites are: Worcester and Amherst, Massachusetts; Grand Rapids, Michigan; and Minneapolis. The games at Worcester and Grand Rapids will be March 25 and 26, and the Amherst and Minneapolis games are March 26 and 27.

Start times will be staggered to allow for maximum television coverage and to allow fans in and around Massachusetts to see all six games at both sites in that state.

The committee also approved another fan-friendly proposal to either allow re-entry between games or issue tickets for individual games, rather than issue tickets for the event as a whole. This will allow fans to leave the venue between games. The committee acknowledged that the events can be more than six hours long and the change will allow fans more flexibility.

Also next year, the committee voted to allocate 600 tickets, rather than 500, to institutions playing in the Frozen Four.

The men's committee plans to solicit bids in September from institutions interested in hosting the Frozen Four between 2009 and 2011 and the regionals between 2008 and 2011. The deadline for written bids will be March 1. Those institutions selected for in-person interviews will be invited to present their bid at the 2005 committee meeting June 7-10 in Indianapolis. After the presentations, a site recommendation will be forwarded to the Division I Championships/Competition Cabinet for final approval.

In other action, the men's committee recommended that the cabinet approve a proposal to allow representatives from non-Division I schools that sponsor ice hockey at the Division I level to serve on the committee. About half of the schools that play Division I ice hockey are not in that division for other sports. The committee would still have a majority of its members -- at least four of six -- come from Division I core institutions.

The group also selected Wayne Dean, associate director of athletics at Yale University, as chair of the committee beginning September 1. He replaces Ronald Grahame, associate director of athletics at the University of Denver, who has served as chair since September 2003.

Women's committee actions

In addition to recommending a date change for the 2007 Women's Frozen Four, the women's ice hockey committee also discussed pending bracket expansion.The committee has requested that the bracket increase from four to eight teams in 2005, and the Executive Committee is expected to make a final decision on expansion in August.

The committee also voted to make a slight change in one of the selection criteria for the Women's Frozen Four. The proposal, which must be approved by the Division I Championships/Cabinet, counts as one of the criteria, "Results against teams at .500 or above in the Rating Percentage Index." Previously, the criteria has been, "Results again teams at .500 or above in the winning percentage."

The committee also selected Steve Metcalf, associate athletics director at the University of New Hampshire, as its next chair. He replaces Carolyn Campbell-McGovern, senior associate athletics director of the Ivy Group, whose term expires in September.