All Quarterfinals matchups were held at home team venues, while all succeeding games were played in Superior, Wisconsin.
The NCAA began offering automatic bids to conference tournament champions for the first time.
This was because the MCHA had a Division II program who participated in their conference tournament; both ECAC East and ECAC Northeast had Division II members as well but none of those team participated in their respective conference tournaments.
Despite being in Division III since 1973, ECAC Northeast received its first entry into the national tournament.
No formal seeding was used while quarterfinal matches were arranged so that the road teams would have the shortest possible travel distances.