The CCHA was disbanded after the 2012–13 season as the result of a conference realignment stemming from the Big Ten Conference (of which three CCHA schools; Michigan, Michigan State, and Ohio State, were primary members) choosing to sponsor Division I ice hockey beginning in the 2013–14 season.

The conference's last game before its hiatus was the final of the 2013 CCHA Men's Ice Hockey Tournament at Joe Louis Arena in Detroit, where Notre Dame beat Michigan 3–1 to win the Mason Cup championship.

On February 18, 2020, seven schools who had applied to leave the WCHA announced they would form a new CCHA for the 2021–22 season, citing a more compact geographic footprint and a desire to improve regional alignment, among other reasons.

St. Thomas, a former D-III school, joined them later that year as the CCHA's newest member as well as the conference's eighth team.

Despite the trouble, the three teams rode out the rough patch and the league began to grow with the addition of Western Michigan and the return of Ohio State.

Michigan State made the tournament in its first three season of CCHA play but it was founding member Bowling Green that won the conference's first national championship in 1984.

[4] On-ice results improved during his tenure, and CCHA teams won six NCAA Division I Men's Ice Hockey Tournament championships.

[9] In addition to the success of the Lakers and Spartans, the Michigan Wolverines began a streak of 22 consecutive tournament appearances in 1991 and won national titles in 1996 and 1998.

[9] While the conference and most of its teams were stable throughout the early 21st century, the CCHA suffered a mortal blow at the end of the decade.

Pennsylvania State University announced on September 17, 2010, the transition of its men's and women's American Collegiate Hockey Association (ACHA) programs to NCAA Division I status in 2012.

[11] Instead, the league was left to deal with the imminent departures of Michigan, Michigan State and Ohio State when the Big Ten Conference disclosed on March 21, 2011, its intention to establish a men's ice hockey circuit to begin play in the 2013–14 season, as the conference now had enough hockey teams to earn an automatic bid in the NCAA tournament for its champion.

[17] Notre Dame accepted an invitation to the Hockey East Association in a press conference on October 5, 2011.

[21] Don Lucia, a former head coach at Alaska, Colorado College, and Minnesota, was named as commissioner of the new CCHA on June 17, 2020.