For several years it was the only championship held for lower-tier college programs under the oversight of the NCAA and served as the de facto NCAA national championship until 1978.
ECAC 2 began holding a conference tournament for the 1965–66 season with four teams invited to participate.
When ECAC 2 reached 32 member institutions in 1977–1978, the league elected to stage separate 8–team tournaments for each of its two divisions rather than establishing a single 16–team competition (East and West).
Some schools, however, either had policies that barred them from appearing in national tournaments[1] or were ineligible to appear in a Division II tournament due to being primarily a Division I or Division III school.
This arrangement held for 6 years before the entire Division II level of college hockey collapsed after 1983–84 and ECAC 2 was formally split into two separate conferences the following season.