The championship served as a capstone for the MIAC season and was used as a final argument for a bid to the Division III NCAA Tournament.
For the first four seasons the tournament had all rounds played as two-game total-goal series but changed to single-elimination for all round beginning with the 1990 tournament.
If the two teams were tied after two games than a 20-minute mini-game was played to determine the winner.
By NCAA regulations mini-games were not counted in the standings and were only used to determine which team advanced.
In 2000 the MIAC was among the conferences to receive the first automatic bids into the D-III championship, formalizing a practice that had already been in place.