[1] Hamilton Tech began sponsoring ice hockey as a varsity sport in 1960 when they helped found the Ontario Training College Conference.
[2] Two years later, Hamilton Tech and Western Ontario Tech left to join the Ontario Intercollegiate Athletic Association as that conference was seeking to promote itself to the senior level of Canadian college hockey.
It took two years for the OIAA to gain the recognition it was seeking and Hamilton played its first season of tier-1 hockey in 1964–65.
Hamilton Tech continued on while the changes were being finalized and its team remained an official member of the OIAA.
The newly rechristened Mohawk Mountaineers left the OIAA and returned to the Intermediate level.