[2] Efforts to organize an ice hockey team at New Hampshire College of Agriculture and the Mechanic Arts date to the early 1910s.

The first UNH ice hockey team considered part of varsity history played in January and February 1925.

[6] A year later, under the stewardship of Ernest Christensen, UNH played its first home game on a local rink, an outdoor facility that was dependent on cold weather for its surface.

[6] In 1938, Christensen retired and the team eventually came under the tutelage of Anthony Dougal, but his tenure was suspended in 1943 due to the outbreak of World War II.

The team finally returned to the ice in January 1947, with Dougal remaining for one year before handing the program over to Joseph Petroski.

The Wildcats made their first NCAA appearance in 1977 and captured their first Conference championship two years later, but no matter how good Holt's teams were national success continued to elude him.

In his first year the team saw marginal improvement but that summer Kullen was diagnosed with a rare form of heart disease that necessitated a transplant and his missing an entire season to recuperate.

[9] Dave O'Connor served as the interim head coach for 1987–88 allowing Kullen to return in the fall of '88.

In two years New Hampshire saw its wins total improve to 12 and then 17 but by 1990 Kullen started rejecting his new heart and was forced to resign.

In Umile second season New Hampshire made the NCAA tournament for the first time in almost a decade and retroactively finished first in the conference after Maine was forced to forfeit 13 games.

The following year the Wildcats made the Frozen Four for the first time in 16 years and then reached even higher in 1999. in the penultimate year of the millennium the Wildcats won 30 games for the first time, establishing a still-record of 31 victories (as of 2019), winning their second conference title (first outright) and were led by sophomore goaltender Ty Conklin and senior center Jason Krog, the latter won the NCAA scoring title by 16 points and captured the Hobey Baker Award (UNH's only recipient as of 2019).

Despite losing in the Hockey East tournament finale The team received the #2 overall seed and a bye into the second round.

The Wildcats defeated two Michigan schools to reach their first national championship game where they would ultimately fall in overtime to conference rival Maine.

He was beloved by the students and staff and holds the record for most games attended including hockey, football, baseball and basketball.