The Toronto Varsity Blues hold the record of 5 consecutive championship trophy wins, from 1969 through 1973, but have not returned to the tournament since 1993, when they suffered the second most lopsided loss in a UCup final, 12–1.

[1] The cup is meant to recognize the overall contribution made to the game of hockey by outstanding university players.

The original University Cup is located at the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto and does not travel publicly.

Between 2006 and 2015, the trophy has been modified after several repairs - the metal bowl is now of simpler design, and mounts more flush to the main wooden portion.

Unfortunately, this new arrangement meant that whichever team lost the quarterfinal round would only play a single game.

For several years afterwards, teams that lost in either the quarterfinal or semifinal rounds would play one another to determine the final three places in the tournament.

The early 1970s saw three leagues in the middle of the country dissolve with all associated teams resorted into two provincial conferences for Ontario and Quebec.

As a result, the tournament entrants were reduced back to four teams and allowed the University Cup to eliminate both the quarterfinal round and the consolation bracket in 1972.

[7] An arrangement was made with the two new conferences (Canada West and GPAC) to allow the champions of both leagues entry into the University Cup, however, rather than play individual league championships, the two would send their regular season champions to the tournament site to play a quarterfinal match during the same time that the other three conference were holding their respective playoffs.

Additionally, instead of bringing the consolation bracket back, both the quarterfinal and semifinal rounds were converted into best of three series, guaranteeing that all participating teams would play at least two games.

Due to the expanded nature of the tournament, the regional rounds were held at the home venue of one of the qualifying teams.

One team from each region (East and West) would advance to the semifinal round, however, seeding was not determined ahead of time.

Instead, the bracket was arranged so that the East and West champion would play one of the two host conference teams in a semifinal first round.

The qualifying schools were selected by one of three ways: The Host (Alberta) was seeded first and received a bye into the semifinal round.

The final two wild-card spots would then go to the runners-up from the AUAA and OUAA and arranged so that there would not be intra-conference matches in the quarterfinal round.

The QUAA was the only conference not to receive a second bye due to the fact that the league had been pared down to just five schools at the time.

However, this format lasted just one season before the OUAA absorbed QUAA, leaving just three active senior collegiate leagues.

The three conference champions and OUA Queen's Cup Runner-up would automatically be included with the fifth spot as a rotating 'wild-card' team.

The wild-card selection was initially chosen based on a static rotation through each conference starting with the AUS in 1998 followed by the OUA and CW, repeating on a tri-year cycle.

Starting in 2015, the tournament expanded from six to eight teams and moved from a two-pool format to a single-elimination competition (quarter-finals, semifinals and gold-medal final plus a bronze-medal game).

The remaining teams are seeded 5–7, all based on the pre-tournament Top 10 Ranking Poll with the expectation that the host is likely 8th.

The other province missing from this list, Newfoundland and Labrador, had not yet hosted yet when it withdrew from varsity men's hockey after the 1981–82 season.

[13] He helped create the national university ice hockey championship tournament, which was hosted by RMC for its first two years (1963 and 1964).