Good morning, Las Vegas! 🌞 pic.twitter.com/2gJ2R8TuSq
— Wisconsin Hockey (@BadgerMHockey) April 9, 2026
Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas, the last stop in the 2026 DI men’s hockey season. Four teams remain in the hunt for a championship: Denver, North Dakota, Michigan and Wisconsin. We’ll be on-site all weekend giving you behind-the-scenes coverage and live updates from T-Mobile Arena. Follow along right here on NCAA.com to make sure you catch all the action.
This year’s field is stacked with college hockey blue bloods, with 33 combined national championships between the four teams. Denver is the winningest team all-time with 10 national titles, while Michigan follows closely behind with nine. North Dakota brings eight, and Wisconsin has six. Denver is the most recent champion and the most dominant of the four in recent years with championships in 2017, 2022 and 2024.
🏆 Schools with the most DI hockey championships
Despite its historical success, Michigan has not won a national championship since 1998, when Marty Turco last donned the Maize and Gold. For Wolverine fans, goaltender Jack Ivankovic reminds them of Turks, mismatched pads and all. Maybe he can bring a title back to Ann Arbor.
North Dakota is 10 years removed from its last title, winning in 2016, led by the “CBS line” of Drake Caggiula, Brock Boeser and Nick Schmaltz that terrorized opposing defenses. The current iteration of the Fighting Hawks boasts loads of veteran experience mixed with freshman talent that stifles opponents’ forwards and overwhelms their defensemen — Nodak has outscored opponents 8-0 in its two tournament games so far. Can goalie Jan Špunar and the Hawks keep continue their dominance and bring a trophy back to Grand Forks?
👉 Click or tap to see the interactive bracket
Wisconsin is the odd duck in Vegas — the Badgers are the only team in the field to finish outside of the top-5 in the NPI, and they nearly missed the tournament at the hands of bid stealers in other conferences. But they are here. A 5-1 drubbing of Dartmouth and a stunning third-period comeback over Michigan State shocked the hockey world, punching Wisconsin’s ticket to Las Vegas. Are they playing with house money? Who knows, but the Badgers know they belong here. as they search for lucky title No. 7.
That brings us to Denver. The Pioneers flew under the radar for much of this season, quietly amassing a 27-11-3 record but remaining one of the less-talked about contenders out of the NCHC. But they are once again returning to their rightful place in the NCAA tournament, and from there, David Carle’s squad did what Carle teams do best — win in the playoffs. They shut out Cornell and knocked off the defending champion Western Michigan — handily at that. Freshman goalie Johnny Hicks has yet to lose a game, going 14-0-1 and allowing just 20 goals in 15 games since taking over the starting job.
So here we are in Vegas, the hockey capital of the world in this second weekend in April. To the Badgers, Hawks, Wolverines and Pios: are you feeling lucky?
