1987 NCAA Division I Men's Ice Hockey Tournament


The 1987 NCAA Men's Division I Ice Hockey Tournament was the culmination of the 1986–87 NCAA Division I men's ice hockey season, the 40th such tournament in NCAA history. It was held between March 20 and 28, 1987, and concluded with North Dakota defeating Michigan State 5-3. All Quarterfinals matchups were held at home team venues while all succeeding games were played at the Joe Louis Arena in Detroit, Michigan.

Qualifying teams

The NCAA permitted 8 teams to qualify for the tournament and divided its qualifiers into two regions. Each of the tournament champions from the four Division I conferences received automatic invitations into the tournament with At-large bids making up the remaining 4 teams, 1 from each conference.

Format

The tournament featured three rounds of play. The two odd-number ranked teams from one region were placed into a bracket with the two even-number ranked teams of the other region. The teams were then seeded according to their ranking. In the Quarterfinals the first and fourth seeds and the second and third seeds played two-game aggregate series to determine which school advanced to the Semifinals. Beginning with the Semifinals all games were played at the Joe Louis Arena and all series became Single-game eliminations. The winning teams in the semifinals advanced to the National Championship Game with the losers playing in a Third Place game.

Tournament Bracket

Note: * denotes overtime period

Quarterfinals

(E1) Boston College vs. (W4) Minnesota

(E2) Harvard vs. (W3) Bowling Green

(W1) North Dakota vs. (E4) St. Lawrence

(W2) Michigan State vs. (E3) Maine

Semifinal

(W1) North Dakota vs. (E2) Harvard

(W2) Michigan State vs. (W4) Minnesota

Third Place Game

(E2) Harvard vs. (W4) Minnesota

National Championship

(W1) North Dakota vs. (W2) Michigan State

[List of [NCAA Division I Men's Ice Hockey All-Tournament Teams|All-Tournament Team]]

* Most Outstanding Player