If only the stock market was as simple as college hockey where there’s one rule when it comes to the sport’s six conferences:

Hold NCHC even in a down year.

This past season was an “off” year for the National Collegiate Hockey Conference, which is home to six of the nation’s last eight NCAA champions — Denver in 2024, 2022 and 2017, Minnesota-Duluth in 2019 and 2018, and North Dakota in 2016. Per College Hockey News, the league’s interconference record at .603 this season lagged behind the Big Ten (.721) and Hockey East (.697).

The league’s trouble in nonconference games proved costly in the PairWise — the rankings used to approximate the process by which the NCAA selection committee chooses which teams receive at-large bids to the 16-team NCAA tournament — as just two NCHC teams made the big dance compared to six teams from Hockey East and four teams from the Big Ten.

But as the college hockey season concludes with the Frozen Four in St. Louis this weekend, both NCHC teams, Denver and Western Michigan, stand tall alongside Hockey East’s Boston University and the Big Ten’s Penn State.

In the NCAA regionals March 27-30, the Broncos earned a pair of 2-1 victories over Massachusetts and Minnesota State, while the defending champion Pioneers beat Providence 5-1, then became the first-ever team to win an NCAA championship rematch in a subsequent season, defeating Boston College 3-1.

Western Michigan and Denver will meet in a rematch of the NCHC Championship game on Thursday at 3 p.m., guaranteeing at least one team from the league will advance to the final.

“I believe it’s the best conference in college hockey. We always say iron sharpens iron and playing each other every day and every weekend certainly prepares us for the national tournament,” Western Michigan coach Pat Ferschweiler said. “What happened this year is there were some early-season losses out of conference. And that affects the rest of the year. Most people probably don’t know that every game you play in college hockey is a playoff game essentially because you’re setting the tone for your conference. Everything affects the PairWise.”

Denver, who entered the season as both the defending league and national champions, earned a scorching 12-0 start to the season. While the Pioneers swept just three of their nine weekends after Jan 1., coach David Carle said his team learned valuable lessons during the second half of the season.

“To only get two teams in (the tournament), I think is vastly disappointing for anyone that you talk to in our league,” he said. “Are we happy that us and Western played well enough and found our way into the Frozen Four? Absolutely. Do we think we’re two of the best four teams in the country? Yes we do. And do we think our league helped us? Absolutely. I think how hard (Colorado College) played us. I think back to those five games prior to the NCHC Frozen Faceoff, I think that was huge for us. Just to get pushed physically, mentally. To have to grind through that and try to end a team’s season was really challenging.”

Thursday will reveal if the Pioneers learned from their NCHC championship game loss to Western Michigan. After trailing 3-0 to begin the third period, the Broncos rallied to force overtime, and first-line winger Alex Bump netted a game-winner 22 seconds into double overtime to dethrone the Pioneers.

Denver’s senior top-line winger Jack Devine doesn’t want to see the same team end the Pioneers’ NCAA tournament run as well.

“Blowing a three-goal lead like that, you don’t forget, especially in a championship game. It definitely left a sour taste in our mouth, he said. “We know it’s going to be a challenge, but I definitely think it’s a challenge we’re up for, it’s a challenge we’re ready, been working all year. I think this group showed last weekend we’re one of the best teams in the country.”