Crab Pot Tournament

The Crab Pot Tournament is a men's college ice hockey tournament hosted annually by the United States Naval Academy. The Midshipmen have competed in every edition of the tournament, with local schools such as the University of Maryland and Towson University being regular participants.
It is the oldest college hockey tournament operating at the non-varsity level and one of the oldest extant tournaments for any level of play.

History

Navy Hockey began as an informal student group in the early 1960s and was officially formed as a club sports team in 1971. In 1975, Steven Gordon became the head coach of the hockey program. Gordon, a former goalie at Northeastern University in the 1970s, had played in the Beanpot tournament in Boston. He and the team created their own version of the competition for the 1977–78 season. The original tournament was slatted to include Ramapo College, the University of Delaware, and Penn State University. Penn State was eventually replaced with Rutgers University.
Crowds of hundreds to thousands regularly attend the two-day tournament at the Naval Academy. In its early years the Crab Pot regularly overlapped with Super Bowl weekend, with the championship game coinciding with the NFL game. This tradition was abandoned in the 1980s and now the tournament regularly takes place in mid-February. Initially the Crab Pot sometimes included varsity NCAA teams. However the majority of the tournament field, and in later years the entirety, has been made up of other non-varsity programs.
The winning team receives the Crab Pot Trophy and has its name hung on a large banner above the ice rink.

Format

The tournament is two rounds over two days, with the first day having all four participants play in semifinal games. The second day features the consolation game and the championship game.

Year-by-year results

Note: If a final standing is not listed in the third column that either means the consolation game did not take place that year or that the information is unavailable.

Statistics

Winning Streaks

This is a list of all occasions where a Crab Pot team has won at least two consecutive championships between years. The current winning streak, if any, is highlighted in chartreuse. Winning streaks with equal numbers of wins are sorted chronologically, with earlier streaks appearing first.
The longest current championship win streak belongs to the U.S. Naval Academy, who has an ongoing streak between 2019 and 2025.

Titles	Team	First Title	Last Title
6	Naval Academy	2019	2025
4	Naval Academy	2011	2014
3	Penn State University	1985	1987
2	Naval Academy	1980	1981
2	C.C.R.I.	1988	1989
2	Eastern Michigan University	1993	1994
2	Naval Academy	1995	1996
2	University at Buffalo	1997	1998
2	Towson University	1999	2000
2	Naval Academy	2002	2003
2	Mercyhurst College	2004	2005
2	Towson University	2017	2018