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GRAND FORKS — After 10 years, the National Collegiate Hockey Conference is expanding.

Arizona State will become the ninth member of the NCHC beginning in 2024-25.

NCHC presidents and chancellors voted unanimously to accept the Sun Devils on Sunday night over a Zoom call after a presentation by Arizona State athletic director Ray Anderson. Only six of the eight teams — a three-fourths majority — needed to vote 'yes' for expansion to happen.

"This is a monumental day for our program," Arizona State coach Greg Powers said. "For the growth of college hockey, it's just as monumental. To be accepted as a member into such a tremendous conference like the NCHC with such historic college hockey programs is an honor we will never take for granted."

Arizona State will pay the league a $500,000 entrance fee over three years.

The Sun Devils have been an independent since moving to the Division-I level in 2015-16, but they've been interested in joining the NCHC since the start. They applied in the summer of 2016 — along with Minnesota State-Mankato — but the league opted to remain at eight.

Powers said the initial rejection was for the best.

"The NCHC was still getting started, still getting their house in order, and there was no real reason for them to expand at that point in time," Powers said. "For us, we needed to get our house in order."

The Sun Devils did that.

Arizona State became successful on the ice, reaching the NCAA tournament in 2019. The Sun Devils would have been in the 2020 NCAA tournament, too, had the coronavirus pandemic not wiped out the season.

Last fall, Arizona State opened its new venue, Mullett Arena — a significant upgrade from its first home, Oceanside Ice Arena. Oceanside, built in 1974, seated fewer than 1,000 fans and was outdated.

"We knew we had to prove our way," Anderson said. "We had to prove our case and make our case. We put our head down as an independent and said, 'We will do that.'"

The NCHC started in 2013-14 with eight member schools — UND, Omaha, Denver, Colorado College, Minnesota Duluth, Miami, St. Cloud State and Western Michigan. It quickly became a dominant force in college hockey.

The NCHC has won five of the last seven NCAA national championships — UND in 2016, Denver in 2017, Minnesota Duluth in 2018 and 2019, and Denver again in 2022.

"Over the past 10 years of its existence, the NCHC has solidified its position as the top league for collegiate hockey," UND coach Brad Berry said. "The NCHC’s premier and powerful brand will only be strengthened by the addition of ASU hockey."

Arizona State's entrance means the league will have to alter scheduling models.

The NCHC will keep its league schedule at 24 regular-season games.

It will use a three-team pod setup, where UND will play Minnesota Duluth and St. Cloud State four times per season (one series at each city). The other pods are Western Michigan-Miami-Omaha and Arizona State-Colorado College-Denver.

Teams will play every member outside of their pod in at least one series per season. It will play two non-pod members in two series. The league will rotate which non-pod members each team plays twice.

The postseason tournament format, which also will have to change, has not yet been decided.

The NCHC currently plays a best-of-three quarterfinal series at the site of the higher seed. The winners advance to the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul, where the semifinals and championship are played on back-to-back days. The NCHC has signed to play its semifinals and championship at the Xcel Energy Center for the next two seasons.

"Since its inception, the NCHC has been defined by member institutions with a commitment to nationally competitive hockey programs while providing a first-class student-athlete experience," NCHC commissioner Heather Weems said. "ASU has demonstrated this commitment throughout its program, including the opening of Mullett Arena last fall."

Last season, Miami athletic director David Sayler told the that he was not interested in Arizona State coming to the league.

"I just have no interest in crossing another time zone to play sports," Sayler said in the Q&A. "So if the league is going to continue to push that direction, that is certainly something that would cause us to think differently about what’s going on."

But Miami did come around and vote to accept the Sun Devils.

"Over the course of the last couple months, we had some really good discussions," Weems said. "We were able to demonstrate through our pod scheduling model, there isn't an increase in expenses because of the preferring scheduling within that pod model. I think from an expenses perspective, they probably saw there won't be the impact they saw previously. In the winter months, Arizona Time is on Mountain Time. And there isn't an easier destination to get to, other than probably St. Thomas or the University of Minnesota."

Weems said she spoke to Miami officials after the article came out "about hockey alignment longterm, but there's nothing to report at this point."

According to multiple sources, Miami did not make a push to leave the league at the annual meetings in Florida in April. The league's exit fee is one year of operating expenses, which usually is in excess of $1 million.

The league will go to an odd number of teams for the first time in 2024-25 and no further expansion is imminent.

But Weems said the NCHC is monitoring the landscape and acknowledged changes are always possible.

"We're trying to keep our finger on the pulse," Weems said. "Obviously, we're always looking at what the future looks like. At this point, we have a nine-team membership. We'll be going forward with that until something makes sense that looks different than that. We're at a time with the NCAA landscape where there's a lot of ambiguity and changes happening across the board. Right now, we're confident we have the right nine teams and we'll continue to consider (changes) as we go forward."

It has been a long road for Arizona State to get to this point.

It battled through initial setbacks to get a new arena built, and it had to generate schedules as an independent. The Sun Devils played the pandemic-altered 2020-21 season entirely on the road.

"It's the right time for Arizona State to join a league," Powers said. "It sure seems like it's the right time for the NCHC to expand and include us in the league."

NCHC members reflected Powers' excitement.

"The rise of ASU hockey has been impressive, and this is a tremendous addition to the conference," Omaha athletic director Adrian Dowell said. "The Sun Devils are one of the largest brands in all of college athletics and their accessible location gives the NCHC an even stronger footprint in the West."

Denver coach David Carle added: "The most successful college hockey conference over the last decade just got better with today’s announcement. We look forward to the competition on the ice."