The East Coast Collegiate Hockey Association (ECCHA) was an ACHA college ice hockey conference in the Southeast region of the United States.
The ECCHA was created in August 2001 as Blue Ridge Hockey Conference or BRHC by eight collegiate hockey programs in Virginia and North Carolina. It was originally created as an ACHA Division III spin-off of the Atlantic Coast Collegiate Hockey League (ACCHL), which competed at the Division II level. The original intent of the BRHC was to house newer and/or less organized programs until they demonstrated enough success to be promoted to the ACCHL. However, after a few years, the BRHC separated from the ACCHL and became its own stand-alone league.
The BRHC has advanced four of its members to the ACHA National Tournament since 2003.
As of the summer of 2017, the BRHC was restructured to form the East Coast Collegiate Hockey Association with the intent to improve the quality of its brand of ACHA Division III hockey in the mid-Atlantic and Southern region. The league transitioned back into the ACCHL for the start of the 2019âÂÂ2020 season.
The last year as BRHC, in 2017, conference's membership had tripled since 2007, making it the largest collegiate hockey conference in the United States.
Colonial Division
Atlantic Division- North Region
Atlantic Division- South Region
The championship tournament is held every year on the third weekend of February. In 2015 it was held at Chilled Ponds in Chesapeake, Virginia.