The fledgling National Collegiate Hockey Association is adding another new twist in its inaugural campaign.



The league announced today that it will implement the use of post-overtime shootouts to award an extra point for regular-season conference games.



"The conference office and our member institutions are committed to engaging our fans in ways that provide them excitement in our home venues," said commissioner Josh Fenton. "The use of a shootout ... will make for an exciting race to determine the NCHC regular season champion. We are confident our passionate fans will enjoy this aspect of the game in similar ways to how it is embraced in the National Hockey League."



The NCHC board of directors unanimously approved the use of a shootout to decide outcomes after the NCAA standard five-minute, sudden-death overtime period has expired. Any game that uses a shootout will be officially recorded as a tie within the overall record of each team. Each team's Pairwise ranking will be calculated with the result officially recorded as a tie.



The shootout will feature three players pre-selected by each team following the conclusion of overtime. The team that scores the most goals among the three shooters will be declared the winner. Should the shootout be tied at the conclusion of the initial three shooters, a sudden- death round with one shooter from each team will commence until a winner is declared. Goaltenders will remain on the same ends of the ice for the shootout as they were for the five-minute overtime period.



Read complete NCHC release