All member teams in the WCHA were eligible for the tournament and were seeded No. 1 through No. 8 according to the final conference standings. The eight teams were then divided into two separate groups by placing all three teams from Michigan in the east region, held at the Weinberg Coliseum, and all teams west of Minnesota were placed in the west region, held at the DU Arena. The remaining two Minnesota-based universities were divided so that Minnesota went into the east region and Minnesota-Duluth went into the west region. Once each regional group was set the teams were reseeded No. 1 to No. 4 according to their final conference standings. In the Second round the first and fourth seeds and the second and third seeds in each region were matched in a single game with the winners advancing to their regional final games. The winners of the two championship games were declared as co-conference tournament champions.
Conference standings
Note: GP = Games played; W = Wins; L = Losses; T = Ties; PCT = Winning percentage; GF = Goals for; GA = Goals against