Even headed into a season when many expect Colorado College to struggle in the National Collegiate Hockey Conference, there is a recipe in place for building a league- and national championship-caliber team.

With the parity that has developed in the past decade, that should provide hope to Tiger fans that their programs will be back and perhaps, contending in the NCAA Tournament. But it will take time, Tigers coach Mike Haviland has said.

When Providence won the national championship in April, it was the fourth time in five years a different program won its first in men’s ice hockey. In 2011, Minnesota-Duluth, which took fourth place in the Western Collegiate Hockey Association, won it all. Yale followed in 2013 with Union in 2014.

Clearly this is an era of parity. Denver was the last back-to-back champion in 2004 and 2005.

The growth of American hockey is a likely cause. With only 60 Division I programs and an average of 26 players on each roster, the number of roster spots has stayed about the same while the number of college-caliber players has increased dramatically, according to College Hockey Inc. The number of American youth hockey players has doubled in the past 25 years, according to USA Hockey, due to continued expansion into nontraditional geographic areas by the NHL.

How does that help a rebuilding program like CC, which last won it all in 1950 and 1957?

The players are available. It is just a matter of finding the right mix – depth and talent – coupled with a little luck. It isn’t a matter of stockpiling NHL draft picks – which is good news for the National Collegiate Hockey Conference program – though having that much talent typically gets a team into the NCAAs every year.

It takes the right mix to succeed at any level, Haviland said, including in the American Hockey League. It is one of the reasons the longtime pro coach believes he is laying the foundation for a national championship team now.

“Right now, we are bringing in older players with good hockey IQs to set the foundation and set the tone on what this program is all about so when the younger players come in, everything is in place,” he said. “You have a lot of younger draft picks and players like that but you need to that core group of veterans to lead the team. That takes time.”

Air Force director of hockey operations Steve Miller knows what it takes to win a national title. He was an assistant with Denver when it repeated under coach George Gwozdecky and again in 2015 as a Providence assistant under Nate Leaman.

It was Leaman’s recruits who won the 2014 Union championship with a mix of NHL talent and a number of mid-level players who developed over the course of four years into good college players. Having good 24-year-olds taking on more heralded 19-years-olds often works in favor of the less-regarded team, much like Air Force versus Michigan in 2009.

For other programs, it comes down to improving your four-year players and adding some who stay in college for only one or two years, Miller said. Boston University, which placed second to Providence after doing poorly the previous season, pointed to improvements to its depth players thanks to better weight training.

That readied them for when Hobey Baker award winner Jack Eichel arrived on campus.

“We know that now is when we have to do the work so we can turn things around,” CC junior captain Sam Rothstein said this summer.

That development makes the right mix possible, Miller said.

“I always believed you bring in guys who can hit doubles and hope a few develop into triple and home run hitters,” Miller said. “But first and foremost, you have to have the goalie. It’s the Leaman model and it worked at Yale too. You have lot of older, good players who provide depth and a sprinkling of NHL talent like (former Providence goalie Jon) Gillies that puts you over the top.”

If you are contending for league championships, you have a chance at an NCAA title in this era of parity. It is something CC loyalists can look to for hope even if this season proves difficult.

“It will take a couple years of laying that foundation,” Haviland said. “That’s a process that takes some time. The high-end players are out there. And we are finding them.”