Well, it’s finally official!

Today, the National Collegiate Hockey Conference announced its first television deal with CBS who has been providing tremendous coverage of college hockey over the past several years. The deal calls for a minimum of 18 conference games as well as the league’s semifinal and championship tournament contests — wherever they may be held.

This is terrific news for Miami fans as regular season away series become much more difficult as road trips to Bowling Green, Ann Arbor and Columbus are replaced with flights to Colorado Springs, Denver and Grand Forks.

Here is an excerpt from the release over at DenverPioneers.com

CBS Sports Network has agreed to a multi-year agreement with the new National Collegiate Hockey Conference, beginning in the 2013-14 season. CBS Sports Network will be the exclusive national television partner for the conference, which will feature eight of the nation’s top college hockey programs.  The announcement was made today by Dan Weinberg, Senior Vice President, Programming, CBS Sports Network, and Jim Scherr, Commissioner of the National.

The agreement calls for a minimum of 18 conference games, including the National’s semifinal and championship contests. Currently six teams that will be in the new conference are ranked in the USCHO.com Top 20 poll.

“With top teams and passionate fan bases, the National is poised to be an elite college hockey conference, and we’re thrilled to be the national television partner,” said Weinberg. “College hockey has been a staple of our programming and we’re pleased to expand our coverage and further serve fans with compelling and competitive conference action.”

“We are delighted to be associated with the preeminent national broadcaster of college hockey,” said Scherr. “It is our goal to be the premier single-sport conference in intercollegiate athletics and the unmatched exposure and production quality that will be provided by CBS Sports Network will contribute significantly to realizing that vision.”