The first version of the CCHA was launched in 1971 by four schools—Bowling Green, Ohio, Ohio State, and Saint Louis. They would add Lake Superior State a year later, but lost the two Ohio schools in 1973. The CCHA recovered from this early blow in 1975 when Ohio State returned and Western Michigan joined for the first time. Saint Louis would stop playing hockey in 1979, but the Billikens were immediately replaced by Ferris State. In the last years of the decade, the CCHA became viewed as a major conference, and by 1980 Northern Michigan, which had joined in 1977, reached the championship game of the NCAA tournament. Later that year, another Ohio school, Miami, joined.