A charter member of the Eastern College Athletic Conference Hockey League and one of only four schools to win back-to-back titles since the inception of the ECAC championship tournament in 1962, St. Lawrence has a long tradition as one of the nation's top Division I ice hockey programs.

The 2007 ECAC Hockey regular season champions and 2009 semifinalists, Saint teams have made 36 appearances in the ECAC tourney, including ten championship game appearances; participated in the NCAA tournament 16 times including two title game appearances; and produced 29 All America Players, seven ECAC Tournament Most Valuable Players, six ECAC Players of the Year, seven Hobey Baker Award finalists and four ECAC Rookies of the Year.

The Saints will enter their 73rd season of intercollegiate competition with an all-time record of 947-804-91 and are riding a streak of 24 straight post-season appearances under head coach Joe Marsh. The Saints have won six ECAC tourney titles and Marsh is the first coach to win five ECAC titles at one school during his career.  St. Lawrence's six tournament titles are second only to Cornell on the all-time list.

The Saint hockey program has had a number of players who advanced to the upper levels of professional hockey. Jamie Baker and Gary Croteau enjoyed long playing careers in the National Hockey League and many other players have gone on to play either in the NHL, various North American professional leagues or European professional hockey.

St. Lawrence has also had some former players who have impacted the National Hockey League in other ways. Two members of the Hockey Hall of Fame, broadcaster/writer Brian McFarlane and former New York Islanders general manager and Florida Panthers president Bill Torrey, were teammates in 1954-55, and were inducted in the same Hall of Fame ceremony a few years ago. The Saint program has also produced former Florida Panthers general manager Mike Keenan, current Pittsburgh Penguins GM Ray Shero, former Phoenix Coyote general manager Mike Barnett, Panthers assistant GM Randy Sexton, and current Montreal Canadiens head coach Jacques Martin plus a number of others who are working as scouts or in management for NHL teams.

The Saints produced back-to-back ECAC Hockey Players of the Year in 2006 and 2007. T.J. Trevleyan was the 2006 winner and Drew Bagnall was the 2007 Player of the Year and also the winner of the Outstanding Defensive Defenseman Award. Both Bagnall and Trevelyan were All America selections and Hobey Baker finalists. Other Saints to win Player of the Year were Eric Anderson '01, who was also a Hobey Baker finalist. Goaltender Eric Heffler '99, Pete Lappin '88 and Daniel Laperriere '92 also earned Player of the Year honors and join Anderson and Burke Murphy '96 as Saint finalists for the Hobey Baker Award, the top individual award in college hockey.

Anderson also earned first team All America honors as a senior. The Saint hockey program's All America list includes 18 players since 1986-87. The list also includes five two-time All Americas in goalie Bill Sloan in 1954 and 1955, defenseman Pat Presley in 1957 and 1959, center Terry Slater in 1960 and 1961, defenseman Arlie Parker in 1961 and 1962 and center Pete Lappin in 1987 and 1988. Parker was the MVP in the first ECAC tourney in 1962 and joins Lappin, who was 1988 MVP, Doug Murray in 1989, Laperriere in 1992, Derek Gustafson in 2000 and Jeremy Symington in 2001 as winners of that award.

In addition to individual success, the Saints have also enjoyed considerable team success. St. Lawrence won the first ECAC championship in 1962, although it was not the first post-season appearance for a Saint hockey team. SLU teams participated in six NCAA tournaments prior to 1962.

The Saint program has had considerable success under the guidance of current head coach Joe Marsh and has earned a post-season berth in each of his seasons behind the bench. Marsh has 12 of the 14 20-or-more win seasons in Saint hockey history and has taken two teams to the NCAA Frozen Four. His teams have won five ECAC titles and the 1999-2000 team became the first in Saint history to win both the regular season and tournament titles. He has been ECAC Coach of the Year three times and won his second Spencer Penrose Award as National Coach of the Year at the end of the 1999-2000 season.

His 1987-88 team, which set a record for wins in a season with a 29-9-0 mark, won the Saints' first ECAC tournament title since 1962 and played in the NCAA championship game, losing 4-3 in overtime to Lake Superior State. His 1999-2000 team earned a trip to the NCAA Frozen Four with a record-setting quadruple overtime win over Boston University in the NCAA quarterfinals as the Saints won 3-2 on Robin Carruthers' goal at 3:53 of the fourth overtime period. That game, the longest in NCAA tournament history, included NCAA tournament records for shots in a game and both goaltenders eclipsed all tournament single-game goaltending records. The Saints lost to Boston College 4-2 in an outstanding semifinal game.

The 2000-2001 Saint team became just the second in SLU history to win back-to-back ECAC titles and make three straight NCAA tournament appearances.