| Year: | 1979 |
| Gender: | men's |
| Division: | Division I |
| Teams: | 5 |
| Frozenfourarena: | Olympia Stadium |
| Frozenfourcity: | Detroit, Michigan |
| Champions: | Minnesota Golden Gophers |
| Titlecount: | 3rd |
| Champgamecount: | 7th |
| Champffcount: | 8th |
| Runnerup: | North Dakota Fighting Sioux |
| Gamecount: | 5th |
| Runnerffcount: | 7th |
| Semifinal1: | Dartmouth Big Green |
| Frozenfourcount: | 3rd |
| Semifinal2: | New Hampshire Wildcats |
| Frozenfourcount2: | 2nd |
| Coach: | Herb Brooks |
| Coachcount: | 3rd |
| Mop: | Steve Janaszak |
| Mopteam: | Minnesota |
| Attendance: | 13,859 |
The 1979 NCAA Division I men's ice hockey tournament was the culmination of the 1978–79 NCAA Division I men's ice hockey season, the 32nd such tournament in NCAA history. It was held between March 18 and 24, 1979, and concluded with Minnesota defeating North Dakota 4–3. The first-round game was held at the home team venue while all succeeding games were played at the Olympia Stadium in Detroit, Michigan.
The NCAA gave four teams automatic bids into the tournament. The two ECAC teams that reached the ECAC tournament final received bids as did the two WCHA co-champions. The NCAA also had the ability to add up to 4 additional teams as it saw fit and chose to include the CCHA tournament champion as well.
| East | West | |||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Seed | School | Conference | Record | Berth type | Appearance | Last bid | Seed | School | Conference | Record | Berth type | Appearance | Last bid | |
| 1 | New Hampshire | ECAC Hockey | 22–8–3 | Tournament champion | 2nd | 1977 | 1 | North Dakota | WCHA | 29–10–1 | Tournament co-champion | 7th | 1968 | |
| 2 | Dartmouth | ECAC Hockey | 18–8–2 | Tournament finalist | 3rd | 1949 | 2 | Minnesota | WCHA | 29–11–1 | Tournament co-champion | 8th | 1976 | |
| At-Large | ||||||||||||||
| Seed | School | Conference | Record | Berth type | Appearance | Last bid | ||||||||
| A | Bowling Green | CCHA | 37–5–2 | Tournament champion | 3rd | 1978 | ||||||||
The four automatic qualifiers were seeded according to pre-tournament finish. The ECAC champion was seeded as the top eastern team while the WCHA co-champion that finished highest in the regular season was given the top western seed. The second eastern seed was slotted to play the top western seed and vice versa. Because an at-large bid was offered to a western school they were placed in a first-round game with the second western seed to determine the final semifinalist. The first-round game was played at the home venue of the second seed while all succeeding games were played at the Olympia in Detroit, Michigan. All matches were Single-game eliminations with the semifinal winners advancing to the national championship game and the losers playing in a consolation game.
[2] Note: * denotes overtime period(s)
| Scoring summary | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Period | Team | Goal | Assist(s) | Time | Score | |||
| 1st | align=center style="color:white; background:#862334; " | MIN | Steve Christoff | Verchota | align=center | 4:11 | align=center | 1–0 MIN |
| align=center style="color:white; background:#862334; " | MIN | John Meredith | Strobel and Ulseth | align=center | 8:05 | align=center | 2–0 MIN | |
| align=center style=";" | UND | Bill Himmelright – PP | Taylor and Maxwell | align=center | 17:10 | align=center | 2–1 MIN | |
| align=center style="color:white; background:#862334; " | MIN | Joe Baker | Micheletti and Broten | align=center | 19:22 | align=center | 3–1 MIN | |
| 2nd | align=center style=";" | UND | Kevin Maxwell | Eades and Taylor | align=center | 38:02 | align=center | 3–2 MIN |
| 3rd | align=center style="color:white; background:#862334; " | MIN | Neal Broten – GW | Christoff and Larson | align=center | 42:48 | align=center | 4–2 MIN |
| align=center style=";" | UND | Marc Chorney | Burggraf and Taylor | align=center | 49:56 | align=center | 4–3 MIN | |
| Shots by period | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Team | 1 | 2 | 3 | T | ||||||
| align=center style="color:white; background:#862334; " | Minnesota | align=center | 16 | align=center | 8 | align=center | 11 | align=center | 35 | |
| align=center style=";" | North Dakota | align=center | 9 | align=center | 11 | align=center | 8 | align=center | 28 | |
| Goaltenders | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Team | Name | Saves | Goals against | Time on ice | |||||
| align=center style="color:white; background:#862334; " | MIN | align=center | 25 | align=center | 3 | align=center | |||
| align=center style=";" | UND | align=center | 13 | align=center | 3 | align=center | |||
| align=center style=";" | UND | align=center | 17 | align=center | 1 | align=center | |||
* Most Outstanding Player(s)[3]