I figure I'd just answer the questions posed for now.
Notre Dame is currently in the CCHA, but moves to Hockey East next year. The main reason: the Big Ten sponsors hockey next year because Penn State started a program this year. Therefore, the CCHA disbands and a lot of teams move around.
Air Force basically runs a small program within D-1, and therefore competes against like-minded institutions.
College hockey traditionally schedules weekend homestands... so when Alaska goes to, say, Minnesota, they play Friday AND Saturday night there. Of course, going to Alaska is a major time and financial headache, so the CCHA sought to ease the burden (theoretically) by taking on Alaska so that there aren't schools making one weekend trip to Fairbanks AND one weekend trip to Anchorage almost annually (there's been no way to schedule a clean sort-of-round-robin without doing that to some schools).
However, everything's jumbled next year. Some of the WCHA schools have formed the National Collegiate Hockey Conference with some outliers: Colorado College, Denver, Miami (Ohio), Minnesota-Duluth, Nebraska-Omaha, North Dakota, St. Cloud State, and Western Michigan.
That leaves the WCHA next year with Alabama-Huntsville, Alaska, Alaska-Anchorage, Bowling Green, Ferris State, Lake Superior State, Michigan Tech, Minnesota State, and Northern Michigan. Basically, the NCHC has higher-profile PROGRAMS than the WCHA schools with some possible exceptions (Ferris State went far into the NCAAs last year IIRC).
There's a test later.