The 2020-21 hockey season is set to begin next week in the New England region. With the Boston Bruins in the midst of yet another Stanley Cup run, junior hockey and youth hockey in the six New England states are ready for go time.
Split-season and full-season Midget and Bantam teams will take to the ice for the first time this season next Monday and Tuesday at the River Rats Jamboree. The following weekend will be the first marquee event on the calendar with the Eastern Alliance Labor Day Tournament.
The showcases and tournaments set for the end of August and September won’t be void of challenges. Many of the events, usually set for Massachusetts at rinks in Marlboro, Canton, Foxboro and Attleboro, have been moved to sheets in Connecticut and New Hampshire.
Some split-season Midget teams will be without star players, some of whom have chosen to move on to the USHL, due to the coronavirus impacting the prep school hockey routine. Some boarding schools are prohibiting or limiting players’ ability to travel off campus this fall. There’s also the real concern that prep schools might not play a full schedule. All of that has added up to some players not returning to prep who otherwise would have.
Junior hockey teams in the region will wait a little longer to start, but both the USPHL National Collegiate Development Conference (NCDC) and EHL are slated to begin competition in September. Puck drop on the EHL regular season is set for Friday, Sept. 18, while the USPHL NCDC gets things under way four days later.
Players and coaches are eager to hit the ice. What should further excite scouts, fans and college coaches throughout the region is the potential for the USPHL NCDC to be better than it has since the glory days of the EJHL.
USPHL NCDC teams should benefit from American players finding it difficult to cross the border and play in the BCHL or AJHL. Further, with the uncertainty of college hockey, many players have returned to the USHL who otherwise would have moved on by now. The trickle-down effect should mean better players in the NCDC.
While the NCDC still has a ways to go to live up to the lofty standards of the mid- to late 2000s in the EJHL, everyone involved in hockey in New England should be rooting for the league to improve. That should happen in 2020-21.
There are 13 teams in the NCDC: Boston Advantage, Boston Junior Bruins, Islanders Hockey Club, New Hampshire Jr. Monarchs, P.A.L. Jr. Islanders, Rockets Hockey Club, Twin City Thunder, Connecticut Jr. Rangers, Jersey Hitmen, Northern Cyclones, Philadelphia Hockey Club, South Shore Kings, Utica Jr. Comets.
