It's no secret that the hockey landscape is always changing. On Monday, a new change was made clear.
USA Hockey announced the first clubs invited to the new USA Hockey Development League on its Next Gen Podcast. Host Dave Fisher sat down with Bob Mancini, assistant executive director of hockey development for USA Hockey, and Scott Paluch, who will serve as the first Development League commissioner.
They announced the first 29 programs to be invited to begin in the Development League, which will start in the fall of 2027.
Locally, Mid Fairfield, the Boston Junior Eagles, Mount St. Charles and Seacoast Performance Academy were all extended invitations. They were the only New England-based programs to do so.
Other programs like BK Selects, Buffalo Junior Sabres, North Jersey Avalanche and the Woodbridge Wolfpack got invitations, too. The complete list of invites can be found here.
So, what is this league?
Each selected program will field one 15U team and one 17U team. Sixty percent of its regular season slate will be against other Development League opponents. Scheduling will be consistent across all teams and they will compete for a Development League title at season's end, according to Paluch.
The podcast emphasized that the Development League was born out of inconsistencies in Tier 1 leagues around the country.
"USA Hockey really had a need to redefine the high-performance development pathway," Mancini said. "We recognized that there was no real clear direction for the top two percent of players in the U.S. especially at the 14-17 age group. We had to have programming in place so players and their parents could understand what that path may be.
"In parts of the United States where high school and prep school dominate the landscape, that path is very clear and has been very successful. But for a large part of the country that has Tier 1 hockey, the path wasn't so clear. We had too many programs at the top. USA Hockey recognized right away that if we could redefine the pathway and show them a true American pathway, hockey at every level would be better."
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According to Mancini, over 80 programs submitted applications to be part of the Development League. A committee picked those who got in, looking at different factors like team performance, history of player advancement, the facilities available to those clubs, stability and geographic location.
"Marrying all of those with a geographic footprint that makes sense for our country right now," Paluch said on the podcast.
On the Next Gen Podcast, Mancini emphasized the similarities to the U.S. National Team Development Program. The NTDP was about training the very best players for the NHL and national hockey.
To him, the Development League was the next logical step.
"I expect the Development League to have the same impact on USA Hockey, youth hockey and junior hockey as the NTDP does and the [American Development Model] does," he said. "I believe it will have that kind of impact."
One thing Mancini pointed to was that when the NTDP began in 1996, junior hockey in the United States wasn't all that great. But over time, as the NTDP grew and became more successful, so, too, did junior hockey leagues like the USHL and NAHL.
"Because USA Hockey put resources behind the NTDP, every program around them saw that and raised their level," Mancini said. "To me, that may have been the biggest impact. I expect the same thing to happen with the Development League."
That means the 50-plus programs that weren't on the initial list of entrants will be expected to improve in ways that help them compete with the 29 clubs in the Development League and potentially earn entry in future seasons.
The committee that picked the 29 teams is already thinking about expansion. But that will ultimately come down to how USA Hockey grows.
"I can't be more excited to see the future of youth hockey in our country," Paluch said.
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The NTDP came along in 1996 and transformed USA Hockey. Then, in 2009, the American Development Model was born, and that transformed USA Hockey, too.
The vibe from this announcement: the Development League is the next initiative to transform USA Hockey. That remains to be seen.
