The USHL announced Thursday morning its plans to expand from its largely midwestern footprint to the West Coast with plans to add an undetermined number of teams in Arizona, California and Nevada with stakeholders signing a memorandum of understanding to establish said clubs.
The league plans to announce more details on June 24 including team principals, markets and timelines. According to the league’s announcement, the expansion is in continuance with the USHL’s expanded collaboration with the NHL and USA Hockey.
With a current footprint that includes teams in Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa, Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan and Ohio, the USHL’s announcement marks one of the most significant shifts in the league’s history. It’s also the first meaningful expansion in the USHL since the Madison Capitols entered the league in 2014.
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"This expansion is about more than adding teams. It is about expanding opportunity," said USHL President and Commissioner, Glenn Hefferan. "Together with the NHL and USA Hockey, we have committed ourselves to creating the world's premier environment for player development. Bringing the USHL to the western United States allows more players and families to access that experience while further strengthening a pathway that prepares young athletes for success in hockey, in the classroom, and in life.”
The desire to bring Tier I hockey to the Western United States is certainly not new, but it has not had this level of broad support. Lower-tier junior league have long operated in Western markets, but most top level players were forced to leave the region for opportunities further East or in Canada.
THE USHL IS HEADING WEST ⬅️
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Arizona, California, and Nevada are set to welcome new @USHL franchises as the league expands beyond its traditional Midwestern footprint
The NHL and USA Hockey-supported initiative aims to create more opportunities for elite players to develop… pic.twitter.com/ViIsIwzUnQ
Los Angeles Kings president Luc Robitaille has long been a proponent of junior expansion in the west and longtime junior hockey stakeholders Ben Robert and Tom Garrity had announced plans years ago to make this a reality as far back as 2022. At the time, however, they were proposing a new league at the Tier 1 level. This move by the USHL allows the country’s only Tier 1 league to fulfill that void.
“We couldn’t be more excited about the expansion into the West of the USHL. This has been a group effort by multiple parties all with the shared goal of combining our influence to ultimately grow the game of hockey,” said Robitaille in a statement. “I want to commend Tom Garrity and Ben Robert for their vision and perseverance as well as thank our NHL team partners in Anaheim and San Jose. Similar to the success we saw with American Hockey League (AHL) expansion almost a decade ago, this will create a whole new competitive layer to the western region that will allow junior level players to develop and compete closer to home.”
While the league has not revealed specific markets, Robitaille’s mention of the Kings’ fellow California clubs suggests that there could be further cooperation in those markets.
NHL teams in the U.S. part of the NHL’s Pacific Division have been hard at work building new multipurpose practice facilities in or near their markets. They also have AHL affiliates with nearby facilities as well. There are a number of options for the arenas they can put teams in.
The Kings have a practice arena in El Segundo and their AHL team plays in nearby Ontario. The Ducks have a multi-sheet facility in Irvine, Calif., and their AHL team is located in San Diego. The Sharks recently added on to an existing arena that now houses their AHL team. The Vegas Golden Knights have facilities in Henderson for their AHL team and a multi-sheet practice facility that houses, among other things, UNLV hockey.
Just this year, the Chicago Steel – owned by the same family that owns the Chicago Blackhawks – announced a move into their new arena housed with the Blackhawks’ practice facility.
The move to expand comes amid a seismic shift in the junior and college hockey landscapes. All stakeholders are still exploring the path forward as player movement has never been more frequent and leagues have gained and lost players in droves.
Many of these changes have been precipitated by the NCAA’s decision to drop its restriction on CHL players. That opened an entirely new pool of players to the NCAA teams. With more junior hockey expansion, there will be far more junior hockey teams at the Tier 1 or Major Junior level than there are Division I colleges to support them, which will present challenges.
There’s always the chance that this growing player pool leads to NCAA expansion, but that is far easier said than done at this point as athletics departments find themselves embroiled in arms races in revenue sports like football and basketball.
Additionally, a bill has been introduced in the United States Senate that would potentially impact junior hockey further, as a new rule commonly know as 5-in-5 or 5-for-5 – granting a player a five-year clock to complete their eligibility in the NCAA – could push the timeline up for a number of players that would have otherwise stayed in junior until age 19, 20 or even 21.
The landscape seems to shift by the day, but the USHL’s move to expand to the Western United States is one of the more significant maneuvers among the many changes.This will be very interesting to watch and we’ll all be waiting for more details on June 24 as this new endeavor takes shape.
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