NorPac suspends four hockey clubs
The NorPac junior hockey league
suffered a major shakeup last week when four of the 12 teams were
suspended for the upcoming season. The Missoula Maulers, Bozeman
Icedogs, Helena Bighorns and the Billings Bulls have each been
banned from play for the upcoming season, the league reports.
The decision leaves the league with
only two teams in Montana, the Butte Roughriders and the upstart
Glacier Nationals in Whitefish. The other six teams are in Seattle,
Bremerton, Wash., Vancouver, Wash., Eugene, Ore., Medford, Ore.,
and Cody, Wyo. Great Falls was slated to join the league this
winter but the NorPac website makes no mention of the team.
The four suspended clubs were in
negotiations with NorPac to start and join another league in the
region, according to Nationals owner Butch Kowalka. USA Hockey shot
down the idea because they have a moratorium on starting any new
leagues. The idea was tabled until 2012-2013 and the four teams
were under contact to not pursue the new league until then.
“Those four teams went for it anyway,”
Kowalka said.
That’s when NorPac suspended them from
playing this coming winter.
Kowalka says those teams are not only
putting their own players at risk of not playing any hockey this
year, but they’re also causing financial strife for the rest of the
NorPac.
“There are going to be some significant
travel expenses,” he said.
The eight teams moving forward will
play a full cross schedule. Glacier will play all of the teams at
home three times, then three more times away.
Kowalka was never approached by any of
the owners of the four suspended teams about joining the new
league.
“It’s not like we chose the NorPac,”
Kowalka said. “They left us out deliberately. They have not
approached me one single bit.”
He said there are a lot of teams
talking about leaving USA Hockey, partly due to insurance reasons.
Still, he doesn’t understand why the four suspended teams didn’t
wait out the one-year moratorium so they could legally pursue
starting another league.
He suspects the teams will join a U-18
league this winter. NorPac is for players 16-20 years old.
Despite the league shake up, the
Nationals franchise is nearly a done deal except for a final stamp
of approval from USA Hockey. The team’s first player is expected to
sign as early as this week and Jason Quinn was hired as the head
coach.
Quinn has worked with the TriCity
Americans, Vancouver Giants and Portland WinterHawks. He coached in
the NorPac with the Butte Rough Riders and was a scout for the
Helena Big Horns.
The Nationals team bus has been
purchased, a website was launched, and a hockey and lacrosse gear
shop is slated to open in the Stumptown Ice Den’s warming hut.
Grouse Mountain Lodge is penciled in to
have their logo at center ice as a major sponsor. The logo sale was
split with the City of Whitefish and will bring in $16,000 to the
Parks Department.
The visitor locker room expansion won’t
happen this season due to a lack of funding. The team will use the
Saddle Club as a secondary locker room instead.
“It’s not a perfect situation,” Kowalka
said, “but it’s better than not having a team.”