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NorPac suspends four hockey clubs

by Matt Baldwin / Whitefish Pilot
| June 8, 2011 9:43 AM

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.”