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Black Bear LLC starts own league
Guest:
The plan looks like they will compete with supplemental elagues but for how long? If they keep buying rinks they won't need to. They call it the atlantic hockey federation
Black Bear Sports Group Partners With Ice Arena Owners to Form the Atlantic Hockey Federation for the 2021-22 Season
BETHESDA, MD — Black Bear Sports Group, Inc., (“Black Bear”), Keith Primeau, the Montgomery Blue Devils, New Jersey Bandits, New Jersey Rockets, Hollydell Hurricanes and Team Philadelphia (the “Founders”) are proud to announce the official launch of the Atlantic Hockey Federation (“AHF”), a USA Hockey Sanctioned, Tier-II Youth Hockey League that will facilitate games and showcases for its members throughout the Mid-Atlantic. The AHF initially has over 225 teams in the league providing high quality competition at every age group and level. AHF’s goal is to act as a supplemental Tier II league to rink owners who operate clubs in the Delaware Valley Hockey League, New Jersey Youth Hockey league and Chesapeake Bay Hockey League. The AHF provides high-quality, non-league games and showcases in the Mid-Atlantic uniquely catering to its member owned clubs. The AHF will commence with four divisions of play at the AA, A1, A2 and B levels and will field youth hockey programs at the 10U, 12U, 14U, 15U/16U and 18U age levels. The AHF is truly a unique opportunity as each of the Founders and Member clubs operate at all levels of the youth and junior hockey spectrum from Mite thru to Midget at the youth level and from Tier II juniors all the way up to Tier I juniors in the USHL. The league is “run by rink owners, creating the best possible environment for our players and families,” and is run by full-time, paid professional managers and hockey executives. Keith Primeau, former Captain of the Philadelphia Flyers and Head of Operations of the USHL’s Youngstown Phantoms will serve as Chairman of the League and Tim Fingerhut, Varsity Head Coach at St. Augustine Prep and Hockey Director of the Igloo Jaguars, a Tier-II youth program, will be the full-time Commissioner and day-to-day head of the AHF.
The goal of the AHF is to provide high quality games while reducing the cost of hockey for our clubs and our families including for example, no “stay-to-play” hotel mandates. All showcases will be held in the Mid-Atlantic in Founder rinks with the remainder scheduled as home and away games for the individual teams and clubs. League fees will be finalized by January 1st, 2021 and the final schedule will be released in June/July for the inaugural season. The Founders received positive feedback from youth clubs during AHF’s developmental stage, and as a result anticipates fielding highly competitive youth club teams at every level for the 2021-2022 season.
Below is the expected timeline for the launch of AHF’s inaugural season:
January 1st: Applications for new teams are live and fee structure released
May 1st: Showcase weekends are assigned
June 10th: Non-Showcase opponents distributed to League Members
July 1st: Non-Showcase schedule feedback by League Members is Announced
July 20th: Schedule is Finalized
August 10th: Roster information input by League Members
AHF looks forward to offering high-quality and highly competitive supplemental play to the youth clubs in the Mid-Atlantic and are excited to launch AHF’s inaugural season.
For any questions specifically related to the league please reach out to Tim Fingerhut at [email protected]
About Black Bear Sports Group, Inc.
Black Bear Sports Group, Inc. is a privately held company formed by Murry Gunty and Blackstreet Capital Holdings, LLC in 2015 that seeks investments in sports and entertainment facilities, teams and youth sports events. Black Bear arenas are clean and professionally managed and offer world-class recreational programs. Black Bear focuses on ice arenas in metropolitan areas with compelling demographics, markets with a National Hockey League club presence and arenas with existing youth hockey clubs. Black Bear has the ability to acquire healthy and stable arenas, but also to turn around under-managed or under-performing facilities. The largest owner/operator of ice rinks in the U.S., Black Bear’s footprint totals 22 facilities across the United States with 40 sheets of indoor ice, two indoor turf fields, 13 youth hockey clubs and four Junior “A” hockey franchises in the United States Hockey League, North American Hockey League and Eastern Hockey League.
Guest:
I wonder if anybody feels like they will ruin youth hockey in se us? If they own the teams and the rinks and want to keep them in their own league what stops them?
Guest:
This is a monopoly move they will go for the throat and make tournaments mandatory with their teams too
Guest:
Obviously, "tournaments" are mandatory. They are called showcases.
Guest:
This looks amazing. Look at the map of teams and their locations. Look EJ is over priced and doesn't do a great job with placement of teams in divisions. If this is cheaper then it looks like a great thing. Black Bear is all about promoting hockey. People need to stop the what if and see the good things happening here.
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