One Map, 42 Clubs: Senior A Is Alive and Well in America

Folks, let me tell you something. You think senior hockey died when the old bus-league guys hung 'em up? Wrong! It's out there right now, every Friday and Saturday night, in rinks from the Upper Peninsula to the Hudson Valley to the highest sheet of ice in America. Working men. Real jobs Monday to Friday, then they lace 'em up and play for their hometown like the Cup's on the line. That's hockey. That's the good stuff.

So today the Office of the MHL puts it all on one map: 42 Senior "A" clubs playing in the United States this season.

THE GREAT LAKES

Out in the Great Lakes Hockey League they've been at it since 1937. Since 1937! It started as the Badger State league in Wisconsin and it's still going strong in Wisconsin and Michigan's U.P. The Portage Lake Pioneers out of Houghton are the kings up there. They swept both titles again last spring and beat Eagle River 10–3 at Dee Stadium in front of their own people. Calumet, Fond du Lac, Mosinee, the Fox Cities Ice Dogs, De Pere, the M&M Shamrocks, the Killer Bees and the brand-new Milwaukee Timberwolves round it out. Good honest hockey, and that's a compliment.

THE COLONIAL

Back East, the old Power Play league has a new name: the Colonial Hockey League. The Hudson Valley Reapers are the defending champs, the Boston Gold Kings won it the year before, and two new clubs are coming in, the Connecticut Nutmeggers and the South County Platypus. A platypus! Love it.

AND EVERYWHERE IN BETWEEN

From Reno, Breckenridge, Vail, Park City, Jackson Hole, McCall, Sun Valley and Bozeman, to Santa Rosa, Oakland, Santa Barbara and San Diego, to Mansfield and the Texas Scorpions, to the Israel Selects playing out of Dallas, to the FDNY, NYPD, St Nicks, Seahawks, Chicago, St. Louis and Kenosha boys who get on planes to come play in the mountains. Every one of them hosts games in front of their own fans, or has been at this long enough to earn a spot on the map.

And when any of them comes up to the mountains to take on our clubs, that game goes on the board and it counts. Every goal, every assist, every penalty. You want to be weighed and measured? Come on up. The air's a little thinner and the crowd's a little louder.

Senior A in America isn't one league. It never was. But it's one brotherhood, and somebody has to write it all down.

Keep your head up.

From the Office of the MHL