WSHL League meeting: Part 2 - Divisional realignment

By Matt Robinson/Valencia Flyers Junior A Hockey                                                            6/9/2014 5:30PM EST

Seven new teams have been added to the WSHL for the 2014-2015 season, and with the Texas Brahmas moving to another league, the league is now at a nice round number of 30 teams.

This addition of six teams spread throughout the US has forced the league to make some changes to the divisional alignment along with the regular season schedule to alleviate travel costs for most everyone in the league.

The WSHL will feature two eight team (West and Midwest) and two seven team (Mountain, Northwest) divisions in the 2014-2015 campaign.

This is how the division will stack up:

Mountain(7) : Casper Coyotes, Cheyenne Stampede, Colorado Evolution, Colorado Jr. Eagles, Colorado Rough Riders, Ogden Mustangs, Salt Lake City Jr. Moose

Midwest(8): Dallas Ice Jets, Dallas Snipers, El Paso Rhinos, Texas Attack, Oklahoma City Jr. Blazers, Springfield Express, Tulsa Jr. Oilers, Wichita Jr. Thunder

Northwest(7): Idaho Jr. Steelheads, Butte Cobras, Lake Tahoe Blue, Missoula Maulers, Seattle Totems, Southern Oregon Spartans, Whitefish Wolverines

West(8): Valencia Flyers, Phoenix Knights, Arizona Redhawks, Fresno Monsters, Ontario Avalanche, Long Beach Bombers, San Diego Gulls, Las Vegas Storm

The Flyers will play in the newly formatted West division which will see the return of the Phoenix Knights and Arizona Redhawks along with the addition of Las Vegas to the division while the Lake Tahoe Blue will leave the division for the Northwest division.

The league will also no longer play out of division regular season match ups, except for the four game league showcase in Las Vegas in December. The rest of the 46 game schedule will be contested with each team playing everyone in their division a minimum of six times, with the Midwest and Northwest having to play an additional three games against two teams in their division to make the 42 divisional games.

The new alignment will also bring about a new playoff format, which will be covered in part three of the three part recap on the WSHL League meetings along with miscellaneous rule changes for the 2014-2015 season.

Matt Robinson is the Play-by-Play Voice of the Valencia Flyers. In addition, Matt also handles the Valencia Flyers Social Media accounts, produces stories and content for valenciaflyers.net and does Play-by-Play for College of the Canyons Ice Hockey.

WSHL League meeting three part recap: Part 1 - Expansion

By Matt Robinson/Valencia Flyers Junior A Hockey                                                   June 6, 2014     1845 EST

The WSHL concluded its annual league meetings in Las Vegas, Nevada with a few changes for the upcoming season.

The biggest news coming out of the league meetings is the official expansion of the WSHL to 30 teams.

The Butte Cobras (Montana), Whitefish Wolverines (Montana), Casper Coyotes (Wyoming),  Colorado Evolution, Oklahoma City Jr. Blazers, Texas Attack, and Las Vegas Storm (Nevada) have all joined the WSHL for the 2014-2015 season.

In addition to the expansion there are a few changes to team names and location for the upcoming season.  The Boulder Bison will continue to play their WSHL games out of Boulder Valley, but under a new banner as the team has officially changed its name to the Colorado Rough Riders.

The New Mexico Renegades will also be making a name change for the 2014-2015 season. However, this also comes with a move to their new home in Springfield, Missouri. The team will play under the banner of the Springfield Express

The new influx of teams has brought about changes to both the divisional structure of the league as well as the playoff format, both of which will be discussed in parts two and three of the League Meeting Recap.

Matt Robinson is the Play-by-Play Voice of the Valencia Flyers. In addition, Matt also handles the Valencia Flyers Social Media accounts, produces stories and content for valenciaflyers.net and does Play-by-Play for College of the Canyons Ice Hockey.

Flyers Wylie along with 7 other drafted by NAHL

By Matt Robinson/Valencia Flyers Junior A Hockey                                          June 5^th, 2014     3:00PM EST

The North American Hockey League held its draft this week and Flyers rookie forward Wade Wylie was among the draftees out of the WSHL.

Wylie was drafted 11^th overall by the Kenai River Brown Bears, the highest selected player from the WSHL, which had seven players in total drafted, most of any Tier III league in the United States.

Wylie played in 43 games for the Flyers in his rookie season, producing one goal and three assists on the campaign. He showed flashes of his talent level throughout, as a player who possesses incredible speed along with strong puck handling ability.

“We really like his speed,” said Kenai Head coach Geoff Beauparlant. “On the big rink, he should really impress because of his sheer skating ability.

According to Jeff Helminiak of the Peninsula Clarion Wylie attended the Bears main camp last season and impressed the coaches, prompting them to track him throughout the 2013-2014 season with Valencia.

“Wade was a strong asset to the team all season,” according to Flyer head coach Josh Berge. “His speed became a factor later on in the year helping to create pressure in the offensive end and produce scoring chances. We wish him the best of luck at the Kenai River camp this summer and hope he makes the team.”

“Our goal as a team, and as a league really is to move players on to a higher level,” said Flyers GM Scott Allegrini. “The sheer number of players that have moved on this season to NAHL, USHL and College as it really shows how strong our league has become.”

Also drafted at the NAHL draft were Adam Kresl and Viktors Pontaovskis from Salt Lake City, Chris Schutz from the Dallas Ice Jets, Nick Kallen of San Diego, Carter Dahl of Fresno, and Lubomir Fetkovic from Ontario.

The seven players are the most drafted out of the WSHL in the history of the league.

 Matt Robinson is the Play-by-Play Voice of the Valencia Flyers. In addition, Matt also handles the Valencia Flyers Social Media accounts, produces stories and content for valenciaflyers.net and does Play-by-Play for College of the Canyons Ice Hockey.