The 2026 Stanley Cup Finals start tonight in Raleigh, and with two of the best coaches in the sport behind the benches, there’s no doubt that both the Carolina Hurricanes and Vegas Golden Knights wil…

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A subscriber reached out last week regarding an email they’d received as a member of the Carolina Jr. Hurricanes advertising a list of programs offered by Accelerator School, which is a hybrid online/instructor-supported school run out of the hockey rink in the Research Triangle. They asked for my thoughts on Accelerator School and online hockey academies, and as with most everything hockey related, my answer is simply, “it depends.”

For starters, there’s a hockey answer, and then an academic answer. And it’s not just about the program, because there are two sides to every transaction. Just because someone buys something that’s not intended for them doesn’t mean they got scammed.

It’s also key to understand that there are two different flavors of these schools. And one definitely leans more towards the “scam” side of the scales than the other.

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The most cut and dried rule in the USA Hockey guidebook is that everything is off limits until 48 hours after the last game of the prior year’s National Championships. No phone calls, no ID skates, n…

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A total of 40 players between the birth years of 2009 and 2011 emerged from Nashville with an invitation to the USA Hockey National Development Camp in late July. If you’re unfamiliar with the Development Program process, USA Hockey affiliates hold tryouts at the local level each spring to select players to advance to the District level tryouts. From there, players compete for invitations to the National Camp, which is designed to identify and develop players for the USA Hockey national teams, but is also one of the most scouted events of the entire calendar for Tier 1 and Tier 2 Junior hockey, and NCAA hockey.

In short, the sole purpose of the entire process is to end up with the absolute best American skaters and goalies from 15U, 16U and 17U on the same sheet of ice, and as you can imagine, that type of event draws the level of attention it deserves from scouts and coaches.

The entire process is simultaneously the most exclusive, and most inclusive program that USA Hockey offers. At the affiliate level, tryouts are open to anyone. Organizational affiliation does not matter, nor does level of play. An A-level player can register to try out just like a AAA-level player can. At the same time, the end destination of National Camp is only open to the best players, as determined by independent scouts and evaluators who also don’t care what youth team you’re coming from.

Is it political? Does “who you know” matter? At the affiliate level, of course it is. There are 80 players invited to District Camp for 15U and 16U, and 68 at the 17U level. From that group, less than 15 typically advance to National Camp. Another 15-20 players are selected to skate in the all star skate where final selections are made, which means that half of the participants at District Camp don’t really factor into the decisions, so of course from that group there are players who are mostly there to fill a seat.

An amusing reality about the process at the affiliate level … most complaints come from those who want it to be more political. You hear “I can’t believe ______ got selected, he only plays AA and I play AAA” far more often than you hear “The only reason _______ got selected is because he plays for _______”.

But yes, when decisions are made at the affiliate level, there will definitely be one or two selections that get made for reasons that don’t entirely have to do with performance on the ice at the tryout. Of course, none of that hurts the process in any way because while players may miss out on an invite to District camp because of a questionable selection, they’re realistically only missing out on a chance to be filler at District camp. The players who advance to the all-star skate are 100% deserving, as are the players selected to advance to National Camp.

Here’s a look at those players, where they’re from, and what it can signal to younger families looking ahead to when they’re camp eligible, and to the youth hockey programs that serve them.

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USA Today published the most recent report in a growing number of journalistic and legal peeks into the business of Black Bear Sports Group, most well known around the southeast as the owner of the A…

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In case you’ve missed all of the announcements, USA Hockey is forming a “Super-AAA” Tier 1 National Development League set to begin play in the 2027-28 season after a year’s delay. The general timeline:

• May 1st - June 30th, 2026: Program application open to youth associations

• October 16th, 2026: Program selections announced

• April 6th, 2027: Tryouts begin

• August 1st, 2027: The inaugural NDL season begins

While the published purpose of the league includes buzzwords like “optimizing player development”, the actual purpose is to clean up the AAA hockey mess and consolidate top talent into a smaller population of truly elite teams that will create iron-sharpens-iron opportunities for development, but will mainly make it much easier for USA Hockey and USA Hockey-backed juniors leagues (USHL and NAHL) to scout and identify talent.

The league itself will include 15U and 17U divisions, and will be comprised of 32 programs across the country, each with a roster minimum of 18 skaters and 2 goalies, or a roster maximum of 20 skaters and 2 goalies.

To date, we’ve learned that five Southeastern associations either have submitted, or are considering submitting applications for the NDL. While it might seem like a “lead or get left behind” type situation, there are a lot of factors at play that make it not so cut-and-dried for programs. And the impacts of the NDL will be felt far and wide at the traditional Tier 1 AAA level, the Tier 2 level, and especially the junior hockey level in the southeast.

Here’s where things stand and how things could look moving forward for southeastern players and programs:

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Tryouts are supposed to be a two-way evaluation process. First, players and families evaluate which teams they want to try to make. Then, coaches evaluate players and make their selections.

Well according to social media posts flying around yesterday, and later confirmed by our contacts in each program, this is the exact opposite of the reality across most of North Carolina.

Teams were taking players just to fill rosters. Players were accepting offers just to have a place to play. Programs were left unable to fill teams. Players, as of today, still don’t have a place to play next season.

Absolutely none of this is supposed to happen this way, and it’s not okay that it does. Here’s a quick look at the winners and losers from Tier 2 tryout weekend in North Carolina, and some reasons why things went down the way they did …

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We’re now 48 hours out from end of the 2026 USA Hockey National Championships which means the recruiting window is now open for the 2026-27 season. Coaches are free to reach out to any player or fami…

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Now, a year after the 2008 16U AAA Jr. Canes continued the streak of Carolina teams heading to Nationals, the 2007/2008 18U AAA Jr. Canes are the only Tier 1 team from the association still alive to even see Districts.

While sweeping 14U, 15U and 16U with a trio of 2-0 series victories is a huge accomplishment for the Queen City Royals and their players, the state of the Carolina Jr. Hurricanes AAA program is a real concern.

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Charlotte are youth hockey is getting a huge makeover this offseason thanks to, essentially, a full takeover of area rinks by the American Sports Entertainment Company (ASEC), the parent company of the Polar organization that Raleigh and Wilmington hockey families are certainly familiar with for some fairly notorious reasons.

Along with the exchange of ownership among area rinks comes the death of two travel associations in the Southeast, somewhat reminiscent of the facility-driven death of the Atlanta Fire last off-season. And, as if that wasn’t enough news on its own, in the middle of the entire story is a potential conflict of interest that could have impacts across the entire state, including the Research Triangle.

So what does this mean for the Charlotte area and greater Raleigh? Let’s take a look at what’s actually happening and what it means.

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In 2022-23, there were 81 travel teams in North Carolina. In 2025-26, there are 94. USA Hockey registration across the state grew by over 500 players during that same time period within the travel hockey age range of 9U through 18U.

While the explosive growth has a lot to do with the success and popularity of Carolina’s NHL team - just like we saw down here in Florida and later in the greater Nashville area - it’s also a byproduct of the great work that travel hockey associations in North Carolina have done to foster a strong culture of competition and advancement.

The danger for travel hockey in NC is that available ice hasn’t been able to support the increase in numbers, and the “culture of advancement” that’s been created doesn’t match the level of play or the identity that the Carolinas’ USA Hockey Affiliate CAHA is trying to establish.

As a result, Tier 1 AAA travel hockey associations are faced with the challenge of providing hockey families with the programming and opportunities they demand without available ice, without a deep enough pool of talent among players and coaches, and without much flexibility in terms of rules and regulations. To make it even more challenging, there’s an unhealthy political climate among the associations that’s directly impacting the ability for NC hockey families to find value from the high cost of travel hockey.

As North Carolina families head into the time of year when decisions start getting made about tryouts for 2026-27, our pre-season series focuses on the Old North State to help provide an unbiased source of information and a family-centric view of travel hockey across the state.

As a blanket disclaimer, the information presented below is from the 2025-26 season and some of the costs and program components may have changed from the time program guides were published and actual programming began.

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