CBHL Family,

I hope everyone had a safe and enjoyable off season. Time is certainly flying. Kids are returning to school, which means they’ll be hitting the ice to prepare for the upcoming season.  

The CBHL staff along with the hockey directors from across our member clubs have spent quite a bit of time over the summer preparing for our 2023-2024 season.  I have some updates to share with you.  

Final declarations were completed on July 15. We currently have 309 teams across all age groups and divisions. I’m proud to report that we have 45 girls teams in our league this season…six more than we had last season. I think it is safe to attribute this growth to the hard work our member clubs are putting in to recruit and retain girls into our sport, with amazing support from the Washington Capitals and our Girls Commissioner, Patrick Wildman.

You can help us grow the sport by helping us get the word out about the numerous DMV Girls Try Hockey for Free events in our region on September 23. The Potomac Valley Amateur Hockey Association along with various local youth hockey organizations and the Washington Capitals have teamed up to give girls ages 4-9 a chance to step on the ice with experienced coaches to give the spot a try…for free! More information about times and locations can be found HERE.

We reset our Game Center webpage (https://www.cbhl.org/gamecenter) for the upcoming season. We have all of the teams and divisions uploaded. Rosters will be uploaded once they are available. Our club schedulers are actively scheduling for all of their teams and we hope begin to upload schedules to the website around the end of August.  We have sent access codes to the clubs so team managers can access their team pages. Last year’s scores and standings can be found on our “Past Seasons” tab on our website.  

We are working hard to lock in our key events for the season as early as possible to help clubs and parents with planning. The pre-season 8U jamboree, sponsored by the Washington Capitals, will be held on September 30th from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. at the Prince William Ice Center. The schedule for this event will be released soon.  Girls playoffs for all divisions except for Girls 12U Bronze and Girls 12U Silver will be held on February 3 and 4. We are working to finalize a location for this event. We are also finalizing the dates and locations for the 12U Girls Bronze and 12U Girls Silver divisions. The Playoff dates for all AA divisions and all 16U and 18U divisions will be February 24 and 25. The Ashburn Ice House will be the hub site for this event. Playoffs for all 10U through 14U groups at Upper Patrick, Lower Patrick and Wales will be held on March 2 and 3.  The Rockville Ice Arena will serve as the hub site for this event.  Dates and locations for the 8U end of season jamboree will be announced when they are available.  We hope to have some special events to announce once the season gets underway.

I hope you are as excited for the start of the season as I am!  Thank you so much to all the volunteers making the upcoming season possible.  Youth hockey continues to grow in our area, and we continue to establish ourselves as a formable force when we compete outside of our home region. I’m looking forward to what the upcoming season brings. Best of luck to everyone in the upcoming season. 

Tom Crosson
Commissioner