While all of the Canadian Junior Hockey Leagues prepare for or participate in their annual meetings, the Maritimes Junior Hockey League followed the BCHL’s news yesterday concerning roster movement, by delivering their own big news today.
Coming out of the annual General Managers meeting, the Maritimes Junior Hockey League adopted a Code of Discipline handed down by the Canadian Junior Hockey League (CJHL), the collective body for the nation’s junior A leagues.
The new rule enforces the “one fight rule,” meaning players assessed a five-minute fighting major will also be handed a game misconduct.
The rule was in effect in five of the CJHL’s nine leagues last season. It’s part of an effort in recent years to reduce the number of fights in a game, which started with automatic suspensions for players with five or more fighting majors. This past fall, the CJHL officially endorsed the one-fight rule for the rest of its leagues.
In another move designed to increase the focus on player education, the league decided to shorten the season from 52 to 48 games. The move is an effort to eliminate the need for weeknight games. Freeing up time for players to focus on being students as well as athletes. The league hopes to attract more NCAA and Canadian University bound players to come to the league.
The CJHL across the board is making sweeping changes to protect the players, as well as create better opportunity for those players to advance to higher levels of competition and education.
Joe Hughes
