Joe Harper House City Championship Games
The 2009-2010 Hockey Season will mark the 5th annual Joe Harper House City Championship Games, for our house leagues at each level from Mite through Midget. "THE JOE" is the 'wrap up' for the season and puts meaning into those often less meaningful games played the last week or so of the season.
The tournament policy was changed and the MAHL will run these Championship Games over the second weekend of March.
While majority of games would be played that weekend, if need be, games would be played during the week prior to that second weekend in March as well as during the week after that second weekend. The third weekend in March is typically the Adray Championships.
Since we have such a fine group of players in the MAHL the league typically has several teams qualify for the Adray playoffs/championship and occasionally the MAHA State playoffs. So the MAHL tries to work around those events to do the Joe Harper Festival. There may be a team that misses "THE JOE" due to state playoffs and while that is unfortunate, it is in the best interest of the MAHL and the players from a team that qualified for the state playoffs to represent MAHL in an event of that magnitude. In addition it was left up to the head coach of each team that if he chose to take his team to a tournament that is the same weekend as the Joe Harper House City Championship Games, that team would forego the ability to play in "THE JOE". Some teams choose the third weekend (typically last weekend of the season) to go to a tournament.
On a side note, our mini-mite program that plays cross ice has picked up some of the ice from Joe Harper to play friendship cross ice games with several out of town teams. The winning team will receive a plaque so that the team name can be put on it placed on display at the rink.
Good luck to all of the house teams. Remember that while there is some competition here, lets still keep it fun for the kids and remind them that regardless of the score, they are ALL winners!
Thank you, The MAHL Board of Directors