Mississauga Hockey League

The Mississauga Hockey League is an ice hockey league in Mississauga, Ontario. It offers recreational hockey in the White, Green, and Blue levels, Select hockey in the Red level, and competitive hockey in the "A" level. "A" teams play 36 minute long games, and all other levels play 30 minute long games.

Area Associations

The Mississauga Hockey League is divided into eight regional associations, a player is not required to play in their area's association.

The eight area associations are:
* Applewood Hockey Association
* Clarkson Hockey Association
* Cooksville Hockey Association
* Credit Valley Hockey Association
* Erindale Hockey Association
* Lorne Park Hockey Association
* Meadowvale Minor Hockey Association
* Port Credit Hockey Associations

Team Names and Colours

In the MHL, each team has an option of having names and colours. Here are the names:
* Applewood Coyotes (blue, white and yellow), formerly Applewood Cree.
* Clarkson Hurricanes (red, white and black), formerly Clarkson Algonquins.
* Cooksville Phantoms (burgandy, white and black), formerly the Navajo.
* Credit Valley Wolves (black, red and white), formerly Malton Ice Bears, and Malton Missisak.
* Erindale Spitfires (sky blue, navy blue and red), formerly Erindale Iroquois
* Lorne Park Ojibwa (green, gold and black)
* Meadowvale Hawks (yellow and black), formerly Meadowvale Mohawks.
* Port Credit Storm (navy blue, yellow and white), formerly the Port Credit Huron.

History of the Mississauga Hockey League

The League's origin began with the Toronto Township Hockey League which was formed in 1946 with Cooksville, Streetsville, Erindale, Clarkson, Lorne Park, Lakeview, Cloverleaf, Malton and Burnhamthorpe. There were five divisions, Intermediate, Juvenile, Minor Midget, PeeWee and Tadpole. Games were played on outdoor ice in Erindale, Burnhamthorpe, Forsters Rink in Cooksville, Dixie, Malton, Port Credit, and at Lester's Arena south of Brampton. The first President was Alf McCallum.

By 1950, there were 45 teams (46 in 1947-1948) and the League entered a Junior "B" team in the Ontario Hockey Association, the Dixie Flashers later known as the Dixie Beehives.

The Toronto Township Hockey League affiliated with the Toronto Hockey League (now the Greater Toronto Hockey League) in 1956 and by 1967 boundaries were established and 155 teams from Applewood, Burnhamthorpe, Clarkson, Cloverleaf, Cooksville, Dixie, Erindale, Lakeview, Lyndwood, Malton and Port Credit were using four covered arenas - Port Credit, Dixie, Huron Park and Streetsville.

In 1968, the Toronto Township Hockey League became the Mississauga Hockey League. By 1972, 400 teams were registered and parents were travelling to Acton, Bolton, Milton, Nobleton, Burlington, Woodbridge and Oakville for practices usually in the early hours of the morning. As Mississauga has grown and changed, so has the M.H.L. Today, parents no longer have to travel outside the City for practices and games. The league offers hockey on six different levels of skill - "A" (Minor Atom to Midget), Gold (Minor Novice and Novice), Red, White, Blue, and Green, thus ensuring that hockey is available to every youngster in the City of Mississauga.

In 1983, the New Concept "A" level was formed. This was a separate level of "A" hockey from that offered by the M.H.L Associations and was more akin to "AA" calibre. New Concept teams were not permitted to enter "A" tournaments and could only enter "AA" or higher. New Concept teams (with sponsoring organizations in brackets) were known as the Mississauga Navajo (Cooksville), Mississauga Algonquins (Clarkson), Mississauga Cree (Cawthra Park and Dixie), Mississauga Iroquois (Erindale), Mississauga Hurons (Port Credit), Mississauga Mohawks (Malton and Meadowvale) and Mississauga Ojibwa (Lorne Park). The New Concept level merged back with the regular M.H.L. in 1988.

During the 2000-2001 season over 6,700 players were registered on 307 house league teams, 67 "A" teams and 56 Pre-Tyke teams for a total of 430 teams from eight Associations - Applewood, Clarkson, Cooksville, Erindale, Lorne Park, Malton, Meadowvale and Port Credit.

Since 1965, through induction to the Hall of Fame Honour Roll, the League has honoured 55 residents for their contribution to minor hockey in Mississauga.

The league celebrated its 60th anniversary during the 2006-07 season.

Championships

Every year, the Mississauga Hockey League awards gold medals to the champions, silver medals to the runners up, and bronze medals to the two teams that lost in the semi-final. The championship team is awarded the IceDogs Cup which is the championship trophy of the Mississauga Hockey League sponsored by the Mississauga IceDogs.

President's Trophy

Starting in the 2003-2004 season, the Mississauga Hockey League began awarding the President's Trophy. This trophy goes to the "A" team with the best record during the regular season. This marked the first time in the Mississauga Hockey League's history that teams in different age groups competed against each other.

This is a list of winners of the MHL President's Trophy:

2003-2004 Erindale Spitfires Minor Atom "A"
2004-2005 Applewood Cree Atom "A"
2005-2006 Port Credit Storm Minor Midget "A"

Arenas

The Mississauga Hockey League operates out of several arenas in Mississauga.

*Cawthra Arena (2 Rinks, Part of Cawthra Community Centre), Home of the Lorne Park Hockey Association
*Chic Murray Arena (1 Rink, Part of Burnhamthorpe Community Centre), Home of the Applewood Hockey Association
*Clarkson Arena (1 Rink, Part of Clarkson Community Centre), Home of the Clarkson Hockey Association
*Erin Mills Twin Arena (2 Rinks), Home of the Erindale Hockey Association
*Hershey Centre (4 Rinks), Home of the Credit Valley Hockey Association
*Huron Park Arena (1 Rink, Part of the Huron Park Community Centre), Neutral Ice
*Iceland Mississauga (4 Rinks), Neutral Ice
*Meadowvale 4 Rinks (4 Rinks), Home of the Meadowvale Minor Hockey Association
*Missisauga Valley Arena (1 Rink, Part of Terry Fox Community Centre), Home of the Cooksville Hockey Association
*Port Credit Arena (1 Rink), Home of the Port Credit Hockey Association
*Tomken Twin Arena (2 Rinks), Neutral Ice

Regular Season Play

Houseleague teams (Gold, Red, White, Blue, Green), usually play in between 20 and 26 games per season. Gold is considered "A" for teams under the age of 8. Teams typically play one game per week, sometimes playing two games in a week if there is an odd number of teams in that particular loop. Teams in younger divisions typically play more Saturday afternoon games, while teams in the older age groups typically play Saturday and week day night games.

"A" teams play 36 games per season. For the most part, teams play two games every week, during the week. It is very rare to see an "A" game being played on the weekend.

Teams are awarded 2 points for a win, 1 point for a tie, and 0 points for a loss.

Playoff Format

In the Mississauga Hockey League, all teams make the playoffs.

The format of the "A" loop playoffs is a very basic format. There is a quarter final round where the highest ranked team in the regular season plays the lowest ranked team, the second highest ranked team plays the second lowest ranked team, etc.... The winners then play a semi-final round, and the winners of that play in the Championship round. The winner of the quarter final series is the first team to achieve 4 points, the winner of the semi-final series is the first team to achieve 6 points, and the winner of the Championship series is the first team to achieve 8 points. Teams are awarded 2 points for a win, 1 point for a tie, and 0 points for a loss.

If there are more than 8 teams in the loop, then the lower ranked teams playoff against each other in a best-of-two game series so 8 teams remain.

House league teams play a more complex playoff format, designed to give every team a better chance of making the medal round.

*In the elimination round, teams play-off against each other in a 2 game-total goal series until 6 teams remain.
*The remaining 6 teams play in a round robin series, each team plays against each other team once, the teams with the best 4 records advance
*The semi-final round takes the 1st place team from the round robin against the 4th place team from the round robin, and the 2nd place team from the round robin plays the 3rd place team.
*The Championship series is between the winners of the two semi-final winners

In both semi-final, and final rounds, the winner is the first team to achieve 4 points.

If there are 6 teams, then there is no elimination round and all teams directly advance to the round robin.
If there are 5 or 4 teams, there is no elimination round, all teams advance directly to the round robin. In this case, the top two teams in the round robin advance directly to the championship round and no semi-final round is played.

Competition With GTHL Teams

At the end of every season, the Greater Toronto Hockey League holds playdowns for "A" teams. These playdowns determine the GTHL Champion in that division. The playdown consists of the regular season champion of the Mississauga Hockey League, GTHL East division, GTHL West division, and the Scarborough Minor Hockey Association. The playdown consists of a single round robin series, the team with the best record is the GTHL Champion. It is played from Minor Atom to Midget. The winners of the Atom, Peewee, Bantam, and Midget levels also advance to the Ontario Hockey Federation championships representing the GTHL.

ee also

*Ice Hockey
*Greater Toronto Hockey League
*Mississauga IceDogs (1997 - 2007)
*Mississauga St. Michaels Majors (2007 - present)

External links

* [http://www.hockey.on.ca Official Website of the Mississauga Hockey League]
* [http://www.applewoodhockey.on.ca Applewood Hockey Association]
* [http://www.clarksonhockey.ca Clarkson Hockey Association]
* [http://www.cooksvillehockey.ca Cooksville Hockey Association]
* [http://www.creditvalleywolves.com Credit Valley Hockey Association]
* [http://www.erindalehockey.com Erindale Hockey Association]
* [http://www.lpha.ca Lorne Park Hockey Association]
* [http://www.meadowvalehockey.com Meadowvale Minor Hockey Association]
* [http://www.portcredithockey.com Port Credit Hockey Association]
* [http://www.mississauga.ca Official Website of the City of Mississauga]