Site Editor posted on September 16, 2011 20:43
Summer is over, football season is starting, baseball season is winding down and that can mean only one thing, hockey season is drawing near. As we begin our 14th season covering the SJHSIHL, there are some changes taking place in the league, so we decided to attend the monthly league meeting to get caught up with the happenings. For starters, Tier III has been eliminated, and with graduation and other issues hurting certain schools, a Tier II division was created which allows schools to combine their teams in order to support a full roster. Here are the 8 teams that will form the Tier II division:
Eastern, Cherry Hill East and Cherry Hill West will join forces and be known as EEW.
Rancocas Valley, Lenape and Seneca return to form a team.
Cinnaminson will carry some players from Maple Shade on their roster.
Cherokee has enough players to support another team.
Delran and some players from Burlington will join forces.
And the last 3 teams are from the Tier III division from last year:
Mainland, Lower Cape May and Black Horse, which will have players from Highland Timber Creek and Triton.
Tier I consist of: Cherokee, Clearview, Holy Cross, Moorestown, Shawnee, Washington Township and Williamstown. Schedule looks like each team will play each other twice and then cross-over and play each Tier II team once. My initial reaction is that I’m glad that there are 15 teams playing hockey, and I like the idea of combining schools so there are enough players to field a team.
There will probably be some strong Tier II teams that could compete with the Tier I schools, so we could be in for an interesting season. It all gets under way on 10/3/2011.