Departures force NAHL to realign divisions

WASILLA - The Alaska Avalanche have a new home in the North American Hockey League.

The Avalanche, the Mat-Su Valley's Junior A hockey squad, are now part of the NAHL's re-vamped West Division.

The departure of four teams from the league in the last two months forced the NAHL to realign its four divisions. Alaska, formerly known as the Wasilla Spirit, had been grouped with state-rival Fairbanks, and three teams from Montana - the Billings Bulls, Helena Bighorns and the Bozeman Ice Dogs.

The three Montana clubs are three of the four teams that are now history, at least for now. Helena and Bozeman were forced to take a year off after losing their home rinks in their home cities. With those teams gone, Billings could not afford to stay afloat with no regional rivals.

So now Alaska's only familiar foe in the division will be the Fairbanks Ice Dogs, a team the local squad saw 17 times during the regular season and five more times during the playoffs.

New to the West Division are a pair of teams from the Dakotas - the Fargo-Moorhead Jets and the Bismark Bobcats.

Fargo-Moorhead and Bismark had been in the league's Central Division. Alaska did not face either team last season.

Alaska head coach Dean Larson said he is not as worried about the teams in the division as he is about the fact that there are only four squads in the West. Last year four of the five teams in the West earned automatic berths to the first round of the playoffs. In the new format, only two of the four will head to the postseason.

&#8220That puts a little more pressure on us to do well,” Larson said. &#8220It's going to be a tougher deal to make the playoffs.”

Now every team in the West will skate into the 2006-07 season as a squad that advanced to the postseason the year before.

Fairbanks was the West's second seed last year, with a 30-18-10 record. Alaska had the third seed, with a 23-33-2 mark.

Fargo-Moorhead finished five points shy of Southern Minnesota in the race to win the Central title last season. The Jets posted a 34-21-3 record. Bismark was third in the division at 31-23-4.

Alaska didn't play the Dakota teams last year, but will have plenty of chance to see them this season. The Avalanche will have home and road series' against both teams.

Larson said he didn't really know what to expect when the team first found out they would be grouped with at least two new squads. Alaska and Fairbanks could have been moved into the South, with teams such as Texas and San Antonio. The other option was to group the Alaska teams with squads from North Dakota, South Dakota or Minnesota. All the Avalanche staff did know, is the NAHL is very spread out, with teams as far West as Alaska and as far East as Missouri.

The NAHL board of governors is currently putting together the 2006-07 master schedule. All the teams do know is each squad will play a 62-game schedule that begins on Sept. 13.

Contact Frontiersman sports editor Jeremiah Bartz at sports@frontiersman.com.