The Kenai River Brown Bears and the Fairbanks Ice Dogs open the regular season for the 2020-21 North American Hockey League with the Brown Bears facing-off against the Chippewa Steel in Minnesota and the Ice Dogs set to battle the Janesville Jets in Wisconsin.
The Brown Bears take to the ice against the Chippewa Steel at the Chippewa Ice Arena on Friday, November 6th at 7:10 p.m. CST.
For the Alaska teams in the Midwest Division of the NAHL, the regular season openers end a covid-19 induced suspension of the regular season. The NAHL opened play on October 9th for some of the divisions. The Midwest Division opens play on Thursday, November 5th, and barring unforeseen changes, will run through early April.
The Midwest Division is comprised of: Kenai River Brown Bears, Chippewa Steel, Fairbanks Ice Dogs, Janesville Jets and Minnesota Magicians.
Chris Hedlund, Brown Bears General Manager addressed the opening weekend and covid concerns. “We continue to follow league protocols and have seen a few organizations have covid challenges. These teams are rescheduling rather than playing with a shortened roster. We have not had any discussions about further pauses or breaks in the schedule at this time.”
The Fairbanks Ice Dogs opener on Thursday, November 5th against the Janesville Jets is still a go. Janesville cancelled a scheduled exhibition game on Wednesday against the USA U-17 team due to a covid, two-week quarantine on the USA U-17 team.
Chris Hedlund stated, “We don’t anticipate any changes to our road opener or games in the near future. For the first weekend, we are excited to have our full line up in action. We have trimmed to 24 with 11 returners. Theo Thrun is back with us and the overall forward group has a lot of experience in the NAHL.”
The Brown Bears face Chippewa on Friday and then travel back to Chippewa for a three-game series on November 12-14th.