USHL Fall Classic opens 2025-26 season in Greater Pittsburgh

The USHL opened the 2025-26 season at the DICK’S Sporting Goods USHL Fall Classic, where all 16 teams played two regular-season games under one roof at the UPMC Lemieux Sports Complex in Cranberry Township, Pennsylvania. The setup turned opening weekend into the league’s first full-scale evaluation stage, with every roster exposed at once to NHL, college and junior hockey eyes.

The 2025 event ran Sept. 17-22 and marked the tenth straight year the Fall Classic was held in Greater Pittsburgh. Alongside the 32 league games, 40 youth programs in the 14U, 15U, 16U and 18U age groups played separate tournaments, giving the six-day event a crowded schedule that mixed the USHL’s top tier with the next wave of prospects below it.

The scouting draw was the other centerpiece. The league said the Fall Classic was expected to bring more than 400 scouts from the NHL, college hockey and junior hockey, and that every USHL coach and general manager would be in attendance. The league also framed the event as a partnership with the Pittsburgh Penguins and the NHL, which helped explain why the Fall Classic has become more than an early-season stop on the calendar. It is the league’s first synchronized look at new lineups, new roles and players trying to establish themselves before the schedule stretches into the winter.

The USHL’s own schedule planning showed how central the format has become. In its 2026-27 announcement, the league said all 16 teams would again begin with two games apiece at the 11th annual Fall Classic, set for Sept. 16-20, 2026, at Blackhawks Ice Center in Chicago, home of the Chicago Steel. That season will also mark the USHL’s 25th as USA Hockey’s only Tier I junior league, extending the same opening-week template from Pittsburgh to another showcase market.

The Pittsburgh run already had a track record before the 2025 edition. The league said the 2024 Fall Classic was the ninth straight in Greater Pittsburgh and featured 36 youth programs, while the 2023 version drew more than 400 NHL and college scouts. By the time the 2025 puck dropped, the Fall Classic had settled into the USHL’s identity as a season opener, scouting convention and branding event all at once.