USHL plans western expansion with new teams in Arizona, California, Nevada

The USHL is taking its first major step west in more than a decade, with plans to place new franchises in Arizona, California and Nevada in a move that could shift where elite junior hockey talent develops and stays. The league said it signed a memorandum of understanding with a group of stakeholders, and it will reveal the specific locations and ownership groups on June 24.

For a league built as the only Tier I junior hockey circuit in the United States, the geography matters. The USHL already has 16 member clubs spread across Illinois, Iowa, Michigan, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota and Wisconsin, and its last expansion team, the Madison Capitols, joined in 2014. Westward growth would shorten the path for players in the Pacific and Rocky Mountain districts, where California and Nevada are already grouped in USA Hockey’s Pacific District and Arizona sits in the Rocky Mountain District.

USHL President and Commissioner Glenn Hefferan framed the move as more than a business add-on. “Expanding opportunity” and bringing the development path closer to more players and families, he said, are the point. That pitch goes straight to the central pressure point in junior hockey: whether top players from nontraditional markets can now stay closer to home without giving up a direct route to NCAA Division I hockey or the NHL.

The league is leaning hard on its track record to sell the expansion. It said 21 players on the 2026 U.S. Olympic men’s hockey gold-medal-winning team came through the USHL, including California native Auston Matthews, Jake Guentzel and Jaccob Slavin. The West already has its share of USHL alumni, too, with Arizona natives Matthew Knies and Josh Doan and California native Devin Cooley all cited by the league as examples of what the pathway can produce.

The broader hockey industry is helping push that argument. The NHL, USA Hockey and the USHL announced an expanded collaboration on May 7 to strengthen Tier I player development in the United States, and the league said it has supplied more than 50 percent of NCAA Division I men’s hockey players and nearly 25 percent of NHL players, while producing more than 285 direct NHL Draft picks since 2020. USA Hockey Executive Director Pat Kelleher called the growth and evolution of the league exciting, saying wider access should benefit athletes, communities and the sport.

Los Angeles Kings president Luc Robitaille said the expansion should create “a new competitive layer” for western junior players and thanked partners with the Anaheim Ducks and San Jose Sharks. His comparison to the AHL’s western growth underscored the league’s bigger bet: that putting Tier I teams in the West can expand the talent pool without thinning competition. With USA Hockey’s Development League set to begin in 2027-28 and applications closing June 30, the race to define hockey’s next pathway is already well underway.