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Ohio Moving Towards Multiple Divisions for Hockey

By Scott Harrington, 06/11/20, 3:00PM EDT

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Two brackets possible for 2022 state tournament

Saint Ignatius head coach Patrick O’Rourke, a member of the Ohio High School Athletic Association’s Coach’s Advisory Board for hockey, said on this week’s Ohio Hockey Digest On Air podcast that the OHSAA is taking steps to establish two divisions for hockey beginning with the 2021-22 hockey season.

O’Rourke said nothing has officially been decided yet, but the advisory board and OHSAA executive director Jerry Snodgrass are in favor of the move, which has been a popular topic around the Ohio high school hockey scene for years.

“It’s not for this upcoming season but for the following year,” O’Rourke told Ohio Hockey Digest. “But with Jerry behind it we’ve basically moved beyond ‘is this going to happen’ more to ‘how is it going to happen’.

Patrick O'Rourke reveals where things stand on a possible move to two divisions of competition for high school hockey in Ohio.

Polling by Ohio Hockey Digest in both 2018 and 2020 showed overwhelming support (80%) for having more than one division of competition with separate brackets for the post-season.

While O’Rourke stopped short of saying a two-division alignment was a sure thing, he said that it looks “very, very good” for 2021-22.

“I guess nothing is ever official until the OHSAA votes on it and approves it,” O’Rourke said when asked if it was a foregone conclusion. “It's more legit than the Charlestown Chiefs sale to Florida.  How about that?”

In addition to his position as executive director of the OHSAA, Snodgrass was put in charge of the sport of Ice Hockey as a result of some staff turnover.

There are many key details still to work out, such as the criteria for placing schools in Division I or Division II, the mechanics of moving up or down, and the size of the two divisions.  There seems to be support for using My Hockey Rankings (www.myhockeyrankings.com) instead of enrollment, which is used in many other sports, but can be misleading in a niche sport like hockey.

“I really think it should be three (divisions),” O’Rourke said on the podcast.  “But I think they want to take baby steps.  We will work all of these things out in our next few meetings and have something ready to present to the OHSAA Board in the fall for (hopefully) approval for the 21-22 season.”

The OHSAA is three years into a 10-year contract with Nationwide Arena, home of the National Hockey League’s Columbus Blue Jackets, to host the state semifinals and final.  Accommodating two divisions (and six games in total) could be a scheduling challenge at such a busy facility, so it is possible that only the two state title games would be played at Nationwide, opening the door for a total of four state semifinal games to be played at regional locations.

 

--- Scott Harrington for Ohio Hockey Digest