St. Edward to leave Great Lakes Hockey League
Eagles will play independent schedule beginning in 2022-23
PHOTO: Pat Gallagher
The reigning Cleveland Cup and Brooklyn District champions, the St. Edward Eagles, will be leaving the Great Lakes Hockey League at the conclusion of the 2021-22 season. St. Edward, a charter member of the league (2013), will defend their regular season and tournament championships from a year ago before departing.
The GLHL bylaws require teams to give a two-year notice before vacating the league, but St. Edward head coach Tim Sullivan requested to have that condition waived. The request was granted during Thursday morning’s regularly-scheduled pre-season meeting by a vote of athletic directors from the league’s other six schools.
“We have truly enjoyed the time we have spent in the GLHL and wish the league continued success,” Sullivan said immediately after the vote. “Our decision to request out of the league is simply to create scheduling flexibility.”
The seven GLHL member schools play a 10-game regular season schedule and must leave three dates open for the league tournament. The Ohio High School Athletic Association allows hockey teams to play 35 games prior to the start of the district playoffs.
In addition to St. Edward’s “Varsity Gold” team, which competes in the GLHL, the program also includes “Varsity Green” and U16 teams.
“We now have three teams and scheduling all three with the same opponents is important to us,” said Sullivan. “We want to publicly thank the GLHL, Paul Michalko and Kevin Leigh who have been the commissioners of the league since its inception and put together a quality, respectful league year in and year out.”
Leigh, the athletic director at Padua Franciscan, is the current commissioner of the league.
“We were sorry to receive the news of St. Edward’s desire to withdraw from the GLHL starting in 2022-23,” Leigh said. “St. Edward has been a good league member since the start of the GLHL in 2013 and we wish them the best of luck in the future.”
The Eagles won the league tournament – the Cleveland Cup – for the first time last February and advanced to the state championship game against Toledo St. Francis.
--- Scott Harrington for Ohio Hockey Digest
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