Hockey Excellence, Alaskan Tradition

Brown Bears Hockey and the NAHL West

The Brown Bears are the flagship program of a larger community-based and operated Kenai Peninsula Youth Foundation, which enables players the unique opportunity to provide countless hours of public service to the local community and youth including developing athletic skills and education-even mentoring students and assisting with reading programs. The direct relationship between the hockey team and the local youth community is unique to the Kenai River Brown Bears. The team joined the North American Hockey League (NAHL) as an expansion team for the 2007-08 season, and since then has upgraded as well as added team-specific facilities to the 2.000 plus capacity Soldotna Sports Center it calls home. The Brown Bear's ultimate mission is to provide academic and athletic opportunities to student-athletes, and provide its players every possible resource to play hockey at the collegiate level.

The program prides itself on providing the best student/athlete enviroment possible, where team work, discipline and life skill development are always first and foremost. The Brown Bears organization believes player-community involvement is critical to development as well as providing a structured daily training regimen, resulting in the well rounded hockey player that college hockey programs require and are always seeking when filling their rosters.  

North American Hockey League

The North American Hockey League (NAHL) is one of the top junior hockey leagues in the United States and is enterting its 36th season in 2011-12. It is currently the only Junior A Tier II league, sanctioned by USA Hockey. The NAHL currently acts as an alternative to the United States Hockey League (USHL). The NAHL is the oldest and largest junior hockey league in the United States.

The league currently consists of five divisions with a total of 28 teams. The teams span the United States from New York in the East to California in the West; from Alaska in the North toTexas in the South. The teams play a 58-game regular season, starting in mid-September and ending in early April. The winner of each division will join the host team of the Robertson Cup Championship Tournament, a six team round-robin event.

From its beginning in 1975, the NAHL was primarily a 6-12 team league based in the Midwest. All that changed in 2003 when the league and the defunct America West Hockey League merged to form a 19-team league, which has since grown to an all-time high of 28 for the 2011-12 season