I have to be honest with you, I'm stoked for this.  Granted, I don't live in Fort Wayne but my son plays at Parkview (Canlan) a few times each year and I've always admired the hockey culture in "The Fort."  And now, that hockey culture is about to be laser focused.  

If you remember, in our State of Hockey Series Paul Evans pointed out the need for consolidation and the pooling of our talent and resources, both from a player and coach standpoint.  In the third installment of that series, he called Fort Wayne "the exception to the rule," because we knew this was on the horizon.  So as of yesterday, April 19th, 2017, the Fort Wayne Amateur Hockey Association is ready to fly their new minimalist logo (which I absolutely love, by the way) and usher in the Golden Age of Hockey in Fort Wayne.

I won't rehash all of the points that Paul made in his earlier article on why this is so important.  Instead, I'd like to congratulate the hockey leaders in Fort Wayne for seeing the bigger picture.  You did it.  You put aside petty squabbles and politics in order to do what's right for your kids and the hockey community at large.  I hope the other organizations are paying attention because here's what you can expect:  FWAHA will be more competitive at every single level and their growth is going to accelerate.

Based on comments from Kaleigh Schrock, Coaching Coordinater and Head of Player Development, the goal is to keep talent in Fort Wayne by providing opportunities at every ability level, including juniors.  With university programs like Indiana Tech, Trine men's and women's ice hockey, and the IPFW Mastodons already in place, you can see why we're calling it the Golden Age of Hockey.

You can see the full press release from the FWAHA website right here.