For the third year in a row, the North Shore Winter Club and Burnaby Winter Club Bantam A1 teams are hosting a pre-season ice breaker featuring four top US teams, plus teams from the Okanagan Hockey Academy (Penticton) and the Pursuit of Excellence (Kelowna).

The two Winter Club teams use the tournament to help determine final team selections, while the OHA and PoE teams are already set. The US teams are mainly selected in the spring.

Many of the top players from around the Lower Mainland, the Interior and Alberta, are playing with the OHA and PoE teams this year.

US teams include the Dallas Stars, Anaheim Jr. Ducks, LA Kings and Colorado Thunderbirds.

The format is a round robin with the US and Canadian teams playing each other once each, beginning Friday, September 12. Final playoff games based on seeding from the round robin wrap up on Sunday morning, with the #1 US team vs the #1 Canadian team, at 9:50 am at NSWC, and the #2 teams at the same time at BWC. The three and four seeds will playoff earlier, starting at 8:00 am.

The tournament opens at 8:00 a.m. Friday, September 12; with the Winterhawks hosting the Jr. Ducks at NSWC, and PoE hosting LA Jr. Kings at BWC.

Here’s the full schedule, all games run 1.75 hrs.