Looking for a spring league in Metro Detroit

[AHill19 0]

Hi guys,

My name's Andrew, and I moved to the Royal Oak, MI area last fall. I've been going to drop ins at John Lindell Ice Arena, Troy Sports Center, and Fraser Hockeyland (not as much as I'd like to unfortunately, been traveling for work a lot). I have been looking online at league options for the spring and saw that Troy and Fraser both have spring leagues. For those of you from the area, what rink(s) do you prefer? Which other rinks should I be checking out around me? For spring, I'd like something with games on weeknights if possible. I noticed Troy has a Tuesday C league.

I played a lot of AA hockey up through high school, but didn't really play at all in college, just a few intramural games a year. I guess I may be a B level player or so currently, not too sure, but I am fine with trying a league that would be either a little more casual or challenging for me.

Any advice you guys could give me would be great. I'm from Kentucky originally, so I'm in heaven having so many rinks and shops around! Thanks!

[Stewie 721]

ive skated at all three of those rinks, but only played leagues in one. I will give you my experiences with each, as well as offer some insight into some other possible options.

Fraser: The ice surfaces suck, but they have been doing some fairly steady improvements on them. Locker rooms also suck, its an old building and for years when it was Great Lakes Sports it was in disrepair. I play in the Tuesday B/C league here, and have also previously played in their saturday D league when i first started back to playing regularly. One thing you will notice about this league, and any MSE league, is that they try to make all the leagues balanced, even if that means making a tier with only 3-4 teams in it (scheduling games against your tier, and the lower teams above and higher below). They are also probably the best league in the area for advanced game notice, but i dont know how Royal Oaks leagues are ran. My only gripe about MSE is they dont cap leagues at a certain number of teams, and they get low bidding on ice times when the many youth tourneys are going on, so you will get a lot of later game times. One good thing that can benefit you with MSE run teams is they do draft skates for players to meet with teams looking to fill roster slots/formation of house teams, so that could work well for you.

Troy: Higher quality surfaces compared to Fraser. My Sunday team that I now just sub for had come from this league, and complained how much fighting was in the leagues there. This was also quite a while ago they made the jump over to Rochester, so i am not sure how it is now, and have no experience to say it was for certain that way.

Lindell: I knew the guy who ran the rink for a while, so I used to skate here from midnight to 4 am on saturdays when i was in college, with some buddies in a "indoor pond hockey" atmosphere. this was several years ago however, and i always liked skating there. I might start doing some drop in there again.

Some other options for you in the area include:

Drop ins- Birmingham, Berkley, Rochester all have drop in hockey, contact them for times and dates. Id mention Rochester is a little more expensive, but most of the time people laugh when i tell them what expensive michigan drop in hockey costs, lol. Oak Park might have some drop in too, but i am not sure on this one.

Leagues-

Rochester Onyx has a decently run adult league. I have played Tuesday C/b and sat C/D leagues. They bracket off leagues into 8 team divisions, and cap leagues so the game times are slightly more reasonable than fraser. The guy who runs the league isnt as good at managing the brackets as MSE at fraser is, and also they are HORRIBLE at scheduling, which is my main complaint about Rochester. most of the time you will get days notice when your game will be, which for me working odd shifts is difficult to manage, but if your ok just assuming you will be playing sometime between 6-11 on your sunday it might not be a huge issue. There were spurts that i had 3 games scheduled in advance, but this is far between.

Mt. Clemens- further out than Fraser, but also ran by MSE, so if you dont find the day/time/skill level your looking for elsewhere, you can always check this league out. MSE as I mentioned before runs a solid league, and this 2 surface rink is in better shape than the 5 surface fraser. MSE does a few neat things, like schedule "winter classic style" outdoor games at Clark Park in detroit for some teams, offer double elim playoffs, pretty good rules against fighting.

let me know if you have any other questions, I hope this was at least some help.

[HDHockey 19]

Just like Stewie said, the facilities at Troy and Royal Oak are nicer than Fraser. I played in that Tues C league up until last year, it was a solid league but the games did get pretty chippy when you played 2 of the teams. We switched to Royal Oak Tuesdays, which is also pretty solid, but the gametimes have been pretty consistent start between 10:45 to midnight.

[AHill19 0]

Thank you guys for all the info and advice, I really appreciate it! Stewie, after you mentioned Rochester Onyx, I went there for pick up last night. Definitely one of the best I've been to so far, with ~20 skaters of mostly very solid skill level (no goalies unfortunately). That rink is super nice, even if it's a little further from me than some of the others. Worth the drive for sure. Talked to a guy about pickup roller hockey (at Joe Dumars I think) while I was there. It's been 10+ years since I've played roller, but I may give that a shot some time, too.

Still exploring my options for leagues. I would prefer a league that is just weeknights, seeing as I'm going to be gone several weekends in May/June. I could likely make some Sunday nights, but it would be hit or miss, depending on when I got back. Are typical Sunday games later at night or earlier in the evening (or both)? It looks like a lot of the MSE leagues I'm interested in are a weeknight and Sunday format, so I may be able to make that work. Onyx still has their spring 2014 info on their website, so I'll ask when the 2015 info will be available next time I go there. Troy has a Tuesday C league and a Sunday B league I may look into as well. As far as unpredictable game times go, I work a pretty standard 8-5, so I don't think I would have too many issues there.

Thankfully, in the fall, I won't have the weekend availability issues, so times and days won't limit my options.

[Stewie 721]

Onyx has the Tuesday C/D and Wednesday B/C leagues. I have played the Tuesday league for a season and it was a good competition, fun games. There was only one or two teams with a high Douche factor. I had to stop playing that league when I moved from Royal Oak to Allen Park about 1.5 years ago.

like most leagues, games on sundays will be earlier than weekdays, but sundays at the onyx can range anywhere from 6-11 start times, as its a larger league team wise now.

as far as the MSE league I am in right now, we have only played on Tuesdays so far, but I believe some times they add an off day game to fit the complement of games in, and in the playoffs sometimes you will play on odd nights also, but for the most part its Tuesdays.

As far as roller hockey goes, I have only just begun to start playing roller again myself. you are in a pretty decent spot there, not being super close to any one particular roller rink, but within 30 mins drive to the 4 main area rinks (sports forum in Clinton township, Inline Hockey Center in West Bloomfield, Canfield in Dearborn Heights, and Joe D's)