PHOENIX – Walking barefoot by the pool was a lesson learned the hard way for Arizona transplant Troy Mick.
“I didn’t realize it doesn’t really cool down here,” Mick said. “I had some blisters on the bottom of my feet.”
Mick is used to putting skates on his feet. The pricking sensation of slower circulation in freezing temperatures was more familiar than the burn of the desert sun. The Burnaby, British Columbia native learned to skate at 2 years old on a frozen lake. His ice skills got him drafted by the Pittsburgh Penguins in 1988. Injuries led to a much longer career in coaching.
Mick moved to north Phoenix in January to become the head of hockey operations for the new Fire ‘n’ Ice Sports Arena that will house two NHL-style ice sheets.
Mick is also the coach of the Phoenix Inferno, the North American 3 Hockey League team that will play its inaugural season this fall. The Inferno, a Tier III team, are the first of three junior teams being created in Arizona.
In June, the United States Hockey League announced the addition of six teams in the West, bringing the nation’s only Tier I junior league to 22 teams. Two of those teams are slated to be based in Arizona by the start of the 2027-28 season: in Prescott Valley and Phoenix.
Glenn Hefferan, the USHL commissioner, said the Arizona teams are the start of efforts to grow the game of hockey across the country – growth that the NHL and USA Hockey are both pressuring the USHL to execute.
“We see the NHL growing, we see college hockey growing, and in order for those to grow, we need to grow,” Hefferan said. “Think about it, there’s 62 Division I (college) programs. There’s only 16 USHL teams.”
The USHL feeds directly into Division I college programs and often the NHL. According to the USHL, 21 of the 25 players on the 2026 Olympic gold medal winning men’s ice hockey team developed through the USHL, about 50 percent of the players in the Division I ranks came through the USHL, and more than 185 players on NHL opening night rosters last season were USHL alumni.
Chris Peters, an NHL Draft & prospects analyst, and the content manager for FloHockey, called the USHL a one-of-a-kind league in the U.S.
“There really aren’t a lot of parallels to other sports,” Peters said. “It’s not like Single-A baseball because it’s not professional. It’s not like the (NBA) G League and you know, it’s not like college sports.”
Of the current 16 teams in the USHL, all of them are located in the Midwest, stretching from Ohio to the Dakotas, with the farthest west team, the Tri-City Storm, currently in Kearney, Nebraska.
The Prescott Valley and Phoenix USHL teams would bring the next generation of hockey players out west to play in the state. The four other teams will be based in California, with Nevada also a possibility for future expansion.
“It’s physical, it’s got a lot of skill,” Peters said of the USHL. “While it isn’t as proficient as the professionals, there is a level of entertainment value that comes along with that. Also with the knowledge that some of these players are going to become stars in the game.”
Prescott Valley team
The Prescott Valley team will play at the Findlay Toyota Center which seats roughly 4,500. The venue was previously home to the Central Hockey League’s Arizona Sundogs from 2006-2014. It also hosted ASU’s 2016 Desert Hockey Classic, and has hosted the Grand Canyon College Hockey Classic the past two years, an American Collegiate Hockey Association event.
Justin Reynolds is the president for the Prescott Valley USHL ownership group.
He said the owners are combing through more than 800 community submitted team names. Reynolds said the top five names will be unveiled and voted on by the public before the end of summer.
“The support’s been phenomenal thus far,” Reynolds said, “and we haven’t really done a ton of marketing just yet. We have season ticket holders reaching out, too, corporate sponsors, reaching out already.”
Much like the NHL, the USHL drafts players. They are eligible if they will turn 16 during the calendar year of the draft
“Next year is the 2011 birth year for the phase one draft,” Reynolds said. “They could step in as a 16-year-old or typically a lot of them will step in at 17 and 18.”
A phase two draft welcomes older players not drafted in previous years.
USHL teams are capped at six international roster spots that Canadian or European players can fill.
“The majority of the roster is going to be composed of American-based players,” Reynolds said.
The players drafted in May do not pay to participate in the league. They will live with billet families and have food stipends provided by the league.
“We’ll have 22, 24 players that’ll be housed locally amongst different homes throughout the area,” Reynolds said.
Phoenix team
The Phoenix team is owned by Ben Robert and a group of investors. He was formerly the president of the USHL’s Omaha Lancers from 2009-2014.
The Phoenix team has not announced where it will play. Nor was it something on which Hefferan could comment.
“There’s good ownership groups with these two particular teams,” Hefferan said. “Ben Robert … was partners with (former NHL player and current league executive) Luc (Robitaille) in Omaha, so they certainly know how to build a team.”
The departure of the Coyotes has not dissuaded investors from pursuing Arizona as a hockey market, and the lack of ice has not deterred young talent from finding the sport.
Just ask Mick or Reynolds.
“When you think of Arizona, you don’t think of hockey players, but the last 15 years, Arizona has had a very good hockey market,” Mick said, “I think it really took off when (NHL star and Scottsdale product) Auston Matthews did what he did.”
Reynolds agreed.
“Obviously, there’s three players right off the hop that come to mind that are phenomenal,” Reynolds said of the Valley’s USHL alumni. “NHL stars Matthew Knies, Josh Doan and Auston Matthews.”’
Matthews played two seasons in the USHL. He was a member of the National Team Development Program team in Plymouth, Michigan. Knies played for Tri-City and Doan played for the Chicago Steel.
The Arizona State men’s hockey roster for 2026-27 features 17 players who played junior hockey in the USHL. ASU freshman Teddy Merrill is returning to Arizona. He was raised in Scottsdale but played three USHL seasons in Iowa for the Dubuque Fighting Saints.
“There’s a lot of great players coming out of the West Coast and Phoenix,” Hefferan said. “We want to make it a travel-friendly league. We operate on the basis of being a player-first, player-friendly, athlete-healthy choice for players.”
ASU hockey coach Greg Powers told AZ Hockey Insider that USHL expansion will help improve all aspects of hockey in the Valley.
“We’ve definitely been at a geographic disadvantage from a recruiting standpoint,” Powers said. “Any time we want to go see a kid play we have to jump on a plane. We’ve done that for a decade. To have the league out here is going to be a huge benefit for us.”
NA3HL
The water is being poured for the rinks, and soon the familiar feel of the cool ice will return when Fire ‘n’ Ice stages its official opening on Sept. 1.
The Inferno are a Tier III junior hockey team, two rungs below the USHL and also sanctioned by USA Hockey to develop young players for the continuation of the game. The high level of play feeds into collegiate programs, but NA3HL players tend to go on to Division III schools, rather than Division I.
The Inferno will play 22 home games this year. Mick said adult tickets to see the NA3HL team will start at $10, with a specific goal in mind.
“This isn’t just a junior team at Fire ‘n’ Ice,” Mick said. “This is a junior team for the whole community.”
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