Game/Season Format

Game Format

• Games will run for 1 hour total and the zamboni will run between games. The zamboni time is not part of our hour ice times. 

• Games will consist of a 3 minute warm up and three 18 minute periods with a 1 minute break between each period leaving 1 minute at the end of the game to vacate the ice for the zamboni to start on time. All time will be running time (the clock will not stop).

• There will be no overtime or shootouts, at the end of regulation time either one team will win, or it will be a tie.

• The zamboni runs for 15 minutes and if we have another game the second ice time will begin.

Season Format

• Seasons will consist of 10 teams each playing a total of 10 games. Every team will play each other once with the final match-ups being determined by season rank order. This will hopefully result in the final games of the season having teams playing their closest matched team and leave everyone ending on an enjoyable game!

• We have historically played all of our games on Saturdays. We will continue to do so for as long as we can. Earlier in the year we typically play in early afternoon, later in the year we end up with later time blocks as youth hockey begins.

• If possible we will plan for a season to run over 10 weeks with all teams playing every week. Ultimately we are at the mercy of the rink for scheduling. We might have a week off here and there for rink events and hopefully we will only rarely have to split game days across multiple weeks with some teams playing one week and the rest playing another.

• The team ranked the highest at the end of the season will get their team name and players' initials on the Rink Rats Trophy. Up till now, that has worked out to be determined by the final game, but ultimately the final ranking is determined by Points > Wins > Goal Differential > Total GF > Head to Head. In the past we've referred to one of the final games as "The Championship Game" but the final game day is not actually playoffs, simply final matchups. As such, it is technically possible for a team to lose their final game and still rank the highest (As the league is meant to be fun and supportive, but not overly competitive, individual stats and season rankings have been removed from the website.)

• In 2026, we operated for 3 seasons (Spring, Summer, and Fall) and noticed that during the Summer Season we had a large number of vacancies every week. Additionally, we found it difficult to schedule all three seasons and ran further into November/December than we would have liked. Moving into 2027 we plan to operate 2 seasons, Spring and Fall, with a Summer tournament in the middle. This will allow us to begin our Fall Season earlier and give people more of a break during the Summer and Winter.