Zac Electrifly

The Reno Ice Raiders announced their schedule for the 2024-25 season last Friday. The Reno Ice Raiders play in the Mountain Hockey League. There are now ten teams in the MHL. There are exhibition teams as well. The MHL has not posted anything on social or their website since March. They did have a playoffs last season. Last seasons playoffs did not finish. The Reno Ice Raiders will be playing in a twenty eight game season. Majority of those games will be home games. All of the Reno Ice Raiders home games will be at Reno Ice.

The Reno Ice Raiders will be playing twenty eight games for the 2024-25 season. That is the same amount of games they played last season which was the most by far in the Mountain Hockey League. The Ice Raiders will be playing eighteen home games and only ten away games. They are playing two less home games then they did last season. All of the Reno Ice Raiders games are on Fridays and Saturdays. The season starts on Friday, October 18th, 2024 against the Boston Gold Kings. The regular season will come to and end on Saturday, March 23rd against the McCall Mountaineers. The postseason will start on Friday, April 18th, 2025. That is according to the Reno Ice Raiders website. The Cops vs Fire Fighters exhibition game will be on Saturday, October 12th, 2024. The United States vs Canada exhibition game dubbed the “U.S Eh! Classic” will be on Saturday, April 5th, 2025.

The Reno Ice Raiders and Tahoe Knight Monsters have twenty one games scheduled on the same days. Only three of those days will see home games for both teams. Five of those games are home games for the Tahoe Knight Monsters while the Reno Ice Readers are playing away games. Eleven of those games are home games for the Reno Ice Raiders while the Tahoe Knight Monsters are playing away games.

The Reno Ice Raiders will be taking on eight different teams. Four their opponents where in the Mountain Hockey League last season. Two of their opponents were exhibition teams in the MHL last season. Two of their opponents are new teams. The Reno Ice Raiders only played four of there 2024-25 opponents last season. The Reno Ice Raiders will take on the Boston Gold Kings, the Chicago Shamrocks, the McCall Mountaineers, the Sin City Kings, the Santa Rosa Growlers, the New York Fire Department, the Mansfield Barracudas, and San Diego Hockey Club. The Santa Rosa Growlers are on the Reno Ice Raiders schedule for the first time since the 2021-22 season when the Ice Raiders refused to play them.

The Reno Ice Raiders are not playing the Bozeman Stingers, the Breckenridge Vipers, the Jackson Hole Moose, the Park City Pioneers, the Rock Springs Roughnecks, the Sun Valley Suns, the Vail Yeti, or the NORCAL Hitmen this season. All of those teams are listed on the MHL website as teams as of the 2023-24 season. I am not sure if the Bozeman Stingers, Rock Springs Roughnecks, or NORCAL Hitmen are still active. The Breckenridge Vipers, the Jackson Hole Moose, the Sun Valley Suns, and the Vail Yeti are still active. The Jackson Hole Moose and Vail Yeti are the only teams the Reno Ice Raiders are not playing that have released a schedule for the 2024-25 season. The Park City Pioneers are inactive as far as I can tell.

There were at least thirty one exhibition teams during the 2023-24 MHL season. I could not find any online info for the Austin Wolves, the Bolder Bison, the Boston Seahawks, the Boston’s Moon Mountain Moons, the Chicago Top Shelf, the Colorado Nailers, the Colorado Tugboats, the East Coast Guttersnipes, the First Responders, the Midtown Mafia, Scottsdale Mens Hockey, St. Louis, the Vermont Flex, and the Vermont Switchbacks. The California Grizzlies are joining the Western Pro Hockey League. They may or may not continue to be an MHL exhibition team. The Calumet Wolverines are a member of the Great Lakes Hockey League. They also may or may not continue to be an MHL exhibition team. The Denver Leafs are a member of the Ice Centre Adult Hockey League. They are another team that may continue to be an MHL exhibition team. The Desert Dogs Hockey Club (sometimes called the Phoenix Desert Dogs) seem to be mostly independent. They will likely continue as an MHL exhibition team. They may join the MHL in the future. The Holy Cross Alumni (Holy Cross Crusaders) are NCAA D1 Alumni. They also seem to be mostly independent. The Michigan State Spartans Alumni seem to be in the same position as the Holy Cross Alumni. Montana State University Hockey are an American Collegiate Hockey Association Division II team. They share an arena with the Bozeman Stingers. Further exhibitions between them may happen in the future. New York St. Nicks seem to be mostly independent. The NorCal Stampede stated in 2023 that they were looking to “rebuild their brand”. There have not been any updates since then. I do believe they are inactive but the MHL may be hopeful for their return. The North Bay Guns and Hosers Hockey Club are a first responders team out of Santa Rosa. They will likely continue as an MHL exhibition team as long as the Santa Rosa Growlers are in the MHL. The NYPD Finest Hockey are a police team that are mostly independent. As an independent team they will likely continue to look for exhibition games with whoever they can including MHL teams. I think the Park City Pioneers are inactive. They last posted on their social media in 2022. They did play some games last season. They may play some games this season. The Provo Riverblades were a USPHL team. It does appear that they are no longer active. Sacramento Fire Hockey Club are a fire fighter team. Like other first responder teams they are mostly independent and will likely look to the MHL for exhibition games. The St. Louis Spirit may still be around. I could not find a lot of info on them. The UCDavis Ice Hockey are another ACHA team. They may continue to have exhibition games with MHL teams. The Wilmington Wheels are an active team even though there is not a lot of info on them either. Most of the MHL exhibition teams have little to no info online. It seems like most of the MHL exhibition teams are used to fill up the MHL schedule.