Hockey Hounds U15AAA tournament to change format, adapt U17AAA division

By JAMES TUBB on January 31, 2025.

jtubb@medicinehatnews.com@ReporterTubb

The historic Medicine Hat Hockey Hounds U15AAA tournament will have a new look this fall.

The 52nd rendition of the tournament will be split into a new format, with an eight-team U15AAA division and a new U17AAA division of eight teams playing on the same weekend.

The 2025 tournament, to be held Nov. 13-16, will as usual start on a Thursday and then feature a U15AAA and U17AAA championship game on the Sunday.

Dale Fuller, the Hockey Hounds treasurer, says the decision to change the format stemmed from the challenge of getting enough high-quality teams to fill a 16-team tournament.

“We should be able to easily get eight quality U15AAA teams and eight quality U17AAA teams, and that’s really what we’re aiming for,” Fuller said. “We want quality more so than quantity.”

The 2024 tournament featured 12 teams, including the Medicine Hat U15AAA South East Athletic Club Tigers who won their first tourney title since 1999.

Fuller says when the Hockey Hounds tournament started, and even as recent as 10 years ago, there were only a handful of other U15 tournaments. In 2024, there were more than 20 tournaments of the same ilk. Fuller says they take a lot of pride in being the second longest running tournament in Western Canada, as well as leading the pack when it comes to the creation of the U15AAA tournaments.

“We’ve always had the pride in the fact that we were in at the beginning,” Fuller said.

The new-look Hounds tournament with the inclusion of U17AAA will also offer a higher level of hockey, Fuller says. An attraction of the previous format was the amount of future WHL talent on display ahead of the WHL draft. He says the new tournament will offer two different levels of the game while stile showcasing the future of junior hockey in Western Canada.

“Because we’re putting on two tournaments at the exact same time, you can go watch a U15AAA game and then go watch the U17AAA game and have the chance to see a difference,” Fuller said. “Then you can see where players need to get to play at that next level.”

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