The Canadian Elite Hockey League (CEHL) was a semi-professional

hockey Hockey is a term used to denote a family of various types of both summer and winter team sports which originated on either an outdoor field, sheet of ice, or dry floor such as in a gymnasium. While these sports vary in specific rules, numbers o ...

league that played one season in 2005–2006. The CEHL was founded by Harold MacKay, a prominent member of the local hockey community. He previously brought the expansion

Halifax Mooseheads The Halifax Mooseheads are a Canadian major junior ice hockey club in the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League (QMJHL) based in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. The team was founded in 1994 and began play in the Dilio Division of the QMJHL from the ...

of the

QMJHL The Quebec Major Junior Hockey League (french: Ligue de hockey junior majeur du Québec; abbreviated ''QMJHL'' in English, ''LHJMQ'' in French) is one of the three major junior ice hockey leagues that constitute the Canadian Hockey League. The le ...

to Nova Scotia in 1994 and was later responsible for moving the Granby Predateurs franchise to Cape Breton where they became the

Cape Breton Screaming Eagles The Cape Breton Eagles are a major junior ice hockey team in the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League (QMJHL). Their home rink is Centre 200 in Sydney, Nova Scotia, Canada. History The franchise was originally granted to the Sorel Éperviers (B ...

. MacKay hoped to recruit players from major junior and university by giving them an opportunity to play locally and not re-locate to

professional A professional is a member of a profession or any person who works in a specified professional activity. The term also describes the standards of education and training that prepare members of the profession with the particular knowledge and ski ...

leagues in

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or the

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. The league's champion won the

Alexander Cup The Alexander Cup was the championship trophy for the Major Series of senior ice hockey in the Canadian Amateur Hockey Association from 1950 to 1954. The trophy was presented by its namesake, the Viscount Alexander as the 17th Governor General of ...

. Team budgets were set at $450,000

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and rosters were limited to a maximum of six import players. The first league champion was the Saint John Scorpions, coached by

Yvon Vautour Yvon Jean Vautour (born September 10, 1956) is a Canadian former ice hockey coach and former National Hockey League player. Playing career As a youth, Vautour played in the 1969 Quebec International Pee-Wee Hockey Tournament with a minor ice hoc ...

, who won the Alexander Cup by defeating the Dartmouth Destroyers in four games. In June 2006 the Cape Breton Crush folded leaving the league with just three teams. Soon after that the league itself shut down.

Teams

The charter franchises of the league were:PEI Talk • View topic - Elite hockey team names head coach
/ref> *Cape Breton Crush *Dartmouth Destroyers *Saint John Scorpions *Summerside IceFox

References

{{reflist

External links

CEHL website
Defunct ice hockey leagues in Canada 2005–06 in Canadian ice hockey by league