The Canadian Elite Hockey League (CEHL) was a

semi-professional Semi-professional sports are sports in which athletes are not participating on a full-time basis, but still receive some payment. Semi-professionals are not amateur because they receive regular payment from their team, but generally at a cons ...

hockey ''Hockey'' is a family of List of stick sports, stick sports where two opposing teams use hockey sticks to propel a ball or disk into a goal. There are many types of hockey, and the individual sports vary in rules, numbers of players, apparel, ...

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 junior ice hockey team in the Quebec Maritimes Junior Hockey League (QMJHL) based in Halifax, Nova Scotia. The team was founded in 1994 and began play in the Dilio Division of the QMJHL for the 1994–95 ...

of the

QMJHL The Quebec Maritimes Junior Hockey League (QMJHL; , LHJMQ), formerly the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League is one of the three major junior ice hockey leagues that constitute the Canadian Hockey League (CHL). The league includes teams in Quebec ...

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 Canadian junior ice hockey team in the Quebec Maritimes Junior Hockey League (QMJHL) based in Cape Breton Regional Municipality, Nova Scotia. They are members of the Maritimes Division, and play their home games at ...

. 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 work (human activity), works in a specified professional activity. The term also describes the standards of education and training that prepare members of the profession with the partic ...

leagues in

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or the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

. 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 ...

. 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 ho ...

, 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