MAHA – Districts, States and Nationals Player and Team Eligibility
- To qualify for Districts/State/National Tournaments please note the following game counts for Individual Players and teams:
- Individual Player Game Counts
- National Bound Teams: Player must participate in 10 USA Sanctioned games before Feb. 1st or before the first game of District Playoffs with their team.
- Non-National bound teams: Individual players need to play in 7 games before Feb. 1st or before the first game of District Playoffs with their team.
- Team Game Counts
- National Bound teams: must play at least 17 games in its classification, category and division before the earliest of Feb. 1st or before the regularly scheduled first game of District Playoffs
- Girls Classification and Non-National bound teams: must play at least 14 games in its classification, category and division before the earliest of Feb. 1st or before the regularly scheduled first game of District Playoffs
- Individual Player Game Counts
The following game counts shall be adhered to by players and teams in the classification in which they participate or roster.
Effective in the 2024-2025 Season, MAHA has created a pilot program allowing Youth and Girls Tier 3/House teams in the 10u and 12u age classification to increase the game count from 40 games to 45 games in the 10u classification and from 40 games to 50 games in the 12u classification.
All games played with a referee and a scoresheet will go toward your game count unless specified below. This includes:
All preseason scrimmages or alignment games played with a referee and logged on a scoresheet.
All games played in LCAHL or MGHL, including playoff games, are included in the game count.
All Tournaments games shall count four (4) games maximum (10u and older), regardless of the actual number of games played. So if you go to a 5th championship game, that game will not count.
District, State, and National games do not apply to the maximum game count.
ESTIMATING YOUR # OF GAMES
When you are planning your season, much of what you play from September 1st until the State Tournament will count toward your game count.
The # of league games is hard to determine, it depends on how many teams. You should estimate 16 -20 games for LCAHL league play from beginning to end of playoffs. You will know early in the season how many games you will be on pace to play
For District games, you can expect to play 3 first round games, 4 second round games, if you advance to hockey day it is one game and then the state tournament is another 4 games and these do not count toward your total game count.
RECOMMENDED LENGTHS OF PERIODS BY AGE
The length of periods during regular season play shall be at the discretion of the individual leagues and teams in all divisions with the following recommendations as a general guideline.
NOTE: Time requirements for District and State tournament play may vary.
MAHA D4 DISTRICTS ROUND 1 PERIOD LENGTHS
STANDARD PERIOD LENGTHS BY DIVISON
| AGE CLASSIFICATION | PERIOD LENGTH | ALLOTED ICE TIME |
| 10U|Squirt AA-A-B | 10-12 minutes | 50-65 minutes |
| 12U|PeeWee AA-A-B | 12-15 minutes | 65 or 80 minutes |
| 14U|Bantam AA-A-B | 15-16 minutes | 80 minutes |
| 16U|19U|Midget AA-A-B | 15-17 minutes | 80 minutes; 120 mins with resurface |
