Federal Hockey League

Federal Hockey League

Current season, competition or edition: 2016–17 FHL season
Federal Hockey League
Sport	Ice hockey
Founded	2009
Inaugural season	2010–11
Commissioner	Don Kirnan
No. of teams	7
Country	United States  Canada
Most recent champion(s)	Port Huron Prowlers (2016)
Official website	FHL website

The Federal Hockey League (FHL) is a professional ice hockey league with teams in the Midwestern and Northeastern United States as well as one team in Ontario. The FHL began operations in November 2010. Don Kirnan is the league's Commissioner.

In its inaugural season, the league had a salary cap of $5,050 per week. The roster was limited to 20 players for the first six games and 17 thereafter.

A handful of National Hockey League players and draft picks joined the ranks, most notably Pierre Dagenais and Billy Tibbetts. Dagenais, who played 142 games New Jersey Devils, Montreal Canadiens and Florida Panthers, played two seasons for the Akwesasne Warriors amassing 107 goals and 197 points in 68 regular season games, and helped Akwesasne win the first Commissioner's Cup. Tibbetts, who played with the role of an enforcer in his brief 82 game NHL career, mostly with the Pittsburgh Penguins, played 15 games for the Cape Cod Bluefins in 2011-12, scoring 10 goals, 40 points, and 109 PIM in only 15 games.

During the 2010–11 season, the Broome County Barons relocated to Cape Cod due to lack of fan support, and Rome Frenzy suspended operations mid-season.

Akwesasne won the first Commissioner's Cup title with a 3-1 series win over the New York Aviators.

In February 2011, the FHL announced it would add new teams in Morrisville, Vermont and Danville, Illinois, later named the Green Mountain Rock Crushers and the Danville Dashers, respectively. In May, the FHL announced an expansion team in Wayne, New Jersey, called the New Jersey Outlaws. By June, the FHL had been unable to establish a team in Vermont and included the Niagara Falls Nationals with the Dashers and Outlaws in an expansion draft. But by July 2011, the Nationals were gone and the Green Mountain Rock Crushers (which later changed its name to the Vermont Wild in September) were re-added to the schedule. In December 2011 the FHL announced that the Vermont Wild had folded and a new team, the Delaware Federals, would replace them on the schedule as a road-only team; the Federals played their first game on December 16, 2011 against Cape Cod.