The Challenge Cup, consisting of the highest tier of teams in Mid States, will consist of 10 teams broken into two groups of five and will begin with a round robin. The top two teams in each group will cross over in a two-game semifinal series (with a minigame if needed), with the final two teams squaring off for the championship at Centene Center in Maryland Heights on Friday, March 1.

The format is similar to the one used previous to last year, except that format took the top 12 teams and eight advanced into a quarterfinal round. Also last year, Mid States experimented with a double elimination tournament that won’t be used this season.

Ryan Harrison, one of Mid States’ directors, said the decision to go from 12 to 10 teams was largely based on the results of an annual coaches’ poll.

“That’s kind of one of the things we got was they wanted to change from last year, as well as kind of ice time as well,” Harrison said. “Ice is becoming harder and harder to get and it seems like we’re always trying to find more ice time and that’s the reason why we don’t have the quarterfinals this year.”

Harrison said the limited amount of facilities combined with the rising number of club teams has put ice time at a premium. He said clubs have an advantage in booking ice time because they can reserve it year-round, where Mid States can only book for four months.

“They’re going to obviously want to go with a contractor who can fill ice for you know, eight to 12 months a year with practices and skate times, versus us who are only really looking for games and practices in November, December, January and February,” Harrison said.

The move down to 10 teams could provide for some interesting discussion and debate during the club’s annual postseason seeding meeting Jan. 28.

It appears six or seven teams are locks for those spots and another five or six teams have a compelling resume to be included. The teams that don’t make the Challenge Cup are placed in the Wickenheiser Cup playoff bracket.

“The biggest discussion is like the last two in the Challenge and then like the first two in the Wick,” Harrison said. “Unfortunately, not everybody wants to play in the Challenge and you always get more teams that think they can do better in the Wick.”

The playoff committee consists of two representatives from each of Mid States’ four divisions.

“We obviously look at strength of schedule,” Harrison said. “That’s our No. 1 thing is basically who they’ve played, who they’ve beaten, and it really comes down to the guys on the playoff committee. In the past, I’ve come out with different rankings, Power Rankings, this and that and we use ‘My Hockey’ rankings and those are only so accurate. The conversation is always, well, this kid wasn’t here or they didn’t have those kids in that particular game.”

Centene Community Ice Center will serve as host to the Challenge and Wickenheiser Cup championships for the fourth season in a row.

The championships were previously played at Enterprise Center before the COVID-19 pandemic forced the league to look for a smaller venue. The atmosphere at a sold-out Centene is too good for Mid States to pass up.

“It’s rocking and you can’t hear yourself think once the game gets going,” Harrison said. “It adds to the intensity of it.”

Harrison said the league is coming off perhaps its most successful season attendance-wise.

Mid States has a revenue-sharing plan with its teams where it splits ticket revenue if teams meet a certain tickets sold threshold. Last year, 19 of the club’s 34 teams qualified for revenue sharing.

Harrison said the most promising aspect of that number is the number of public schools with top tickets sales. In fact, the top three schools in ticket sales were Oakville, Seckman and Fox, while St. Louis U. High and Parkway South rounded out the top five.

“A lot of people assume that like, ‘Oh, this is a league for like private schools,’ ” Harrison said. “But we have some very successful and competing public schools. I know some of our best attended games are usually public schools.”