Youth hockey parents who tote kids around during the summer months to different events know the feeling all too well. 

A delayed flight. A beeline for the rental car. A forgotten set of sticks. A high-speed drive to some unknown arena, barreling up and down nondescript suburban highways until Siri announces you’ve arrived at your destination. 

The family stumbles into the rink, the player desperately trying to find their locker room, fearful that dryland warmups have already started. Younger siblings are handed whatever will keep them content for the next couple of hours after a harrowing morning between airports and window seats. 

The adults cradle cups of coffee, settle in along the glass and wait for the games they flew halfway across the country for to begin. 

The teams take the ice…and then everything falls apart. 

Mismatched teams and lopsided scores lead to sour feelings and bad blood, made all the worse by the fact that you spent five days of PTO and a few thousand dollars to get here.

The United States Elite League has plans to change that classic scenario. Big plans. 

“(We’re going to) put our formula out there and execute it to the best of our abilities, and in doing so, provide phenomenal competition and top-end events.” 

Those are the words of the USEL’s first commissioner, Luke Greiner. Greiner is a California native who moved to Faribault, Minnesota, to play for the vaunted Shattuck-St. Mary’s program as an eighth-grader. 

After his time with the Sabres, Greiner played in the USHL before suiting up for Harvard for four seasons. Greiner then plied his trade in pro hockey’s lower levels before hanging up his skates and becoming a lawyer. 

As a result of his unique playing career, spanning from California’s golden coast to the Sea Islands and Piedmont Plateau of South Carolina, Greiner is well-schooled in the nuances of the youth hockey landscape. 

“What you see with summer hockey is chaos, for lack of a better term,” Greiner said on Wednesday afternoon. 

“It’s a lot of running around, and it’s a lot of inconsistency from tournament to tournament. That’s the spot we’re trying to fill, to put something on at a very high level that’s consistent,” Greiner continued. “You know what you’re going to get, and you’re going to get it every time.”

The USEL currently consists of seven members. Among those teams are the spring/summer programs for national youth powerhouses Chicago Mission, Detroit-based Little Caesars and Honeybaked, Myhro Hockey Performance out of the New England area, Western Selects, Windy City Hockey Development, and Minnesota-based Select Development Program.

For the 2022 season, the league will feature players solely from the 2008 birth year. The league hopes to expand to 14-Under, 15-Only, and 16-Under divisions for 2009, 2008, and 2007 birth years next year. 

These teams will compete in a league-style format, participating in three separate weekend slates to determine an overall champion. Member programs will host these events, with weekend one being played in Minnesota, the second set of games played in the Detroit area, and a league playoff series scheduled for early June in Chicagoland.

With concentrated events featuring teams that will virtually never lack talent, the ultimate goal of the USEL is consistent, top-notch competition that trims the excess fat off the spring and summer schedules for players and families.  

“Looking back on my playing days, and the chaos of running around that my parents went through, that we all kind of went through, my personal goal is to put a good product out there (and) solve a problem,” Greiner said. 

With the league’s inaugural event set to begin early Friday morning at the Breck School’s Anderson Ice Arena in Golden Valley, Minnesota, the vision of Commissioner Greiner and the founding members of the USEL are about to see the fruits after months of intense planning and collaboration. 

For more information on the league, click here.