The inaugural season of the Maryland Black Bears is inching closer, especially with the NAHL revealing the 2018-19 season schedule. The season for the Black Bears starts at home on September 14th and 15th against the New Jersey Titans at Piney Orchard.

The schedule can be found here on the NAHL website, but here’s a bit of a breakdown of the first year and who they’ll face:

• There’s no Western swing for the Black Bears, as expected. The NAHL looks to keep travel costs down, therefore you won’t see Maryland really go over to play the Western Conference until the end of the season.
• That is unless the Black Bears play some Western opponents at the NAHL Showcase–which doesn’t seem to be on the actual schedule. All the teams will play four regular season games from September 19th through the 22nd in Blaine, Minnesota at the Schwann Super Rink. I’m sure that schedule should be coming out if it hasn’t already and I’m just too stupid to find it.
• In fact, the Black Bears will play exclusively in their division. They’ll face Johnstown 12 times, New Jersey 12 times, Northeast (Attleboro, MA) 12 times, Jamestown (NY) 12 times, and Wilkes-Barre/Scranton 8 times. This will breed a lot of familiarity with players and fans alike– which is either really good or really bad; but either way exciting.
• While all the home games are being played at Piney Orchard, there is the weekend of January 11th and 12th where Maryland will play at Laurel Ice Gardens and Rockville Ice Arena respectively. That weekend, the Black Bears will take on the Johnstown Tomahawks in a way to show off the newest development team to other parts of Maryland hockey.

So there you have it– the Black Bears season is just two months away (get your season tickets here) and it’s a pretty exciting time for developmental hockey in Maryland. This program will be a solid start for hopefully a bigger impact for Marylanders in higher hockey.