ROCKFORD, Ill. …AHL President and CEO Scott Howson met with local and national media Wednesday for his annual state-of-the-league address.
A tradition started by Howson’s predecessor, Dave Andrewseach season’s press conference is an opportunity to gauge where the league stands during the AHL All-Star Classic.
For starters, Howson was impressed this week with the city of Rockford’s support for the AHL All-Star Classic. The two-night event, hosted by the Rockford IceHogs, featured Tuesday’s AHL All-Star Skills Competition and Wednesday night’s AHL All-Star Challenge at the newly renovated BMO Center. For a city that’s been overshadowed by a huge market like Chicago, Howson said this is a chance for Rockford to be in the spotlight for a change.
The timing was also right: the IceHogs’ NHL parent team, the Chicago Blackhawks, is celebrating their centennial, while the AHL’s 90th anniversary celebration also continues. It had also been 22 years since a Midwestern US city hosted the event.
“When we announced this event (in January 2025), we had a great reception,” Howson recalls. “I could see how meaningful it would be. You can see the impact it had.”
As for the state of the AHL, a huge case was settled with the league and the Professional Hockey Players’ Association ratifying a new five-year collective bargaining agreement last month, a deal that runs through August 31, 2030. For Howson and PHPA executive director Brian Ramsayit was the first time they had worked together on CBA negotiations, following Andrews and Ramsay’s predecessor, Larry Landonhas gone through the process several times over more than 25 years.
As with any business transaction, each party has its objectives and priorities; Howson called the collaboration with Ramsay and the PHPA committee ‘tough, tough and very respectful’.
“I was very pleased with how the negotiations went in terms of behavior, treating each other with respect and listening to each other,” said Howson, who is in his sixth season leading the AHL. “We won’t always agree, and we certainly didn’t agree during the negotiations on many things. But we have to live together, and there’s no point in fighting with each other every day. We have to be able to trust each other that if something is really important, we can go to each other and get it done.”
Here are some of the other topics Howson described:
• The new CBA means that next season there will be an adjustment to the competition’s development rule. A team will still have 12 of the 18 players in its lineup (not counting the two goaltenders) who have played 260 or fewer professional games at the NHL, AHL and European elite levels, calculated as of opening night. But instead of one of the maximum six “veteran” slots required to be a player between 261 and 320 games, teams can dress six skaters after the 260-game mark.
“That was very important for the players,” Howson said. “We’ve talked to our clubs. I’ve talked to the NHL general managers and the NHL assistant general managers.”
• Howson said at least one team has expressed interest in hosting an outdoor competition for next season, although nothing has been officially decided yet. The Iowa Wild Outdoor Classic, the 13th outdoor event in AHL history, was held on January 23 in Hastings, Minnesota.
“It’s a bit too early to say for sure,” Howson said.
• Regarding the Calder Cup Playoffs, Howson confirmed that the current 23-team format will remain in place for this season and beyond. Any format changes require approval from the league’s Board of Directors. NHL teams continue to want their prospects to have meaningful late-season and postseason experiences, and Howson said this format makes that goal possible.
“There is no sentiment or inclination to vote it out,” Howson said. “Everyone is very pleased with how the play-offs are going.”
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