Northern Ontario Junior Hockey League The Northern Ontario Junior Hockey League ( NOJHL ) is a Junior ' A ' hockey league operating in the Canadian province of Ontario . The NOJHL is one of ten Junior ' A ' Hockey Leagues in Canada and is a member of the Canadian Junior Hockey League and Hockey Canada . The winner of the NOJHL playoffs competes for the Dudley Hewitt Cup with the winners of the Ontario Junior Hockey League and the Superior International Junior Hockey League . The winner of the Dudley Hewitt Cup then moves on to compete for the Royal Bank Cup . As of the conclusion of the 2014 - 15 season no NOJHL had ever won the Royal Bank Cup or the predecessor Centennial Cup The Modern NOJHL . The current incarnation of the NOJHL comprises six Ontario teams and one American team . With teams in North Bay , Sudbury , Sault Ste . Marie , Ontario and Michigan , Blind River , Iroquois Falls , and Kirkland Lake , the league is spread across the southern region of Northeastern Ontario and the corresponding region of Michigan . The story of the current NOJHL began in 1972 . The NOJHL was not on stable footing and was competing as a Junior " A " league . In Southern Ontario , the Ontario Major Junior Hockey League was looking to expand North . The league ' s two top teams , the Sudbury Wolves and Sault Ste . Marie Greyhounds , accepted an invitation from the OMJHL to compete in the high octane league . The next best team , the North Bay Trappers chose not to stick around either and jumped to the Ontario Hockey Association ' s new Ontario Provincial Junior A Hockey League . With the top tier of talent sheared off , the only remaining team in the league was the Chelmsford Canadiens . A season before , the Espanola Screaming Eagles had been a member of the league , but opted to drop to the NOHA Jr . B Hockey League in 1971 ; the Canadiens joined them in 1972 . The NOHA Jr . B Hockey League was formed in 1970 with a North and South division and teams in Capreol , Levak , Kapuskasing , amongst others . In their first season , the Capreol Hawks won the league championship . In 1971 , Espanola jumped on board , followed by Chelmsford in 1972 . In 1973 , the Canadiens moved to Rayside - Balfour and became the Canadians . The Onaping Falls Huskies joined in 1974 , and the Nickel Centre Native Sons joined in 1976 . In 1978 , the top teams of the NOHA Jr . B Hockey League created the Northern Ontario Junior Hockey League and were promoted to Tier II Junior " A " . With the five former Jr . " B " clubs and the Sudbury Cubs , the league was back in action . In 1981 , the Elliot Lake Vikings jumped into the fold . In 1983 , the Onaping Falls Huskies dropped out despite winning three league titles in the past four seasons . After a one season hiatus , they came back for two more years and then folded for good . In 1986 , Rayside - Balfour went on hiatus and Capreol folded , dropping the league down to four teams . The Ontario Provincial Junior A Hockey League , also down to four teams , operated with the NOJHL as essentially two divisions of the same league . With an interlocking schedule , the NOJHL survived the 1986 - 87 season , the OPJHL did not and folded after the season concluded . Also , after 8 years of trying and failing , an NOJHL champion defeated an OPJHL champion for the Ontario Hockey Association championship . The Nickel Centre Power Trains defeated the Owen Sound Greys 4 - games - to - 2 for the right to compete for the Dudley Hewitt Cup - - the Central Canadian Junior " A " Championship . The next year , the Canadians were back and a new team known as the Thessalon Flyers entered the league . In 1988 , the Haileybury 54 ' s joined the league and in 1989 so did the Rouyn - Noranda Capitales . Thessalon folded in 1990 , Haileybury moved to Powassan in 1991 and the Timmins Golden Bears joined as well . A season later , Sudbury became Nickel Centre and then later folded . In 1994 , Powassan moved to Sturgeon Falls and the Parry Sound Shamrocks joined the league . In 1996 , Rouyn - Noranda folded to make way for a new Quebec Major Junior Hockey League team that was moving to their town . In 1999 , Timmins moved to Iroquois Falls , Elliot Lake moved to Nickel Centre , and the Soo Thunderbirds were founded . Also in 1999 , Parry Sound moved to a new OPJHL ( founded in 1993 ) . A year later , Nickel Centre moved to Blind River and the Sudbury Jr . Wolves were founded . In 2002 , Sturgeon Falls moved to North Bay . A season after that , a team from Manitoulin joined and Espanola jumped over to Sault Ste . Marie , Michigan . Finally , in 2005 , the league ' s most dominant team in history and the last remaining shred of the original NOJHL , Rayside - Balfour , folded . They did not go without leaving their mark . From 1996 until 2002 , the team won 7 straight NOJHL Championships , three Dudley Hewitt Cup s , and once came within one win of winning the Royal Bank Cup as national champions . In 2005 - 06 , the North Bay Skyhawks played 10 interlocking games against the Central Junior A Hockey League ' s Yzerman Division members . Skyhawks won 2 out of 10 of those games . There were six teams in the NOJHL as of 2007 . The 2006 – 07 league champions , the Soo Indians , took a year off in an attempt to sell . A year later they came back as the Soo Eagles . Also , in the summer of 2008 the Temiscaming Royals jumped from the Greater Metro Junior A Hockey League to the NOJHL to expand the league to eight teams . Temiscaming was the second Québécois team in NOJHL history , after the Rouyn - Noranda Capitales who were in the league from 1989 to 1996 . In the Spring of 2011 , the Royals failed to find new ownership and folded . During the 2011 - 12 season , the NOJHL implemented concussion safety policy and drug testing programs . The NOJHL is the first league in Canadian Junior A hockey to target either of these hot button issues . In 2012 , the Soo Thunderbirds became only the second NOJHL franchise to qualify for the Royal Bank Cup , ending a 10 - year drought that saw no NOJHL franchise at the Royal Bank Cup , despite making the Dudley - Hewitt Cup finals three times since the round - robin format in 2002 . Over the summer of 2012 , the Sudbury Jr . Wolves severed ties with the OHL ' s Wolves amd became the Sudbury Cubs , and that moniker only lasted one season and became the Sudbury Nickel Barons . In 2013 , the NOJHL granted expansion to Espanola . A community that have been without an NOJHL team since 2003 when the Screaming Eagles relocated to Northern Michigan . The re - addition of Espanola to 8 teams - the most since the 2004 - 05 season . The North Bay Trappers relocated out of North Bay to Mattawa at the end of the 2013 - 14 season and became the Mattawa Blackhawks all because the Trappers were denied a lease renewal with West Ferris Arena and also because of the thriving OHL market with the North Bay Battalion . The Espanola Rivermen were added to the NOJHL for 2013 - 14 , but left to join the non - Hockey Canada sanctioned Canadian International Hockey League . The Elliot Lake Bobcats relocated to Cochrane , Ontario and became the Cochrane Crunch , who became the league ' s most - northern team . Weeks later , the Elliot Lake market was replaced with the Elliot Lake Wildcats . Over the summer of 2015 , the league saw the resurrection of the Rayside - Balfour Canadiens , who were the Sudbury Nickel Barons from 2012 to 2015 . The Abitibi Eskimos left Iroquois Falls after 13 years to move to Timmins and become the Timmins Rock . Mattawa , the smallest market in the NOJHL lost the Mattawa Blackhawks to Iroquois Falls to fill in for the departed Abitibi Eskimos . The team will be known as the Iroquois Falls Eskimos . The league grew to 10 teams with the addition of the French River Rapids of Noelville , Ontario . The Sudbury Nickel Barons , for the second time pulled out of hosting the Dudley - Hewitt Cup due to the relocation and the lack of support in the community . The 2016 tournament will be allocated to Kirkland Lake , Ontario and hosted by the Kirkland Lake Gold Miners . Weeks after the French River Rapids joined the league , the Espanola Express joined the league putting membership to a record 11 teams - the most the league has carried . The league carried as few as 6 teams in 2007 - 08 . In May 2015 , the Soo Eagles of the North American Hockey League applied and were approved by the NOJHL to return to the NOJHL for the first time since the 2011 - 12 season . The reason for the Soo Eagles return to the NOJHL was because Michigan - based NAHL teams were lost to either folding or relocation , and the league was no longer possible for the Eagles to compete in . Copeland - McNamara Trophy and Division Champions . In 2008 - 09 , the NOJHL instituted divisions . Overall champions are bolded .