North Eastern Hockey League The North Eastern Hockey League was a semi - professional league from 2003 until 2008 . It was created by entrepreneur Jim Cashman , who served as league president . The NEHL was built to focus on giving players that were not quite ready for the ECHL , United Hockey League ( now the International Hockey League ) and the Central Hockey League a place to play and develop after their Junior and college careers had finished . In the 2003 - 04 season 9 total players moved up to the " AA " level and remained there and 6 of those players came from the York IceCats alone . History . The League started with 4 franchises , the York IceCats out of York , Pennsylvania , Jamestown Titans out of Jamestown , New York , Mohawk Valley Comets out of Whitestown , New York and the Poughkeepsie Panthers out of Poughkeepsie , New York . After very low attendance in the first few games in Poughkeepsie , the team was to be relocated to Connecticut and renamed the Connecticut Cougars but negotiations with an arena broke down and the Cougars finished as a road team for the remainder of the season . When concerns of Comets players not being available for the final month of the season due to their summer jobs starting , Coach Brett Boake requested a schedule change and the season was shortened a month . The Comets decided 2 days before the playoff weekend that they were not going to participate as not enough players were available and they had financial concerns . With the Comets as the league regular season leaders , they were to get a bye straight to the finals , which was to be played on Sunday . York and Jamestown ( the second and third place teams ) were to play on the Saturday to see who went on to face the Comets . Once the Comets had informed the league that they would not be playing , the league changed the playoff structure . York and Jamestown would play a 2 game series that weekend . If there were a tie after the 2 games they would play a 20 - minute mini game . York won the opening game , 8 - 5 . Jamestown defeated York 9 - 1 in the second game and then won a 20 - minute tiebreaker game 6 - 1 . As league champions , the Titans received the Herb Brooks Memorial Trophy . The league went dark for the 2004 - 05 season , then attempted to return in 2005 - 06 as the Continental Professional Hockey League with teams in Canada and the United States . The regular 44 - game season was supposed to start in early November 2005 , was postponed , saw 6 games played , and was cancelled in mid - December 2005 . In the 2006 - 2007 season , The New England Stars finished first with a record of 20 - 0 , and cruised in the Championship series beating the Mohawk Valley Icecats 2 games to 0 ( 8 - 5 and 9 - 2 ) to capture the 2006 - 2007 NEHL Crown . The league announced on January 23 , 2008 that it was suspending operations for the remainder of the 2007 - 08 season . Teams . 2003 - 04 2005 - 06 " ( teams only played 6 games until the league suspended operations for a season ) " 2006 - 07 2007 - 08 Previous NEHL . A previous league was also known as the North Eastern Hockey League during the 1978 - 79 season . This league renamed itself the Eastern Hockey League for the 1979 - 80 season .