Twin City Thunder head coach and owner Dan Hodge communicates with players on the ice in October 2022 at Norway Savings Bank Arena in Auburn. Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal

The footprint of the New England Division changed so dramatically over the past two years that Twin City Thunder owner Dan Hodge couldn’t justify keeping the junior hockey organization in Auburn.

The United States Premier Hockey League announced last week that the Thunder are moving to Exeter, New Hampshire, for the 2024-25 season.

Changes within the New England Division of the USPHL National Collegiate Development Conference resulted in the Thunder being far away from the opponents that make up the majority of their schedule.

“The sale of the Junior Bruins was a big factor,” said Hodge, also the coach of the Thunder’s NCDC team. “At the end of the season, when you take a look at everything of what comes in and what comes out — I hate to say it, but it comes down to what makes the organization and business healthy.”

The Marlborough, Massachusetts-based Junior Bruins, one of the USPHL’s charter franchises, sold its Tier II NCDC franchise in March to ASM Hockey Group LLC, which moved the team to West Chester, Pennsylvania. The Junior Bruins will still have teams in USPHL’s Tier III leagues, the Premier League and Elite League, as well as 16U and 18U teams.

This is the second straight year the NCDC lost at least one New England Division franchise. The Boston Advantage left the USPHL after the 2022-23 season, and the New Hampshire Junior Monarchs ceased operations due to the sale of their arena — Tri-Town Arena in Hooksett, New Hampshire.

There were four NCDC teams within a two-and-a-half-hour drive of the Thunder during the 2022-23 season. In 2024-25, there would have been only two franchises that close to Norway Savings Bank Arena in Auburn, Twin City’s home ice.

The move to The Rinks at Exeter — where Dan’s brother, Ken Hodge Jr., was the general manager from 2002-2007 — puts the Thunder 35 miles away from the Northern Cyclones (Hudson, New Hampshire) and the Islanders Hockey Club (Tygnsboro, Massachusetts). They will be 100 minutes from the South Shore Kings in Foxboro, Massachusetts.

The fifth team in the New England Division is the Utica Jr. Comets of Utica, New York, which is nearly five hours from Exeter.

“It helps the rest of our division as well,” Hodge said of the move to Exeter. “As a business partner and as an opponent, you want the league to prosper and survive. I always try to be a good teammate. I wanted to make the division stronger and help my partners.”

The Thunder came to Norway Savings Bank Arena as an expansion franchise in the Premier League for the 2018-19 season. They received an NCDC franchise for the 2019-20 season.

Hodge said he and Ben Gray brought the Thunder to Auburn for the start of the 2018-19 season because of expectations that the USPHL would add other franchises to Maine.

“Ben spearheaded it; he was living up there, and I was living on (Cape Cod), and we were looking at the best possible place to put a team,” Hodge said. “I think when we came in, there were thoughts of more teams coming to Maine. Maybe that was the league’s idea.”

Gray, a former St. Dominic Academy standout who lives in Farmingdale, remained a co-owner of the Thunder until the spring of 2021 when he sold his share to Hodge. Auburn native Cam Robichaud then came on as a co-owner later that summer (he sold his stake in 2023 to become the first head coach of the New Hampshire Mountain Kings of the North American Hockey League.)

The Thunder only had an NCDC team this winter, but announced earlier this spring plans to bring back a Premier League team after a one-year hiatus.

Twin City Thunder’s Aidan Bender shoots past Northern Cyclones’ Colin Van Valkenburgh during a December 2023 game in Auburn. Andree Kehn/Sun Journal

The NCDC team went 103-108-20 during the regular season in its five seasons. It reached the league semifinals in 2020-21 and the New England Division final the following year.

The Premier League team went 98-94-16 in the regular season and made the playoffs in each of its five seasons.

Hodge said he enjoyed his time in Auburn and at Norway Savings Bank Arena.

“Just the people and the fans,” Hodge said. “We had our core group of fans and billet families, and everybody I got to meet. Hopefully, I have forged relationships that will last past hockey. Hockey ends for everybody at some point. Hopefully, the relationships I forged will last past hockey.”

FILLING ICE TIME

Marc Gosselin, who runs Norway Savings Bank Arena and is the Executive Director of Community Partnerships & Sports Tourism for the City of Auburn, said he understands Hodge’s decision to move the Thunder organization when its contract ends in June.

“Hockey always fluctuates; the whole environment fluctuates,” Gosselin said. “It’s a business decision he made, and we respect it, and they were good tenants. We enjoyed having high-level hockey in the building while they were here. If it’s better for him to move elsewhere, we wish him the best.”

Hodge, who lives in Scarborough, said he’s still interested in running his Hodge Hockey camps — a separate entity from the Thunder — at Norway Savings Bank Arena in some fashion during the summer months.

Gosselin said there should be no issue filling ice times that the Thunder had as an anchor tenant.

“We are going to backfill with youth hockey, high school hockey,” Gosselin said. “There are plenty of people looking for ice time, and we are going to be able to accommodate those different people in those time slots.”

Gosselin said the Maine Gladiators — the youth hockey organization based at Norway Savings Bank Arena — is expanding, and the arena will be offering its own Learn-to-Skate program.

Bringing in another anchor tenant is another possibility, at some point.

“There’s nothing out there right now, but it does open the door for something else,” Gosselin said. “That’s how things fluctuate in hockey. Who knows what the future holds?”