Michigan Ice Dogs

The Michigan Ice Dogs are a junior hockey team in Farmington Hills, Michigan, They play in the Midwest Junior Hocey League.

The Ice Dogs play their home games at the Farmington Hills Ice Arena.

The franchise started out as the Royal Oak Royals in the North American Junior Hockey League’s B Division. In the late 1990's they became the Belle Tire Jr. B team that played out of the Great Lakes Ice Arena in Fraser before moving to the Wayne Community Center and again changing their name to the Wayne Wheels and began skating in the Central States Hockey League.

For the next five years, the Wheels team grew and during the fifth year, they qualified and participated in the Junior B national tournament, placing third. During that season, Wheels’ owner Terry Kucharski wanted to broaden the team’s image to include the whole state of Michigan and the Michigan Ice Dogs were born.

The Ice Dogs moved their way up from Junior B to Junior A in the CSHL and in 2008, Kucharski made a big decision to move the Ice Dogs back to Junior B status in the new Great Lakes Junior Hockey League. In 2010, the team again made it to Boston for the national tournament once again.