FROM THE ARCHIVES: Northeast Generals (North American Hockey League) @ New England Sports Village (Attleboro, MA)

This one's a bit on the "odd" side: it's been a while since I've seen the Northeast Generals, and I didn't get to see them this season (more on that later), but I did write a little bit about the team back when I wrote all of those college hockey posts I put up last October. Since I don’t know if/when I’ll be able to visit the Generals again PLUS the fact that they actually moved from the venue where I saw them, I figured I’d post this today.

This covers two trips I made to see the Generals back when I was living in Massachusetts: the first on September 23, 2022, and the other on December 8, 2023. Like many of my college hockey posts, I updated it quite a bit from where it was left in 2023-24, but that's somewhat unimportant, so let's just get right to business.

I cannot find any good information about the history of the Northeast Generals outside of the fact that apparently the organization was founded in 2016, but what I can tell you is that the Generals USED to field two teams (honestly, this is all you need to know). The "upper" team (founded in 2016) was in the North American Hockey League (not to be confused with a hyper violent semi-pro league in Quebec with essentially the same name that I have somehow forgotten to mention TWICE), while the "lower" team (founded in 2015) was in the Tier III North American 3 Hockey League (not to be confused with the 3-on-3 competition known as 3ICE). However, in researching the Generals for this post, it appeared that similar to Danbury, the NA3HL team shut down at some point (I think it was as of the 2025-26 season).

I mentioned earlier that I visited the Generals twice when I was living in Massachusetts; both times, both of the teams mentioned above (NAHL and NA3HL) were in action (so basically, this post covers FOUR games - none of which I remember the results of BTW). At the time, they were playing at a place called New England Sports Village in Attleboro, MA - a city that basically straddles the border of Massachusetts and Rhode Island and famously features one of New England’s biggest Christmas light displays at a local Catholic church. There’s not really that much to be said about this "arena": it’s a community skating center (moreso than other NAHL buildings I've been to) with multiple rinks that was (apparently) supposed to be part of something bigger that got canceled. If you’re driving here for the first time, however, you could very easily miss it (I did), as it’s on a rather empty local street, is a bit of a ways off of said street, has a fairly obscure driveway, and looks more like a warehouse than a sports center when you first see it¹.

Each team had their own separate rink (because four teams playing on the same ice is insane); the rinks are separated by a mezzanine that runs along the length of the rinks. While each rink had seating areas that end well above the ice surface, these seating areas were quite cold (something common at hockey rinks); however, the aforementioned mezzanine has views to both rinks, so you can just watch from there if you want to stay warm (you also have the advantage of being able to switch games more quickly). It has been a few years since my last visit, but from what I remember, the "main" arena featured tiered seating that went down towards the arena (but ended well above ice level), while the "secondary" arena had metal bleachers in a "single level" observation area.

Thanks to some faulty ice and a bad injury, the two games of my second visit ended just shy of six minutes apart from one another...despite one game starting half an hour before the other (I timed it). I am slightly ashamed to admit that the first visit, on the other hand, is one of the few instances of me leaving a non-baseball sporting event early (as it was kinda far from where I was living at the time, and I felt it was quite late when it ended).

In 2024, the Generals moved to a rink closer to Boston in Canton, MA. I have yet to visit this new venue, but from what I’ve seen of it, it’s largely similar to the old one (as they are both community rinks), but with one notable difference: the seats in the new building get closer to the ice (though similar to Merrimack, there's a walkway between the front row and the rink²). A future visit is uncertain, however, but if I go, I’ll probably be able to talk more about the building then.

MERCH

There was no merchandise sold the first time I saw the Generals, but at the second game, they had some hats and hoodies available (but pulled them quite early in the night). They do have an online store, but it seems to be consistently changing (as well as being one of those "spirit wear" operations where they simply print the team's logo onto otherwise generic items).

I did, however, manage to get a jersey from the team; it was the first hockey jersey I ever ordered that was fully sublimated (I’ve gotten some others since mostly from non-Hockey East college teams).

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As for why this post is going up today...

My original hope was to see the Generals visit the New Jersey Titans, as the two teams played a whopping FOUR games in Middletown this season: two on Fridays (February 27 and March 13) and two on Saturdays (February 28 and March 14). However, I ended up having things that prevented me from going both Fridays, and while I originally saw the Saturday games being 5:30 starts, both games actually started at 4 PM - and I ended up going to soccer games which ended around 4 PM both Saturdays (plus it's almost an hour from Harrison and Paterson to Middletown).

ON DECK

There's a big game happening on Saturday. While I don't have plans to go to it this year (as it is about four or five hours away), I DID go to it back in 2024 - and I'd like to discuss my experience from back then (on Saturday).