The Great Falls Americans are a USA Hockey-sanctioned Tier III Junior Aice hockey team from Great Falls, Montana, playing at the Great Falls IcePlex in the North American 3 Hockey League (NA3HL). The players, ages 16–20, carry amateur status under Junior A guidelines and hope to earn a place on a Canadian major junior, collegiate or minor professional team.
History
The Americans were founded in 2011 (in 1992 actually as a Jr. B team in the International Junior Hockey League with Kanai, Taber, Brooks, Medicine Hat, and Lethbridge) as an expansion team scheduled to be part of the Northern Pacific Hockey League (NorPac) for the 2011–12 season.[1] Instead, the team joined the rest of the eastern NorPac teams in creating the new American West Hockey League (AWHL).
In the first year in the NA3HL the Americans won the Frontier division championship and progressed through the playoff to the Silver Cup finals. They followed up the second year with a march through the playoffs to once again appear in the Silver Cup championships.
