The Junior Hockey Podcast has announced the appointment of Jeff Nygaard as its new Editor in Chief. Nygaard will be taking on the role of revamping the TJHP news platform and introducing a professional touch to the articles that are published on a weekly basis. We are excited to have Jeff join the family as we set out to bring new content that will complement the weekly podcast episodes that TJHP offers. Nygaard will cover the Junior and college-bound hockey as a traditional “beat,” in addition to jumping on all breaking news stories during the course of the year.
“I’ve thought about entering the world of Junior and youth hockey content for more than a decade now, but could never pull the trigger on something that is just written content. When I heard the Podcast a couple years back I thought, ‘These guys are onto something.’ They’ve built a great following with the Podcast and I think it goes hand-in-hand with actual news coverage of the sport. I’m excited to see where all this can go. There isn’t a place on the internet for hockey nuts to read factual coverage of whatever is happening in our great sport — we will be that place.”
Despite never playing a game of Junior hockey, he has an extensive and diverse background in the sport, along with a broad Rolodex of contacts, to ensure our content is factual and straight from the source.
Nygaard has a vast amount of experience on the business and organizational side of the sport as a former owner-operator of two Junior organizations – the Washington Junior Nationals and Washington Junior Capitals. On the youth side, he helped found and served as the initial executive director of the Northern Virginia Scholastic Hockey League and the Ashburn Xtreme (Ashburn, Va.), and was an owner/operator of the Washington Little Capitals and the DC Capitals.
Back to Juniors, Nygaard helped found and served as the initial Executive Director of the Eastern Hockey League (2012-16), had a stint as the Commissioner of the United States Premier Hockey League (2016-17), and is a former member of USA Hockey’s Junior Council.
On the ice, he played high school hockey for Fergus Falls (Minn.) High School and collegiately for Fergus Falls Community College (you have to go way back for the Minnesota Community College Hockey Conference days) and North Dakota State University (pre-ACHA). After his playing days, he officiated at the youth, Junior, collegiate, and minor professional level for many years, including four USA Hockey national championship game assignments and more than 300 minor professional games.
We are excited to welcome Jeff to the team and are even more excited about the growth that TJHP will take with having Nygaard oversee this new content.
