Commish Chat - An NBHL Podcast · National Ball Hockey League

Commish Chat Episode 39: NBHL Championships Preview Part 3 - Tier 1

September 19, 2025·54 min·1 clip

Championships week finally arrives. Anthony San Rocco opens the conversation with TJ Janis and Gianni San Rocco, and the first thing on the table is the Tier 1 tournament preview. The weather becomes part of the scouting report. They joke about forecasts tightening up when the event is only five days out, how the longer-range numbers wobble, and how a bad prediction from earlier in the week has already turned into a better-looking weekend. Nobody trusts a far-off forecast. That sets the tone for the rest of the episode, which is really about NBHL Cup Week and everybody trying to size up the weekend before the first game is even set. The roster talk gets practical fast. They note that some Pittsburgh teams are missing players who are away at college, so affiliate call-ups are going to matter when the squads get filled out. That is just part of the season. The crew does not treat that as a crisis so much as one of the realities of how this league and calendar work. The tone stays loose. There is joking about who gets to pretend they are a weatherman for the NBHL, and the banter keeps the preview from turning into a dry tournament rundown. Then the finals numbers come up. They point to a championship series where the Aces won Game 1, 10-6, and Game 2, 6-5, for a combined 16-11 across the two games. That is a lot of goals. From there the discussion lands on what that kind of scoring says about the teams: run-and-gun pace, fast breaks, skilled players, and a tendency to trade chances instead of locking games down. Defense still exists, apparently. The hosts also make the point that the tournament will not be played entirely on familiar habits, because different matchups can force teams to adjust quickly once everyone comes together on the upcoming weekend. That adjustment might decide everything. By the end, the episode feels like a preview from people who are inside the league, know the names and the mess, and are trying to get everybody pointed toward the weekend without sanding off the edges.

As heard by us

A brisk Tier 1 preview with weather talk, roster notes, and playoff logic.

The piece settles into a Tier 1 preview and keeps its focus on the practical stuff that matters before play starts: Championships Week momentum, weather uncertainty, and the roster realities that shape the bracket.

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Why you'd press play

Tier 1 chatter, forecast watch, and a real NBHL Cup Week preview.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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