Days after a serious roster shortage forced Presque Isle’s first junior hockey team to forfeit its inaugural game, its parent league revoked the team from its ownership group and replaced it with a new franchise in the Aroostook County city under a different owner.
The National Collegiate Development Conference — the league the Presque Isle Frontiers briefly played in — went public with that decision Thursday afternoon, announcing that a new team called the Northern Maine Pioneers will join the NCDC this season.
The team is anticipated to arrive in Presque Isle on Sept. 30 and begin practice at The Forum on Oct. 1, a team official said.
Brandon Johnson, a longtime figure in the Northeast hockey landscape, is the owner of the new franchise. He also owns the Connecticut Chiefs North, an NCDC team playing out of Biddeford this season
“The league approached me about running the team in Presque Isle due to the issues with the old ownership group,” Johnson told the Bangor Daily News. “We believe that we have the bandwidth and the capabilities and the infrastructure to put together a good team on the ice.”
The release named Greg Heffernan as the Pioneers’ general manager. Heffernan spent the last four seasons as the general manager and head coach of the Connecticut Chiefs and Connecticut Nor’Easter in the Eastern Hockey League. That franchise was owned by Johnson until 2024, when it was sold and became the Nor’Easter.
Heffernan was also the director of scouting for the ECHL’s Allen Americans during the 2024-25 season. From 2009 to 2021, he served as head coach of the NCAA Division III Western New England University men’s hockey team.
“The NCDC is a league that develops players the right way,” Heffernan said in the release. “Our staff is ready to build a program that not only competes but also produces results for our athletes’ futures.”
The NCDC is one of two primary Tier II junior hockey leagues in the U.S., and has significantly expanded its reach in recent years. The league added 10 teams, including the Frontiers — now the Pioneers — since the 2024-25 season, bringing it to 32 total teams, just two short of the North American Hockey League, its main competitor. Both leagues sell themselves on their ability to help players between the ages of 16 and 20 advance to the NCAA.
In order to put together a roster for the Pioneers, Johnson’s franchise will not play any games until at least Oct. 3. That’s meant to allow time for a training camp and to organize ice and housing arrangements. The team’s schedule is anticipated to be “pretty much” the same as the Frontiers, Johnson said, except for rescheduling games that were originally slated for September.
Frontiers players will be evaluated on a “case-by-case basis” to see if they’re a good fit for the new franchise. There were fewer than 10 players rostered when the team dissolved. Erik Caladi, who was set to be the Frontiers’ head coach, will not join the franchise.
“The number one thing is that we want to make sure that the kids who’ve had a lousy experience with the old ownership have a good experience,” Johnson said. “Whether that means giving them the opportunity to go somewhere else and let them out of their contract, that’s one thing, or if they’re potentially a fit for what we’re trying to do, [we’ll] help them out.”
‘Such a debacle’
The Frontiers had been plagued by roster issues heading into what was supposed to be their debut season.
As they began training camp in Indiana in July, a number of players — and Caladi — were stuck in Europe facing visa issues. By the time the season began in September, most were still not in the U.S., according to team owner Chris Reaves.
In an interview on Sept. 15 — hours before the NCDC took steps to revoke his team — Reaves said he didn’t grasp the full extent of the situation until the day of the team’s first game, when he spoke with a team official who had spent weeks in Europe recruiting the players who ultimately never arrived.
“I was going through all of this situation and issue and he basically on the phone said, ‘This is such a debacle, I’m going in a different direction,’ and hung the phone up on me,” Reaves said.
Those weren’t the only challenges.
Already shorthanded, the Frontiers flew east to begin their expansion season at the Hitmen Classic in New Jersey in early September. When they landed around midnight, players found that no one had booked them hotel rooms. Team officials raced to find accommodations, and found a hotel after several hours, Reaves said.
But some players apparently grew frustrated with the experience, complaining of “cockroaches and mold” in their hotel rooms, according to an Instagram account that covers the league and shared messages it anonymously received from the players.
Asked about those complaints, Reaves said that the team was moved into better accommodations the next day.
“[The booking] is online and you don’t know what it’s gonna look like,” Reaves said. “And it was for one night and then they moved to an Airbnb and that Airbnb was nice.”
On top of those travel issues, players also complained about confusion over billet fees — those paid to a family or organization hosting a player during the season — factors that Reaves said led to some being poached by other organizations or simply leaving the team.
On Sept. 12, the few players that remained prepared for the team’s inaugural game against the South Shore Kings, but only four players were registered with the league as the team took the ice. The Frontiers were forced to forfeit.
Presque Isle backfilled its roster with players from the USPHL Premier — a Tier III league one step below the NCDC — for its remaining two games in the tournament, which ended as 10-1 and 13-5 losses.
Reaves is the CEO of BladeEdge Ventures, a holding company that owns six other junior hockey teams. USPHL expansion franchises owned by Reaves in Vermont and Indiana will not field teams this season after struggling to bring in players.
Immediately after the Frontiers’ losses, Reaves told the BDN that he believed he would get everything “back on track.” But that evening, the league stepped in to revoke the franchise.
The next morning, Johnson began the process of becoming the owner of the new franchise in Presque Isle.
The new owner
Johnson founded the Connecticut Chiefs, a hockey organization based in Newington, Connecticut, in the late 2000s. The organization operates youth teams from the mite level — players 6 to 8 years old — up to 18U Tier I, which is the highest level of competitive youth hockey in the U.S.
The Chiefs rostered a Tier III junior team in the EHL from 2018 to 2024, when the team was sold and rebranded as the Nor’Easter.
In August, Johnson bought the NCDC’s Eastern Charlotte Kingfishers and relocated the franchise from New Brunswick to Biddeford as the Connecticut Chiefs North. The team is based in Maine because it has to stay within the confines of the North Division of the league’s New England Conference — which includes the Pioneers, as well as a team in Lewiston and several in New Brunswick and Quebec.
Johnson said he’s planning to return the Chiefs name to Connecticut after this season, but the franchise will remain in Biddeford.
He is also a co-owner of the Beast Tournament Series, a showcase league that runs Tier I tournaments from the 13U to 18U levels in the Northeast and mid-Atlantic regions.
Johnson said he “100%” believes in the potential of a junior team in Presque Isle. His ownership presents the opportunity for a fresh start.
“We’re cutting all ties with everything that the old group did and creating something totally new,” Johnson said.