The 2019-20 hockey season begins in earnest today as 83 boys' teams and 28 girls' squads meet on ice with their respective coaches for the first official practices of the campaign.

New this season is the two-division tournament format on the boys' side. Fifty-one teams will compete in Division 1, while 32 teams will battle in the newly-formed Division 2. Each division will have four sectionals.

There are four sectionals of seven teams each on the girls' side, for a total of 28 teams.

As always, there is some coaching turnover: this year, 14 boys' teams will have new coaches while there are two new head coaches on the girls' side.

Sectional finals for both genders will be played on February 28 or 29, and the dates for the 2020 State Tournament are March 5-7.

Thursday will showcase semifinal games for the four Division 2 teams, while the D-1 teams will play on Friday. Games will begin at 10am each day.

The D-2 state title game will take place at 9:30am on Saturday, while D-1 will begin play at approximately 2:30pm.

For the girls, the semifinal games will begin at 4pm Thursday, with the title game to be contested at approximately noon on Saturday.

2019 state champions Fox Cities Stars (girls) and University School (boys) look forward to defending their respective titles.

Let's play hockey!