General | 4/16/2025 2:00:00 PM

The United States Hockey League (USHL) has partnered with Johns Hopkins University to create a computer-generated schedule for the 2025-26 season.
 
“Each year we evaluate our needs and explore opportunities to introduce new technology to our league,” said USHL Executive Vice President Stephanie Morgan. “This partnership with Johns Hopkins University presents a chance to expedite and improve the process of generating 62-game regular-season schedules for each of our teams optimized for player performance, rest and recovery. We are excited for where this next advancement can take us.”
 
For more than 30 years, Co-Director of Johns Hopkins Institute for Assured Autonomy Tony Dahbura, PhD, has been developing automated systems that generate competitive sports schedules. He created schedules for Major League Baseball and the South Atlantic League before joining Johns Hopkins’ faculty in 2012, where he linked with Professor Donniell Fishkind in the school’s Applied Mathematics and Statistics Department. Dahbura and Fishkind developed the methodology Johns Hopkins uses today, and formed a student group tasked with creating schedules for professional baseball leagues, including the Dominican Summer League and the MLB complex leagues in Florida and Arizona.
 
“We are excited to bring our scheduling methodology to the USHL and support the league’s innovative approach,” said Dahbura. “This collaboration represents our first project outside of baseball and another exciting opportunity to apply our research and technology in a real-world, high-performance sports environment.”
 
Over the past 12 years, the Johns Hopkins crew has produced season schedules and umpire crew schedules for most of the minor leagues affiliated with Major League Baseball. More than 100 students have been mentored by Dahbura and Fishkind, including Eli Katz, a two-time graduate of Johns Hopkins who spent several years in the student group and currently serves as its Research Coordinator.
 
“Being part of this project has been incredibly rewarding,” Katz said. “Each league presents different challenges. It’s our job to build systems that navigate those obstacles and, in the case of the USHL, create avenues that put players, staff and teams in the best position to succeed.”

The 2025-26 USHL schedule will be announced in June.
 
About the USHL

The United States Hockey League and its 16 member clubs are committed to being the leading 16–20-year-old junior hockey league in the world. More than half of Division I men’s hockey roster spots are held by USHL alumni and more than 195 alumni were listed on NHL rosters at the start of the 2024-25 season.

The league's player-first approach, including a 2:1 practice-to-game ratio and a schedule with 92% of games played on weekends, provides its players with the optimal environment for athletic and personal growth, creating pathways for the next generation of stars like Kyle Connor (Youngstown Phantoms), Macklin Celebrini (Chicago Steel), Cole Caufield (NTDP), Adam Fantilli (Chicago Steel) and Jeremy Swayman (Sioux Falls Stampede). More.