Ventura Vikings to join USPHL Premier’s Pacific Division for 2024-25 season
BY JOSHUA BOYD USPHLPREMIER.COM The United States Premier Hockey League is excited and proud to announce the addition of the Ventura Vikings to the USPHL Premier’s Pacific Division for the 2024-25 season. The Vikings are the brainchild of three individuals with different backgrounds but a common goal of helping players from southern California and beyond make their college hockey dreams come true. Luc Beausoleil, Jeff Jarvis and Bill Bruininga are the co-owners of the Vikings, bringing together years of hockey experience on and off the ice in the hockey-rich locations of Quebec and Massachusetts. Beausoleil, a former Quebec Major Junior Hockey League player who went on to a 13-year pro hockey career, has been for much of the last 20 years the general manager and hockey director at the Iceoplex in Simi Valley, Calif. During that time, he also ran the California Titans AAA program that fielded 16U and 18U teams. Jarvis, a former NCAA hockey player at Saint Anselm College,
moved within the past couple years from Massachusetts to California. “The USPHL couldn’t be happier to welcome the Ventura Vikings and three great new owners into the league. We know they will build a fantastic organization in the Los Angeles area, forming exciting new rivalries with many of our established
organizations in the same area,” said USPHL Commissioner Bob Turow. “A couple years back, the NHL teams went all in to support and run AAA hockey in California, so you have the Jr. Ducks, Jr. Kings and Jr. Sharks, so I no longer had the California Titans. Jeff moved out here from Massachusetts, and Bill had
been in our league in California for a while,” said Beausoleil. “We got together and agreed that AAA would not work, so let’s instead do a junior team.” The trio went right to work, putting together a website, new e-mails, social media, working with the rink for ice times, preparing to overhaul the locker room, merchandise, ticket sales, “and all the way down to ingame entertainment,” added Jarvis. “We were balancing everything that we could do right off the bat with that thought always of what if the league says ‘we went with someone else’” added Jarvis. That, of course, didn’t happen and the Vikings are now full USPHL members and are excited to hit the ice against some of the league’s top programs such as past Nationals participants like the Fresno Monsters and Las Vegas Thunderbirds alongside rising programs like the Ontario Jr. Reign, Bakersfield Roughnecks, Lake Tahoe Lakers and San Diego Sabers. “Prior to this season, I had watched a part of an Ontario Jr. Reign vs.
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MARCH 2024