Players participate in a Capitals street hockey clinic (courtesy Washington Capitals)

Calling all young hockey players in the D.C. area: the Washington Capitals is launching a new street hockey league and looking for participants.

The inaugural Capitals Street Hockey League (CSHL) season will unfold from March to May 2026 across three host venues, including Lake Fairfax Park in Reston. Games will also be held at Francis C. Hammond Middle School in Alexandria and Ridge Road Recreational Park in Germantown, Maryland.

Registration is now open for the co-ed league, which will feature three divisions for kids aged 5 to 12. Each team will play two games each weekend for a total of 16 games per season.

“No prior hockey experience or gear is required to participate,” the Capitals said in a press release, stating that the goal of the league is to give kids “the chance to put their skills to the test in a fun, low-stress environment.”

According to the release, the CSHL was conceived as part of the NHL team’s Street Caps program, which promotes street hockey as an alternative option for introducing the sport to kids who may not have access to a full ice rink.

Last year, to mark its 50th season, the Capitals brought a street hockey tournament to George Mason University’s EagleBank Arena in Fairfax, harking back to a similar event that brought together youth from around the region to Landover, Maryland, in 1975.

The locations for the street hockey league were chosen because they’re home to inline skate rinks donated by the Capitals. The one at Lake Fairfax Park (1400 Lake Fairfax Drive) opened in May 2024 and is available for free to the public from 9 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. every day.

More from the Capitals on its new street hockey league:

Youth from Maryland, Virginia and Washington, D.C., are invited to participate across three age divisions during the CSHL’s inaugural year. Divisions will be comprised of U6 (5-6-year-olds), U8 (7-8-year-olds) and U12 (9-12-year-olds), with a minimum of four teams per age division. All divisions will play on the same day at the selected locations, as the season spans eight weekends, with each team playing two games per weekend for a total of 16 games played during the season. Additionally, each division will have a designated practice day for the week.

The price to participate varies by location from $149-179, and registration includes a T-shirt. The Capitals are also offering a 15% holiday discount for those who register during December. Interested parties can register as a team or individual – to register, click here. Each team will have a minimum of six players and a maximum of 10. For those not registering with or as a team, the Capitals will place individuals on one.

The Capitals offer more than 30 ways to play hockey through on- and off-ice programming for participants age four and above, and more than 27,000 individuals have participated in a Caps Youth Hockey event since 2018. To date, the Capitals have refurbished or built 14 outdoor street/inline hockey rinks across Virginia, Maryland, Washington, D.C. and West Virginia to further encourage participation in hockey. According to USA Hockey, overall, there’s been significant growth in participation in the D.C. area since Alex Ovechkin was drafted. The total number of USA Hockey-registered players (youth and adult) in the Washington D.C. area climbed more than 186 percent from 2005-06 through 2024-25, and 70% across the region as a whole during the same time frame.