Dudley – Hewitt Cup

The Dudley-Hewitt Cup is presented annually to the Central Canadian Junior ‘A’ Champion in a tournament style format. It is named after George Dudley and W.A. Hewitt, two long standing pioneers of amateur hockey in Ontario and Canada.  Dudley, and W.G. Hardy led the way in revising the definition of an amateur hockey player to keep amateur players in Canada and slow the number of Canadians turning professional.  While Hewitt standardized player registrations in Canada, was a committee member to discuss professional-amateur agreements with the NHL, and negotiated working agreements with amateur hockey governing bodies in the United States.  The champions of the NOJHL, OJHL and SIJHL, as well as a host club (rotating annually between the three leagues) play a round-robin tournament, followed by a playoff  round to declare the champion. The winning squad represents Central Canada at the National Junior A Championships.  The tournament was last held in 2019 in Cochrane.  The tournament was cancelled in 2020 and 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Since 2022, the champions of the nine teams in the Canadian Junior Hockey League have received direct entry to the Centennial Cup tournament. The OJHL has won twenty eight (28) Dudley – Hewitt Cup Championships in its history.