The clacking and clattering of wafer-thin indoor field hockey sticks filled the air in a three-rink circus just north of the city of Philadelphia last weekend as the latest season in the North American Premier League debuted.

In between the medal rounds of a U-16 tournament hosted by the Mystx indoor team, teams from New York, Pennsylvania, and the D.C. metropolitan area competed in a 10-team women’s division and a four-team men’s league.

The Premiership almost died on the vine the last couple of years, in large part to cumbersome visa and passport requirements to enter and exit Canada, high gasoline prices, and the aging of the core of players who started the NAPL a few years ago.

But in a major evolution from the vision of league architects Tee Goh and Peter Jones, several youth teams are now filling out the women’s league.

The clubs have infused the league with enormously talented scholastic players such as Katie and Julia Reinprecht (with the home Mystx club), and fellow all-Americans Kelsey Amy, Kaitlin Piosa, Rachel Magerman, and Tara Puffenberger (with Xcalibur).

One of the most interesting things the NAPL does is to provide a showcase for the men’s game. It’s always great to see sister clubs of the men’s teams support them, or watching school-age players following the warp-speed play.

Take, for example, the NAPL First Class team. That team is composed chiefly of players from the varsity program at Lehighton (Pa.), and they watched their head coach, Shawn Hindy, play for Team Philly in the men’s league. On an early corner in the team’s opening match against Rye, he was the right option, and flicked a laser in the top corner.

There was dead silence and widened eyes amongst the Lehighton players. Did you see that? they seemed to say.

Both the U-16 players and the NAPL had to contend with two new FIH rules implemented for this winter. The first rule mandated that at least one player from a defending team had to have a player in the offensive end of the field at all times. A few teams, players strayed offside and cost their team a corner.

At the same time, however, you started seeing some attacking teams keeping one or sometimes two players shading back to the center stripe to prevent a sudden breakaway or “snowbird.”

The other rules change mandated that, on a free hit in a dangerous position heading into the circle (within three meters), the first pass cannot be sent into the circle.

I knew a few people from the 2002 U.S. women’s indoor national team who probably wish the rule was in place five years ago.