Simon Binkley grew up in Fairbanks. Two years ago he left to play major junior hockey with the Moncton Wildcats in the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League, the kind of league that produces most of the players who end up in the NHL. This month he's back, suiting up for the University of Alaska Fairbanks Nanooks. That's not the usual direction a player like Binkley moves. Most hometown talent leaves for bigger leagues and doesn't come back to play college hockey in the town they grew up in. Head coach Erik Largen singled him out by name when the roster additions were announced, calling him a player who "understands what it means to represent Fairbanks."
That single roster move is worth pausing on, because it's easy to read a fall sports calendar as a list of dates and miss what's actually different this year. And this year is different in a specific way: Binkley's homecoming lands in the middle of a five-week stretch where four Nanooks programs open their home seasons back to back, splitting the action between two buildings on campus that most Fairbanks residents already drive past without thinking twice about.
The kid who didn't leave
Binkley isn't walking into an empty roster spot. He's joining two other new additions who came from a different direction entirely. Seth Fryer, a 6-foot-7 defenseman out of British Columbia, spent three and a half seasons with the Victoria Royals in the Western Hockey League and is coming off a career year with 13 points in 67 games. Linden Burrett, a 6-foot-2 defenseman also out of British Columbia, spent two seasons with the Prince Albert Raiders and posted a career-high 35 points across 64 games last year. Largen described Fryer as the kind of player "every team wants to build around," praising his size and the way he moves the puck without sacrificing positioning.
Those two are recruits in the traditional sense, players brought in from major junior leagues in western Canada because that's where college hockey programs usually find size and experience. Binkley is the exception. He had a path through the same kind of league these two came from and chose to redirect it back to the town he's from. For a program that plays in front of the same fans year after year, that's a different kind of pull than a strong recruiting class. It's a reason for people who've watched Fairbanks youth hockey for a decade to have a rooting interest before the puck ever drops.
Four programs, one five-week window
The hockey roster news would be a good story on its own, but it's not happening in isolation. Fairbanks residents who pay attention to any of the four fall Nanooks programs are looking at a compressed run of home dates that doesn't usually stack up this tightly.
Volleyball is already underway. The Nanooks opened GNAC play at home against Montana State Billings on September 10 and Seattle Pacific on September 12, both at the Alaska Airlines Gymnasium inside the Patty Center. That second match doubles as Alumni and Western Day, with a pregame cowboy hat crafting station set up in the Patty Center lobby, the kind of detail that tells you this is a program leaning into its campus identity rather than just filling a schedule.
Swimming follows two weeks later. The team holds its Blue and Gold Intrasquad meet on Friday, September 25, at the Patty Center Pool, with an alumni meet the following morning welcoming back former Nanooks swimmers. Head coach Riley Ceglowski described the season as a progression that starts with that intrasquad meet and builds toward conference competition and NCAA qualifying opportunities.
Rifle opens its home slate on October 16, hosting Ohio State for a two-match weekend split between the E.F. Horton Rifle Range and TVSA. That matchup carries its own local subplot: Alaska holds a 16-match winning streak against the Buckeyes, and second-year head coach Randi Loudin said she's looking forward to "welcoming the Fairbanks community back to the range" for a full season of home competition.
Hockey's preseason kicks off with the Blue and Gold Scrimmage, the annual intrasquad game that traditionally opens the program's year at the Patty Ice Arena on the UAF Troth Yeddha campus before the team shifts over to the Carlson Center for exhibitions and the regular season. That's the venue split worth knowing if you're used to thinking of Nanooks hockey as just a Carlson Center program. The scrimmage happens on campus. The games that count happen downtown.
Line those four dates up and what you get isn't a single headline event. It's a stretch where a Fairbanks resident could reasonably plan four different Saturdays around four different sports without leaving town or repeating a venue.
Why two buildings matter more than one
The Patty Center and the Carlson Center aren't interchangeable, and the split matters if you're trying to actually plan around this calendar. The Patty Center, on the UAF campus, houses the Alaska Airlines Gymnasium for volleyball and basketball, the Patty Center Pool for swimming, and the Blue and Gold hockey scrimmage at its attached Patty Ice Arena. The Carlson Center, run by the Fairbanks North Star Borough, is where Nanooks hockey plays its actual season, an NCAA Division I independent program with a season that the borough itself notes runs from late September into early March.
That distinction between an on-campus scrimmage and an off-campus regular season is easy to miss if you only follow hockey casually. It means the first look at Binkley, Fryer, and Burrett in Nanooks colors happens on campus, at the Patty Ice Arena, before the games that count move a few miles across town to the Carlson Center downtown. Two venues, one season, and a fall calendar that asks Fairbanks sports fans to know the difference.
What this actually means for a fall weekend
None of this requires season tickets to four different sports to notice. What it means practically is that from mid-September through mid-October, a Fairbanks resident has a rotating set of home dates to choose from rather than a single marquee event to build a weekend around. Volleyball is already running most weekends. Swimming adds a Friday night in late September. Rifle opens a mid-October weekend with a rivalry angle built in. And hockey, once the scrimmage gives way to the regular season, adds the Carlson Center back into that rotation with a roster that includes a player half the crowd has probably watched grow up.
That's the part worth sitting with. A fall sports calendar is usually just a schedule. This one has a hometown storyline sitting inside it, and it's easy to miss if you're only scanning dates instead of asking who's actually on the roster this year.
You can find the full 2026-27 schedules, including hockey, volleyball, swimming and rifle, on the official UAF Athletics site, and the Fairbanks North Star Borough maintains its own page on Carlson Center hockey if you want the venue details straight from the source.
Fairbanks has a way of turning a short season into something worth paying attention to before it's gone. If you're watching this town closely enough to know which arena is busy on a given Saturday, you already understand what makes it a place people choose to stay. When that interest turns into a conversation about buying, selling, or your next move here, Leaders Real Estate Team is ready to help. Get a Free Home Valuation and let's talk about what that next move looks like.
