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WFCU Centre in Windsor (David Jewell / The Hockey Writers)

Windsor Spitfires Announce 2025-26 Regular Season Schedule

Originally posted on The Hockey Writers | By Dave Jewell | Last updated Jun 17, 2025 11:05 AM ET

While summer is knocking on the door, there’s a taste of autumn in the air. The Windsor Spitfires released their 2025-26 schedule on Monday, and the home cooking will be plentiful early on.

With the 2025 Memorial Cup in Rimouski wrapping up on Sun., June 1, the next thing on the “looking forward to” list for Ontario Hockey League (OHL) fans is the 68-game schedule release. For Spitfires’ fans, it’s a chance at redemption following a tough second-round Game 7 loss at home to the Kitchener Rangers to end the 2024-25 season. Now, fans can prepare road trips and nights out while the Spitfires see how their weekends will fare leading up to the end of the season in late March. This is always a highly anticipated day, and this release is no exception. Let’s dive into the schedule details.

Spitfires Open Against Conference Rivals

Traditionally, the OHL announces their upcoming schedule in two phases. First, they release each team’s home openers, which happened last Thursday. A few days after that, they announce the full schedule, which was the case on Monday afternoon.

The Spitfires will open the regular season on Fri., Sept. 19 on the road against their West Division rivals, the Sarnia Sting. It’s the first of six meetings between the clubs, and they had a couple of heated battles at the end of 2024-25.

Just 24 hours later, the Spitfires get their long-awaited home opener. On Sat., Sept. 20, they welcome Dale Hunter’s Memorial Cup champion London Knights to the WFCU Centre for a 7:05 p.m. puck drop. Last season, the Spitfires and Knights battled six times with each winning all of their games on home ice.

The Knights always bring the heat, and it’s a rivalry that goes back generations. The only downfall to this matchup is that, with the NHL opening their training camps and pre-season around that time, the teams could see several players still with the pros, including Spitfires’ captain Liam Greentree (Los Angeles Kings).

It’s a pretty ideal start for the Spitfires. While both clubs will give them a battle, having two popular rivals to start the season gets the team into the game and gets the fans pumped, as well. With that said, there’s plenty more on this schedule that we need to look at.

Home Cooking, Long Trips, and Busy Weekends

With the home openers out of the way, the league got down to business on Monday with the full schedule release. In every OHL season, there are plenty of road trips, homestands, and busy weekends that teams and fans are paying attention to. Let’s break it all down.

Longest Homestand (Four Games – twice):

The first homestand is during a busy eight-day stretch in mid-to-late October, right before Halloween.

The second one is during an 11-day stretch in early November.

Including these two homestands, the Spitfires will play 10-of-13 games at home from mid-October to late-November with a road game against the Spirit on Sat., Nov. 1 separating the two homestands.

Longest Road Trip (Three Games – three times)

London Knights pose with the Memorial Cup after a 4-1 win over the Medicine Hat Tigers (Photo by Vincent Ethier/CHL)

Their annual Eastern road trip –

Their annual Northern road trip –

Three-in-Three Weekend(s)

The OHL is a (mostly) weekend-based league as the players are in school during the week. This means that, throughout the league’s history, teams have had to play three games in three days on some weekends. That’s often a Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, though other dates are sometimes included.

This season, the OHL announced that league director of administration, Herb Morell, who works on the schedule, has managed to get the number of three-in-three weekends down to 53, the lowest of the 20-team era (since 1998). The Spitfires have just one three-in-three weekend themselves; they start at home on Fri., Nov. 21 against the Spirit, then travel to Saginaw the next night, before returning home to face the Storm on Sunday afternoon. It’s a breath of fresh air, though there are multiple weekends where the club plays three games in four days.

Key Dates

On top of the road trips, homestands, and the three-in-three weekend, there are also a handful of important dates to remember.

Thanksgiving Monday – Mon., Oct. 13 v. Oshawa Generals – 2:05 p.m.

New Year’s Eve – Wed., Dec. 31 vs. Spirit – 2:05 p.m.

Family Day – Mon., Feb. 16 vs. Spirit – 2:05 p.m.

St. Patrick’s Day – Tues., March 17 vs. Erie Otters – 7:05 p.m.

The Spitfires will likely also have several “theme nights” that could range from retro styles to local businesses or charities, along with the annual Teddy Bear Toss game. That’s often held in December.

Team and Day Breakdowns

The OHL plays 68 games with the majority being against your own division, followed by your conference, and then the opposing conference. There are exceptions for geography or rivals, though. Here’s how the opponents break down.

The Spitfires will play the Spirit eight times, four at the WFCU Centre and four at the Dow Event Center in Saginaw. They will then play the rest of their division – the Greyhounds, Sting, and Firebirds – six times each (three home and three road). They’ll face the Midwest Division’s Knights six times (three home and three road) with the rest of the division – the Attack, Otters, Storm, and Rangers – four times each (two home and two road). The club will then face off against every team in the Eastern Conference twice, once at home and once on the road.

As we mentioned before, the league is mostly weekend-based with some exceptions. Here’s how each day breaks down:

We can also add the month-by-month breakdown. It shows the club is fairly even in terms of home and road games in each month.

The Spitfires will wrap up their 2025-26 campaign on the road for two games – Fri., March 20 against the Knights and Sun., March 22 against the Greyhounds. The pre-season schedule will be announced later this summer, and training camp likely starts in late August. That’s roughly the time that single-game tickets will go on sale, as well.

The season didn’t end the way the Spitfires wanted with their Game 7 loss to the Rangers in the second round. However, there’s plenty of optimism heading into the new season, and Monday’s announcement just fuels that fire. The summer is just getting started, but hockey isn’t far behind.