The Shrine East-West College Hockey All-Star game, which was started by Bangor’s Anah Temple Shrine three years ago, has been terminated for financial reasons and replaced by a Hockey East vs. ECAC senior all-star game at the University of New Hampshire on Saturday, April 6.

The game was held at the University of Maine’s Alfond Arena for two years before it was moved to the University of Minnesota’s Mariucci Arena last year where Minneapolis-area Shriners undertook the event.

“It cost them over $20,000 to fly people in last year and that killed it,” said Joe Bertagna, the executive director of the American Hockey Coaches Association and the commissioner of the ECAC.

Bertagna said the Minneapolis Shriners asked if the schools could foot the travel bill for their respective players but the NCAA rejected their appeal.

“(UNH Coach) Dick Umile talked about hosting an eastern all-star game and having the players get there on their own,” said Bertagna. “So we decided to go ahead with it.”

The 7 p.m. game will be played at the new Towse Rink at the Whittemore Center in Durham, N.H.

It will pit the Hockey East senior stars against the ECAC senior stars with each team taking five Division 2-3 players.

Hockey East will take five Division 2-3 players from schools in Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Maine while the ECAC team will take its five Division 2-3 players from colleges in Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania and Vermont.

“It’ll be a fun game. Next year, we’ll try to hold it at an ECAC rink,” said Bertagna. “We’ll try to go back and forth.”

The game will involve two 25-minute halves.

The proceeds from the game will go to Suffolk University hockey player John Gilpatrick, who was partially paralyzed in a game earlier this season. NHL Hall-of-Famer Bobby Orr and 1980 U.S. Olympic team captain Mike Eruzione will be the honorary captains.

Will Rogers, the president of the second East-West Shrine Senior All-Star game after being the stadium chairman the first year, said he will miss having the event in Orono but said it was financially impractical.

“We had a $100,000 budget for it,” said Rogers. “We made $12,000 to give to the Shrine hospitals the first year but we had a shortfall the second year. Instead of having money to give to the hospitals, the local temple had to pick up the bills left over and that amounted to $6,000-$7,000. The risk factor scared the potentates.

“It was a lot of work but I had a lot of fun. It was an outstanding opportunity to meet both coaches and players and I’ll remember some of the stories for the rest of my life,” added Rogers.