Where do you see about the May 1st date?
Word I’m hearing is that the other 11 teams are refusing to play them. Doesn’t make it right but the backlash may be from their peers.
Makes sense. Seems like it's going to be expensive to own a team in that league. If they are recruiting out of province 16 and 17 year olds and the travelAnd there’s the official word.
Scuttlebutt is that a few of the current BCHL teams will go back to sanctioned BC Junior A.
Whether or not that is the case is irrelevant. Those teams are governed by a league and need to abide by the Constitution. I believe that there are Hockey Canada penalties for teams who refuse to play. Now, it has been done in the past because of "safety issues" as one team was really physical, but again..out of spite?
The relevancy is your post was pretty clear the AJHL is canceling gAmes. I was just providing additional info that it doesn’t sound like the league is acting unilaterally here and the rest of the teams are pushing back.
Only 1 team left the BCHL indicating they couldn't financially operate within the league rules effective in the 2024-2025 season that does not allow charging any player fees or billet charges.
rodpedersen.com
I think this is the only way to try and save this level of hockey in the prairies, having a super league with a combination of all three leagues, take the strongest organizations from each and make a regional league. Only issue will end up being is money. Most Junior A clubs are just fighting to get by right now, so add in potential of more long road trips, hotel stays (MJHL created schedule to avoid many over night trips). Food and such, costs will go up significantly but the product will end up being diminished due to top end players all going the CHL route. This is a wild time for hockey in the west.....I'll get my popcorn."it's just a rumour" but Rod Pedersen (who has some connections in the junior hockey world) is reporting rumblings of more possible defections from the Hockey Canada umbrella...
10 Weekend Things - The Rod Pedersen Show
Truth & Rumours … 1 - BIG BEN: To be honest, it’s been a crappy week. The family of former CFL lineman Ben Fairbrother announced on social media this weekend that the 51-year old has been killed in a tragic accident in Edmonton. The news hit very hard. Ben listed Calgary as his hometown, played
Does the Prairie Super League still have legs?
I think you can probably minimize travel costs by focusing on divisional play... basically two conferences, one in AB/western SK, one in MB and eastern SK. The longest bus ride in that scenario, from Steinbach to Nipawin (I assume La Ronge wouldn't be in this setup) is only a couple hours longer than a bus ride from Steinbach to The Pas, for instance. But yeah, there probably would be a lot more hotel nights. And would there be any increased revenue to offset that? Hard to say.
Finding the offset revenue would be needed, the MJHL has been forced to do pay to play for every team now I believe, so most organizations could try and tap into that more, I believe most teams charge played around $2000 and the organizations are still losing money most years. Id love to see those divisional type sets ups for a league and I think reducing the number of teams would make the quality of the hockey better as well. It will be interesting to see, but also remove opportunity for Canadian kids to play high level hockey which Hockey Canada seems to be asleep at the wheel for.
