The Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League has been in every major city in the province, and it hasn’t quite taken root in the cities where there’s a Western Hockey League team.
When it’s worked in Saskatchewan’s cities, it’s worked well. Fans of teams and their communities have been part of a mutually beneficial arrangement where the teams provide a sense of pride and accomplishment for the cities and the fans get great entertainment at a reasonable price. And in some ways, SJHL is by and large very good at what it does in a lot of areas.
As media, I can say we could use more information on transactions and suspensions – both of which ought to be updated as soon as the players and teams are notified of them. Even the most in-tune fans will have a hard time finding some of the transactions that affect their team, as well as the teams that come into their rinks.
It’s this kind of constant information that feeds the media, and the media feed the public with the information they need on their teams.
Broadcaster/author Rod Pedersen in the past has advocated for a team in Regina and while this could financially work, there are other considerations at work.
The SJHL didn’t quite work in Regina the last time it was tried, which was when the Regina Pat Blues folded after the 1981-82 season in which they went 13-44-3. It’s a different game now, more focused on a family-style entertainment experience than back then, when the game was the only entertainment.
If they do get a team they are bound to be better than the 1974-75 Silver Foxes, who went 1-54 in the season, scoring only 130 goals and allowing 465.
In 1990-91, the Saskatoon Titans began their existence, with a couple of seasons as an average team in the league before moving to Kindersley to become the Klippers. In 1998-99, the Beardy’s Rage moved to Saskatoon to become the Saskatoon Rage and spent the season playing in a freezing box of a rink in Saskatoon. My dad and I watched a game there that year because mom was in the Royal University Hospital getting a kidney transplant.
But that team folded because they had nine wins out of 66 games and nine-win hockey teams typically don’t last too long at any level of hockey.
There’s a suspicion that basically any team in a major Saskatchewan market like Regina or Saskatoon would be able to get a lot of media attention and could have a significant advantage when it comes to recruiting and sponsorship – the two main parts of a successful team on the ice and in the standings. But does anyone besides me remember the Rage? Is every mention of a Regina SJHL team relegated to books like Pedersen’s Heart and Soul of the SJHL compilation, and not the local diner’s coffee row?
While the big cities like Regina and Saskatoon may be too busy, too active, and with too many other options for an SJHL team to comfortably be placed, I would be in favour of any plan that includes communities nearby to those cities. Warman, near Saskatoon, could be a good fit, as could in Balgonie near Regina. Plenty of people of the hockey-family variety live in these places and sponsorship could be found to reach these people. Sure, you won’t have the Brant Centre or SaskTel Centre to play these games right now, but Warman’s Legends Centre can seat up to 1,178 people and Balgonie can fit a few hundred in seats and some more in standing room. It doesn’t take much imagination to see how it could work. It’s about what La Ronge gets every game now.
If that rink is impossible to either perform minor renovations or use as-is, there are other small rinks in the Regina area – none of which are on the quality of Affinity Place but could be what sparks an interest in Junior A hockey in communities close to the bigger Saskatchewan cities.
