A new high school hockey league will debut next week with four area schools participating.
Students from Hapnot Collegiate, Creighton Community School, Frontier Collegiate in Cranberry Portage, and Pelican Narrows will make up the Northern Manitoba Saskatchewan High School Hockey League.
Cranberry Portage organizer Dan Reagan says the five-team league will be open to all high school students regardless of their skill level.
“There isn’t anywhere to play for kids at this age,” Reagan said. “By the time the kids get [to this age], many have dropped out of hockey.”
The new league is a division of the Flin Flon Minor Hockey Association and Hockey Manitoba. It will be a recreational league with no checking and no slap shots.
Reagan says the rules will be based on those of an oldtimers’ hockey league.
Though it is the smallest of the participating communities, Cranberry Portage will have two teams, named Frontier Collegiate and Cranberry Portage. The rest each have one team.
Each team in the league will play one game a week at the Whitney Forum. Flin Flon and Frontier Collegiate will take the first faceoff on Nov. 5.
The Frontier Collegiate, Cranberry Portage and Pelican Narrows teams are school sponsored, whereas Flin Flon and Creighton will be community
sponsored.
The school-sponsored teams will wear their school’s logo, but the community-sponsored teams will create their own name.
Lifetime sport
Many of the 70 players who have signed up for the league have played before but have dropped out of minor hockey for one reason or another.
Reagan hopes the new league will encourage teens to pick up a stick and keep with the sport.
“Hockey is a lifetime sport,” he said. “Some of these [players] have quit from peewee and are now coming back to play. They don’t want to play competitive hockey.”
Teams will play once a week without practices.
“We’re just going to play games,” said Reagan. “It’s not meant to be competitive where teams are going off to tournaments. It’s just one game a week of recreational hockey in a league that you can’t [really] get hurt in.”
Since the majority of players participating in the league have played some form of hockey before, Reagan isn’t concerned about them not knowing how to skate.
The rules of the game will be reinforced as each team has at least one coach.
“Some haven’t [played] organized [hockey], but all have a basic level of skating and hockey,” Reagan said. “Some aren’t as good of skaters as others, but we have lots who have played on rivers and lakes as well as organized hockey.”
Players will be responsible for providing their own equipment, including a neck guard and cage for their helmet, but the league will provide the jerseys.
Each team will play 39 games. Games will be held Wednesdays and Sundays until March.
