At first glance it appeared the recent Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League annual meetings were fairly routine.
When you take a closer look, however, there were plenty of layers to it.
The most significant change to come out of the meetings is the introduction of three-on-three overtime beginning next season. League president Bill Chow says this should add to the entertainment level for both the fans and the players.
“We talked about making it maybe seven or even 10 minutes, but in the end we agreed to go with five minutes of overtime at three-on-three,” says Chow. “We just felt the top-end players would get burnt out.”
Other topics that were given some discussion included the creation of a public relations/marketing position and the formal acknowledgement of the regulated time-outs in each period being known as league time-outs, rather than media time-outs as they have been referred to in the past.
The best news to come out of the meetings is the Estevan Bruins will appear to show a profit after hosting the Western Canada Cup (WCC). Despite the downturn in the economy, the work of the Estevan committees and their large number of volunteers proved that Estevan can host a major hockey event like the WCC.
Player safety, as is always the case at these meetings, consumed a good deal of time. From these discussions came a series of changes in disciplinary actions.
Suspensions for blow-to-the-head infractions will rise from two games to four while match penalties will also have a two-game increase from three to five.
Goaltender interference will also be policed much tougher as Chow says there were 149 such penalties last year. Any player that incurs three goaltender interference penalties during the season will automatically sit out two games and there will be an additional two games for each subsequent infraction for the remainder of the season.
The bantam draft was also held again this year to kick off the meetings, and Chow said the coaches and managers came very well prepared. It is the second year for the bantam draft and the league will start to see some rewards from instituting the process in the next year or so when some of these selections begin cracking lineups with their respective teams.
One final noteworthy bit of news is that the league will continue with its educational lottery that was brought in late in the year.
The next lottery will run all season long, and Chow admits while it will have to be promoted better, it does fall in line with the goal of being able to help players financially as they seek to further their education after their time in the SJHL is done.
“Overall there were a lot of general concerns, but I think everyone is happy with everything that is happening,” says Chow. “Some would like things to move faster, but if money wasn’t an issue we could have things done three years earlier.”
The league will open its regular schedule on the September 15-16 weekend with training camps set to get started any time after August 29.
The annual Showcase will once again be held in Warman, Saskatchewan, with the same format as last year to be followed when all 12 teams met in the central location to play two games each. The Showcase will run from September 26 to 28.
It will be quiet now for a few weeks, but it won’t be long before the skates get back on the ice.
