The Western Hockey League will return to action. The Warriors will once again have games at Mosaic Place. And money will once again start coming in.
The only question is when.
That has team president Chad Taylor optimistic for the future regardless of how tough things look right now.
“There are a couple of scenarios. The first thing is we have to generate some revenue, and the way we generate revenue is with hockey games,” Taylor said when asked how things could get back on track. “If that happens on the Dec. 4 start date we’re shooting for, we’ll make up the multiplex pledge and it’ll be business as usual.
“The concern is that might not happen, but we’re not too sure. If it doesn’t happen, we can withstand the shock until whenever the season does start. If it was cancelled for the whole year — and I don’t see that happening, the league is determined to have a season this year — then we’ll take all the precautions to save cash and make this franchise viable.”
To that end, the Tribe have done their due diligence while preparing for a variety of potential scenarios.
“There are contingency plans, we’ve put together some mock budgets and stuff like that looking at what we can do,” Taylor said. “Definitely there will be some challenges, depending on how many games we can play... (but) because we don’t know anything, that’s the challenge. We need to get playing, we need a start date and when that gets going we’ll have some more information, but until then we’re on hold.”
The WHL is currently behind the other two Canadian Hockey League loops, with the QMJHL in the midst of their pre-season and starting their regular season on Oct. 10 and the OHL opening training camps on Nov. 15. The WHL has taken a cautious approach and have yet to make any announcements other than the Dec. 4 season opener.
“We should start hearing some stuff in the middle of October, that’s when we should have some better clarity,” Taylor said. “With (the OHL and QMJHL), they had government funding and support, where we haven’t seen any of that yet. Saying that, our government has been very proactive. We aren’t the issue here in Saskatchewan, our health authority has been very progressive, but I expect we’ll see a challenge with the other health authorities in Alberta and B.C. and the U.S. teams.”
A handful of theories have been floated as to how the season might look, with one of the likely scenarios featuring straight intra-divisional play, which would see Moose Jaw, Regina, Saskatoon, Prince Albert, Brandon, Winnipeg and possibly the Central Division’s Swift Current — all from provinces with comparatively low COVID caseloads — playing each other exclusively.
That, of course, has yet to be decided.
Regardless of how things turn out, Taylor is confident the Warriors will come through the tough times relatively unscathed.
“It’s been difficult because we don’t know the unknown,” he said. “I have to applaud the organization’s staff, we’ve had people laid off, we’ve had people lose their jobs, some people take pay cuts, everyone in the organization is going what they can do to make this work. That’s a big help for all of us, they’re the backbone of the club and if it wasn’t for them, we wouldn’t be here today.
“We’ll keep battling we’ll find a way to make this work and we’ll come out of this alive.”
