The Moose Jaw AAA Warriors and Saskatchewan Male AAA Hockey League will be back in action at the end of the month.
With the Sask Hockey Association releasing their return-to-play guide on Thursday afternoon, the SMAAAHL wasted little time putting a plan together to get their teams back on the ice. In less than a day, things were starting to come together. By Friday afternoon, it was game on.
And with that, the AAA Warriors will tentatively play their first exhibition game of the season -- and the first official hockey game since the campaign was cancelled in early March -- on Sunday, Oct. 25 against the Swift Current Legionnaires at Mosaic Place. Their second pre-season game will be the following weekend in Regina, and after that, on Nov. 6, the SMAAAHL regular season will begin.
To say it’s been a whirlwind of day for AAA Warriors head coach Trevor Weisgerber would be an understatement.
“We were completely in the dark, we honestly didn’t know,” an elated Weisgerber said on Friday shortly after the league plans came together. “Last week they’d asked if we could get our home schedule, just with availability of our rink, and other than that we didn’t have any inkling.
“We’re really looking forward to it, the last month of practicing and not knowing what was going on, and now being able to have things set up and leagues start and us moving back into Mosaic Place on Tuesday, it’s exciting. We’re looking forward to getting going here.”
The plan for the regular season will follow what the SHA suggested in their comprehensive Return to Hockey document -- teams will play home-and-home series on weekends, with the five days in between used for practice and keeping an eye out for any symptoms. Based on current information, the mini-league for the AAA Warriors will be larger than SHA recommendations, featuring six teams from the southern portion of the league facing one another until at least Christmas and the six teams from the north doing the same. A decision on expanding games in the new year will be made closer to the date.
Given the recent trend for leagues that have players in school to focus on weekend games, it won’t be much of a departure from normal.
“It’s more like a college schedule where you play all your games on weekends,” Weisgerber said. “We’ll see what happens in the new year and if things change, but right now we’re just excited that the guys are getting a chance to play.”
The Warriors have had the majority of their team in town practicing since mid-September, and Weisgerber expects the team will be in solid shape when things get rolling at the end of the month.
“It’s good,” he said. “We still have a couple spots we need to fill, we have some APs (affiliated players) coming out and we’re looking to see what we’re going to do here, depending on when the Western League starts and a few things like that.
“We’re kind of in limbo that way right now, but the guys we do have coming in we’re happy with where we’re at. We’ll definitely get into some systems stuff the next two weeks and start working on those things so we’re ready to go.”
When it comes to fans in Mosaic Place, things are being ironed out in that direction, but Weisgerber expects to see no limits outside of the building being held to half capacity provided adequate social distancing can be maintained -- two meters in all directions, front-and-back, side-to-side and with seating assigned.
“We just talked to Mosaic (Friday), we’re in talks to get past the 150 if need be, and with it being pretty quiet we’re hoping we can get some fans early on in the season to come out and watch some hockey, because it’s been a long time.”
