The Central Interior Hockey Men�s Senior AA Hockey League annual meeting in Burns Lake, May 10, ushered in some changes as the league lost one long-time member, the 100 Mile House Bears and gained a new, as yet un-named, team in Prince Rupert.
The changes will result in an interesting new alignment in the existing East-West divisions, with the West Division now comprising the current 2008 league champions, the Kitimat Ice Demons along with the Terrace River Kings, the Hazelton Wolverines and the new Prince Rupert entry.
The Smithers Steelheads club accepted a transfer to the East Division which will now also include the Williams Lake Stampeders, the Omineca Ice (in Vanderhoof), the Houston Luckies and the Steelheads.
The league will aim at playing an unbalanced 18 game schedule for the regular season with each team playing two home and away series with divisional opponents and one cross-division series with the closest geographical location in the other division. Teams were concerned that last year�s 16 game schedule often left too many weeks between games so opted to increase to 18 games instead of the previous 20 due to a potential shortage of available qualified referees in the northwest and central interior areas.
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| The annual meeting of the Central Interior Hockey League saw a change of executive. Shown here are (left to right) new president, Stan Irvine, Omineca Ice, Vanderhoof, past president, Rose Ruffell, Burns Lake, new secretary, Lynn Hanson, Williams Lake Stampeders) and new vice-president, Mike Whelan, Kitimat Ice Demons. Not in the photo, new treasurer, Mike Reed, Omineca Ice, statistician, Dave Turford, Burns Lake and CIHL webmaster Ray Hallock, Terrace River Kings. |
The Terrace River Kings� Rich Clair, has taken on the intimidating chore of developing a suitable schedule for the new season as quickly as possible.
Changes occurred too in the executive of the league. Stan Irvine of the Omineca Ice was elected as the new president of the League, with Rose Ruffell of Burns Lake, who has been president for the past two years, taking the Past President role.
In other elections, Mike Whelan, manager of the Kitimat Ice Demons was named vice-president; Lynn Hanson of the Williams Lake Stampeders will be the new league secretary and Mike Reed of Vanderhoof (Omineca Ice) will take over as league treasurer.
Dave Turford of Burns Lake will continue as league statistician and Ray Hallock of Terrace will remain as league webmaster. Demons� president Allan Hewitson will continue to supply content for the website, which will show some changes in time for the new season to begin in the fall.
The annual meeting provisionally accepted a written request for membership from Prince Rupert, and set down some provisions for the applicants to meet by June 1, 2008.
Normally applicants for league membership attend the annual meeting and present their application, but that information was not relayed to the Prince Rupert applicants, so no-one attended the meeting.
A telephone discussion was held with the proponents of the new team and membership was provisionally extended, in a unanimous vote.
In other business the league set up a committee to pursue opportunities for new league sponsorship, following the conclusion of Kal Tire�s previous four year league sponsorship.
The League again agreed to support the Terrace River Kings application to host the provincial championship Coy Cup in Terrace in March, 2009.
Terrace was disappointed in March this year when their preparation to host the Cup went for naught following the unexpected withdrawal from the Cup of defending champions the Rossland Warriors.
When a fourth qualified team could not be found, the BCAHA, which organizes the provincial championship, cancelled the event and awarded the Coy Cup to the CIHL playoff winners, the league regular season champions, Kitimat Ice Demons, which defeated the Houston Luckies 2-1 in the best-of-three playoff finals. The Coy Cup location will have to be confirmed by BCAHA, but senior hockey chair, Bob James had already indicated that the Terrace hosts will have the right of first refusal.