After an early end to the Heritage Junior Hockey League (HJHL) season, teams and spectators are wondering what the start of next season will look like. General Manager of the Strathmore Wheatland Kings Junior B Hockey Club Lee Smith said they are in the process of working with the league to put together a plan in time for the fall season to kick off. For now, the plan is to go forward as if the season were to start in September like it normally does.

Smith said, “there are some teams that are going to really struggle because they’ve lost a lot of sponsorship. Luckily the Wheatland Kings, we think we can get through it. It’s going to be tough but we do need sponsorship to make us run.”

New regulations and restrictions are a discussion on the table with the league right now with more to come as things get closer to the season. Smith says that the league is looking to cut costs for teams as many have lost sponsorships and haven’t been able to hold fundraisers for the team.

“There is a possibility that we’ll just run in our own conference, which is the south conference, and eventually meet in the championship between the north and the south, they won’t cross over this year,” explained Smith. This is something on the table for the league to consider as most teams have agreed to it.

The start of the season all comes down to the Town of Strathmore, Hockey Alberta, and Alberta Government coming together to make some final decisions before the season gets the full go-ahead. Smith said there is still a lot of things up in the air regarding restrictions and rules like physical distancing and sanitation but hopes things will all be in place to get started in the fall.

Things will go ahead as usual for training camp and tryouts said Smith, “we’ll have our training camp at the end of August, as long as we can get into the rink. We’re sticking with plan A and we’ll figure out what plan B will be if we can’t get into the arena at that time. We’re trying to book games for September for exhibition games and kind of go from there.”

The Kings were unable to put on their end of the year fundraiser this year due to the pandemic and Smith said it will have an impact but they are in the process of approaching different businesses to find some sponsors for this year and hoping for the best. It’s been a tough year financially for a lot of businesses as many are struggling due to the shut down of the economy, and this has impacted the extra money previous sponsors of the Kings have had to support them.

Smith added they have a pretty good looking club this year all things considered and they are feeling optimistic about this year. The club wants to be cautious about the relaunch of sports of course but is excited at the idea of getting back on the ice.