Joey Payeur
The SIJHL is close to becoming a six-team circuit once again.
League commissioner Bryan Graham confirmed Friday that the process is well underway to establish an expansion team in Kenora that will begin play this fall.
“We were asked to appear in front of Kenora city council [Jan. 13] and present our plans in terms of the ownership group,” noted Graham, who also confirmed the team will play its home games at the Kenora Recreation Centre.
“The plan right now is to have them begin play at the start of next season,” Graham added.
“The hope is to be able to make that announcement officially in a month or so.”
Before this season started, the SIJHL dropped from six to five teams when the Wisconsin Wilderness folded due to its owners no longer being able to afford the operating costs of the Spooner Ice Arena.
The prospective owners for the Kenora franchise are led by Thunder Bay resident Kevin McCallum, who is planning to move his family to Kenora so he can pursue his goal of running the team.
McCallum will do so jointly with a number of local business owners in Kenora, which hasn’t had a Junior ‘A’ franchise since the Kenora Thistles folded in 1982 to end the city’s 14-year run in the MJHL.
Ironically, for those in this area, the Thistles changed their name in 1975 after being called the Kenora Muskies at their inception back in 1968.
“We’ve already done a fact-finding mission in regards to the arena in terms of what we require to be added, ice availability, and other details,” noted Graham.
“We’re very excited with the developments and the feedback from the community has been excellent,” he added.
“It’s the second-largest city in Northwestern Ontario and they haven’t had junior hockey since the 1980s.”
Graham said the community is hungry for hockey at the Junior ‘A’ level.
“Geographically, when you think of Fort Frances, Dryden, and English River, Kenora would provide a natural rival to those teams,” he remarked.
“Plus, there’s all the history the game has in Kenora,” Graham said.
“It’s a great market with a great building, and it will help the league move forward with a second expansion in the next couple of years.”
Despite the introduction of a higher level of hockey onto Kenora’s sports scene, Graham was clear the new owners don’t want to have any impact on the long-established Kenora Thistles’ Midget ‘AAA’ program.
“[McCallum] does not want to touch the Kenora ‘AAA’ program,” he stressed.
“He wants to build his roster strictly with 18- to 20-year-olds.
“He wants to keep that ‘AAA’ program strong and have it act as a feeder system for the Junior ‘A’ team,” Graham added.
“It gives those kids with the Thistles the opportunity to play at the next level and not have to leave their home area,” he reasoned.
“It’s a win-win situation for everybody.”
Graham said he’s received multiple inquiries about expansion since taking over as commissioner last summer.
“There’s nothing else in the mix right now,” he said. “There are a couple of possible proposals that I can’t get into too much right now.
“We’ve had some interesting inquiries from some U.S.-based areas,” Graham noted. “But USA Hockey has a Nov. 15 deadline for teams to apply that want to play outside of the country.
“That deadline has passed so we wouldn’t be adding any U.S. expansion teams until the 2016-17 season at the earliest,” he said.
