Lucas Punkari
On one hand, SIJHL commissioner Ron Whitehead could call the 2012/13 campaign as a positive one on the ice.
Other than a run-away Minnesota Wilderness team that led the standings right from the get-go, the rest of the league was tightly-contested until the final day of the regular season.
And the Wilderness themselves were pushed on their way to capturing a third-straight Bill Salonen Cup over the Fort Frances Lakers here last Monday night.
“They had a tough six-game series with the Lakers, and the Lakers themselves had a tough seven-game battle with Dryden right before that,” Whitehead said from North Bay, where he’s attending this week’s Dudley Hewitt Cup.
“And that shows the parity in the league.
“That’s all well and good for the league,” he remarked. “And those are lessons that we learned from the past, where before we would have the [Thunder Bay] North Stars dominate and beat everyone by some horrendous scores.
“By the time those teams got to the big events like the Dudley Hewitt or the Royal Bank Cup, they weren’t prepared to handle the pressure that the other teams put on them,” Whitehead noted.
“That’s what happened to the North Stars in 2006, when they blew a 2-0 lead late in the semi-finals and lost in overtime to Burnaby.
“In that game, Kyle Turris turned things up a notch for Burnaby in the third period, and the kids on that North Stars’ team weren’t prepared for that because they hadn’t been challenged on a regular basis,” Whitehead recalled.
“Now, the teams in this league, like the Wilderness this year, are ready for that type of event as they have been battle-hardened like the champions that come from the NOJHL and the OJHL.”
Two of the biggest issues from the past season, however, came when two of the seven teams that started the year failed to finish it.
In early October, the Sioux Lookout Flyers announced their withdrawal from the league due to being unable to field a team in “a competitive and professional manner,” but with intentions to return for the 2013/14 campaign.
Then in January, the Duluth Clydesdales had their team revoked from the league, which left the SIJHL with just five franchises for the rest of the campaign.
“With Sioux Lookout, that was a simple of matter of the organization picking the wrong guy to run the team, and him not having the experience to do it the right way,” Whitehead explained.
“When you realize that you don’t have the amount of players that you need, it’s a little bit late in the game right at the start of the season to try and go about fixing that.
“So instead of making a farce of a team, they elected to shut it down.
“With Duluth, that was a different matter entirely as there were all kinds of issues, from the safety of the players to financial issues,” Whitehead noted.
“At some point in time, we have to make a decision as a league as to whether we can afford to take another black eye by having another team folding or removed, or if the black eye we take is bigger if we allowed those issues to continue,” he stressed.
While the league found itself under some scrutiny for losing two teams in one season, teams leaving the SIJHL is something Whitehead has had to deal with on many occasions, which also is a situation that all Junior ‘A’ leagues throughout the country have to face at one time or another.
“Those are things that we try to learn from as a league, and there are some things that we just don’t have total control over,” he reasoned.
“I don’t think anyone else in the country has the issues that we have to go through when it comes to the size of the towns that we work in, as many leagues have bigger populations for their teams to draw from, which is something that towns like Fort Frances are unable to match,” he noted.
“We’ve had teams in places like Schreiber and Marathon come and go from the league in the past, and I think what it comes down to, for the most part, is having a strong monetary base and volunteer base in order to succeed.”
As for the future of the SIJHL, Whitehead said it will be business as usual for the upcoming season. But just how many teams the league will have remains to be seen.
Rumours have circulated over a team possibly being formed in Red Lake while a new ownership group in Hoyt Lakes, Mn. has been formed to make sure the Minnesota Iron Rangers stay in their location.
“We go through this every summer when it comes to the rumour mill of who is staying and who is going,” Whitehead remarked.
“Right now, we are working with our existing teams in the league, and potentially a couple of new teams, and we fully intend on being operations at one number or another,” he stressed.
“You can expect to hear more announcements on those type of things in the weeks and months ahead.”
While league operations always are evolving, the on-ice achievements from those currently in the SIJHL, and those who have graduated from the league, were among the major highlights for Whitehead this season.
In addition to winning a third league title, the Wilderness were ranked second in the CJHL top 20 rankings for most of the campaign.
Meanwhile, former North Stars’ Carter Hutton and Robert Bortuzzo suited up for the Chicago Blackhawks and the Pittsburgh Penguins, respectively, in the NHL this season.
“You also had two Wilderness players [Gordy Defiel and Jake Larson] nominated for CJHL awards, and a former goaltender from Fort Frances in Ryan Faragher that led his team [St. Cloud State] to the Frozen Four,” Whitehead noted.
“I think people are starting to realize that this isn’t a league where you just have a bunch of local kids playing for fun in their spare time, and that this is a legitimate league where the players and the teams can compete against anyone on any given day,” he stressed.
“It’s something that we promote ourselves thanks to the work of Tom Annelin on the media side,” Whitehead added.
“And we would love to see even more people in the towns come out and watch those top players play for their teams while they are here.”
