The SWHL season will begin this weekend with two games on the schedule. This includes the defending champion Wilkie Outlaws at home against the Hafford Hawks Friday at 8:30 pm. The other matchup sees Hafford in Kindersley this time, to battle the Sr. Klippers on Saturday at 7:30 pm.
We caught up with SWHL president Joe Cey and he explained there will be an 18-game season, with the seven teams playing the other six teams three times. Cey expects a competitive season in 2023-24.
“I expect the last few years’ bottom-end clubs like Unity and Bigger to see a lot of improvement, as they're young clubs, and are a little more experienced. Kindersley, Macklin, Wilkie and Edam are all going to be solid, and Hafford I think is going to be near the top half as well.”
Cey then talked about a few minor changes the league made heading into the season.
“There were a couple of small Hockey Sask changes that open it up to teams to be able to use, let's say U18 AA caliber players coming out of the cities that would be able to play in a smaller community as non inputs. The whole thrust behind that was to provide potentially more hockey players for the smaller towns that are having a hard time icing teams.”
Cey then talked about one of the moves Kindersley made in the offseason to improve their already solid team.
“When I look at Kindersley and they've got a quality hockey player like Logan Stephenson coming over from Outlook as an import, that's going to make them better as a veteran guy and ultimately it just helps to strengthen the league.”
Cey then talked about an improving Edam squad.
“Edam is a team made-up of a lot of ex juniors and a lot of locals, and they added a quality goaltender to have a little bit of a goaltending change there too, and I expect that club, especially in their own barn to be tough. There's a lot of pride on that hockey team, they're going to serve notice I think in the SWHL.”
Even with the additions by Kindersley and Edam, Cey feels any team is able to win on any given night.
‘Ideally for me, the league is in good shape if you can't pick who's going to be winning the games. I think we're going to see a lot of that this winter.”
Tue, May 14, 7:00 PM
