Resuming the regular season for the Lakehead Junior Hockey League.
The four team Junior ‘B’ circuit had to push the pause button on their campaign after Ontario put in measures that were similar to Step 2 of the Roadmap To Reopen on January 5th.
President Josh Gribben told Acadia News Thursday that the difficult decision was made to reduce the season schedule with just 18 more games before the playoff.
“We’re disappointed because we want to be able to provide our players and our group with as many games as possible,” said Gribben. “But we have to be realistic and ice time is at a premium with everybody trying to schedule and make up their own games. It would just not make sense for us to try to force the issue and force more games. Let’s concentrate on the games that we know we can get in and look forward to starting the playoffs on time.”
Gribben added that the Thunder Bay Tournament Centre is accommodating with scheduling games for both the Northern Hawks and Bandits, but there could be challenges in the Spring should either the Nipigon Elks or Schreiber Falcons go deep in the playoffs.
“The communities usually shut their rinks down at the beginning of the April if not the end of March,” Gribben mentioned. “The contingency plan would be to have both teams play games in Thunder Bay, and just piece together ice time for the last series of the year.”
The Bandits will be the home team to the Northern Hawks on Thursday February 3rd.
