WHL announces commitment to a 2020-21 season
The Western Hockey League remains committed to play hockey this season, despite numerous setbacks due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The WHL has pushed back the start of the season on four occasions already and the league released the following statement on January 8:
“The Western Hockey League announced today the WHL Board of Governors have made a commitment to play a WHL 2020-21 Regular Season. The start date for the season will be determined once final approval has been received from the Health Authorities in each provincial and state jurisdiction and it is anticipated the approvals will be received soon.
All models and schedule formats are being considered by the WHL to ensure a WHL season is provided for the players. The 2020-21 WHL Regular Season will consist of 24 games.
‘The Western Hockey League is committed to providing a season for WHL players,’ commented WHL Commissioner
Ron Robison. ‘This commitment ensures WHL players will receive the opportunity to compete at the highest level in the system and continue to pursue their hockey goals in the world’s finest development league for junior hockey players.’”
The WHL had previously planned to begin the season on January 8, but announced on December 15 that they would have to delay the season once again. The 68-game regular season typically starts in late September.
Friday’s announcement changed little in how the Swift Current Broncos are going about their business said Head Coach and Director of Hockey Operations Dean Brockman.
“I think the announcement was basically to make that commitment to the players that there will be some sort of season. Whether it will be city to city, province to province, whether they name a bubble situation into the equation, but it was more a reassurance that a season will be played at some point in time throughout the spring and maybe potentially into the summer time. It changes some of the dates for you as far as when you could potentially bring players into Swift Current and so on and so forth. A lot of that is still up in the air and of course all of it depends on health authorities’ approval as well.”
Brockman said that Broncos players are doing their best to prepare for the season.
“Every jurisdiction is in a little different shape. Everybody is kind of doing a little of everything. The odd guy is on the ice. Definitely the odd guy has their own workout program. We have some players that are working and taking some university classes at their expense. We have some players that are still doing their high school classes. The odd guy is sneaking on the ice every once in a while. Everybody seems to have upped their gym equipment in their own homes.”
“A lot of players are really eager to get going and they really want to play games,” he added.
When a training camp will take place or what it would look like also remains up in the air.
“We also have to keep in mind that if we do return we will be limited with our numbers. Potentially you could have 30 at camp or 25 at camp or you might be limited on how many players you can have in total. We may have to make some decisions based on those numbers,” said Brockman.
The Broncos, who finished last in the 2019-20 season, will likely have a younger team this time around as they look to rebuild for the future.
“You want to develop your players. Potentially do you have more younger guys? Again, there will be quota on that set forth by the league. Obviously if you really wanted to do it you would have all 16 and 17-year-olds, but everybody is at a little bit of a different stage as far where they’re at with their cycle. For us, we obviously would have some younger guys in our line-up or more younger guys than probably most just because that’s the players that we’re going to go forward with.”
There is no current timeline for an updated opening date to the 2020-21 season, rather that decision is contingent upon local health authorizes and government approvals.