Adding Another

It has been said often that expansion dilutes the talent pool available for teams. While this might be true, I find the idea of more teams at the grassroots level to be a good thing in that it gives more opportunities for players to play at higher levels. The major junior circuit in my home province has eleven teams currently, and those eleven teams have seen a number of players move on to higher levels of hockey at the CHL, NCAA, and U SPORTS levels. Having more teams at the MJHL level allows for more players to gain these opportunities, and, potentially, we could see more players like Brady Keeper and Zach Whitecloud make NHL rosters after making names for themselves in the MJHL circuit.

It was announced yesterday that the MJHL would expand to twelve teams with the addition of a new team that would be owned and operated by 50 Below Sports & Entertainment who already own an MJHL team. There's no denying that 50 Below has the financial means and the facility to make this twelfth team a reality, but having an entity owning two teams in the same league seems a little off when one considers conflict of interest issues and some of the messes that could come out of having those teams playing for the same goal.

Regardless of my feelings on the matter, the MJHL is forging ahead with this plan to feature twelve teams in 2020-21 as they aim for better divisional alignment and travel during the pandemic with the as-yet-unnamed team playing its games out of Winnipeg just as the Winnipeg Blues, the other 50 Below-owned team, does.

The 2020-2021 MJHL regular season is set to begin on Friday, October 9th, and it will be the first MJHL season since 2002-03 to feature twelve teams. It sounds as though the MJHL will be playing more regional games with less crossover into other parts of the province in order to prevent any possible spread and transmission of COVID-19, so I expect the MJHL to split the province into an east-west setup with Portage, the Winnipeg Blues, the new Winnipeg franchise, Steinbach, Selkirk, and Winkler making up the eastern region while Dauphin, Swan Valley, Waywayseecapo, Virden, Opaskwayak Cree Nation (OCN), and Neepawa make up the western region where teams will play.

I would suspect that there will be some safeguards put in place to prevent player trades between the two Winnipeg teams without some sort of consensus approval among teams so there's no stacking of a team for playoff considerations. On top of this, there likely will be strict rules in place to prevent any sort of co-mingling between the teams to prevent sharing of information, but we're still waiting for the MJHL's decisions and information on how they're going to manage this one owner-two teams-same market issue.

If there is one benefit, it goes back to what I said off the top in that more kids in Manitoba will have access to more roster spots at the Junior-A level in Manitoba. This means more kids will receive development and skill training at that level, and it should result in a bigger pool of talent for NCAA and U SPORTS teams to draw from when looking to recruit for their rosters. If more Manitoba-born kids are playing hockey at the collegiate level while earning a high-quality education, I see no negatives in that situation.

While I do struggle with the potential conflict of interest at this point, I trust that Kevin Saurette, MJHL Commissioner, will come up with solutions for this potential problem. And having another roster for kids in Manitoba to fill out is only good for hockey in this province.

All this twelfth team needs now is a name.

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!