As announced earlier, the THHL will be expanding by two teams (Miniota-Elkhorn & Rivers) this season. Miniota-Elkhorn moves over from the NCHL while Rivers will have a  senior team for the first time since the 2018/2019 season when they participated in the North Central Hockey League. "We had quite a few local guys playing with other senior teams in the THHL, so we sat down and started to map out the potential roster and the expenses, and after looking at all of that it was pretty clear that we had a real shot at bringing a senior team back to Rivers" Ryan Lamb told bdnmb.ca.  According to Lamb, Rivers will ice a young, competitive team this year. Included in the group is a number of hardworking forwards and a strong defensive group lead by former MJHL'ers Troy Heywood, Riley Shamray, & Ryder Richmond. Riley Lamb, a veteran of 88 WHL games, and Layne Anderson will provide the club with a great goaltending tandem. The entire roster can be viewed here. To date they have had four practices and they have an exhibition game scheduled against Wawanesa on Saturday October 15. Game time is 8:00 PM in Rivers.

The Elite Hockey League (EHL) recently completed their 32 annual NHL hockey fantasy draft. The draft started with only 6 teams taking part, in a draft held in Al Sellars basement on 8th Street. Shawn Bolack, Craig Richardson, Keith Richardson, and Al Sellars are the longest serving team owners, having participated in the inaugural draft in 1991/92. Through expansion over the years, the league has grown to include twelve teams. Ten of the team's twelve owners have been part of the league for 28-years or more. Throughout the years, the draft has been held at numerous locations throughout the city including the old Brandon Club, Keystone Centre Board Room, WCG Boardroom, Royal Oak Inn, BDO Dunwoody and most recently the Victoria Inn. While the league's ownership group has gotten older over the years, the competitiveness still remains. Numerous disagreements are a common occurrence come draft day including one year where an unnamed owner dared another owner “to go ahead, take a poke” during a heated discussion. In the early days, the stats were entered manually. Today the league uses Fantrax as their official stats program. “Moving to an online stats program was a game changer” said Pylon's owner Shawn Bolack. “In the old days I would have to run to Sellars house every Tuesday to pickup the weekly stats package just to see how my team was doing. Now the stats are updated in real-time” added Bolack. A rather complex draft sees each owner draft a team of 20-players (2g, 6d, 12f) via a live auction draft of each player until their roster is full. Each team receives a $30 salary cap. Teams also draft a reserve list of 10 players and a rookie draft proceeds the auction where teams can protect up to 5 rookies. Once the season starts, a number of categories (goals, assists, hits, +/-, STP, SOG, wins, and GAA) are used to determine a winner. Each year the winner receives their team name on the league's trophy and a small amount of cash.

If you happened to have turned on the TV to TSN or Sportsnet the past year, there’s a good chance you’ve already heard of the name Connor Bedard. If you haven’t, well, he’s about to be skating on the main ice surface on 18th and Richmond in Brandon, Manitoba tomorrow night. You might want to check it out. There hasn’t been a player come through the doors of the Keystone Centre with this much hype since, maybe Taylor Hall at the 2010 Memorial Cup, when the future 1st overall pick won the four-team tournament with the Windsor Spitfires. Sure, there’s been other great players over the past decade to play in front of us like Leon Draisaitl (3rd overall to Edmonton in 2014), Ryan Nugent-Hopkins (1st overall to Edmonton in 2011) and even a pair of Wheat Kings that wowed Westman like Nolan Patrick (2nd overall to Philadelphia in 2017) and Ivan Provorov (7th overall to Philadelphia in 2015)……but not like this…..not like Bedard. 10 out of 10 scouts surveyed by TSN have the Regina Pats forward at number one in the 2023 NHL Entry Draft.  One NHL head scout was recently quoted as saying “…when you look at how (Bedard) shoots the puck, his innate ability to score goals and you project him as an elite goal scorer who could very well get 50 or 60 in the NHL.” Connor Bedard is scheduled to make only three stops in the Wheat City this season. Tomorrow night, January 6th and February 24th.  Sorry to break it to you Westman, but on January 5th the World Junior Gold and Bronze medal games are being played in Halifax, Nova Scotia……meaning, unfortunately we won’t be seeing Bedard on the 6th. Whether you’re a die-hard Hockey fan that has had this game penciled on your calendar all summer, or an average sports fan that just likes seeing athletes push their sport to another level…..the Bedard show should be worth the price of admission……before we have to travel east on the number 1 highway and pay NHL prices to see him at the Canada Life Centre next year. Geez, that’s a lot of pressure on one kid, how is he going to handle it?  He currently leads the WHL in scoring to start the season….enjoy the show Westman.

THHL The Tiger Hills Hockey League (THHL) will have 16 teams hitting the ice for the 2022/23 season. Last season the league operated with 15 teams. Boissevain will take a 1-year leave of absence.  New to the league for the coming season will be a team from Rivers and Miniota-Elkhorn, who move over from the North Central Hockey League (NCHL). This season each team in the THHL will play an 18 game schedule. The league will be broken down into 4 divisions and 2 conferences. Each member club will play a home and home against the teams in their respective division and then 1 game against the other clubs. Games are expected to start the weekend of October 21. There will also be an import rule implemented this year as well. NCHL Earlier in the week the NCHL announced the league was taking a 1-year pause as there would not be enough teams to form a league for the 2022-23 season. As mentioned earlier, Minitoa-Elkhorn will join the THHL. The Swan Valley Axemen, who played in the NCHL last season will join the Sask East Hockey League along with another team from Manitoba, the Grandview Comets.

During an announcement held earlier today at the J&G Homes Arena, Nolan Ritchie and Nate Danielson were named co-captains for the 2022-23 Brandon Wheat Kings. The two forwards combined for 133 points last season for the club. Jake Chiasson and Brett Hyland will round out the leadership group as alternate captains. The Wheat Kings open the WHL Regular Season on Saturday, September 24th, versus the Winnipeg ICE.