The BCHL, has poached five teams from the AJHL. The Brooks Bandits, Spruce Grove Saints, Okotoks Oilers, Sherwood Park Crusaders and Blackfalds Bulldogs are now scheduled to leave the Alberta Junior Hockey League for the BCHL next season.
This is no surprise, and TJHN reported on these talks in the summer of 2023. It is also no surprise that the five teams leaving the AJHL are paying upward of a million dollars each to make that move to the BCHL.
While these are certainly fireworks, whats not being reported by the BCHL is that a minimum of three BCHL teams have asked to be part of BC Hockey’s new Tier II league next season. Some rumors are that as many as five teams have made this request, though those number cannot be confirmed. TJHN can confirm at least three teams have spoken to BC Hockey about returning.
What is left to be decided by the AJHL is if they will allow these five to continue playing in the AJHL this season.
While many are shocked, no one should be. The announcement made after the BCHL’s annual meeting was designed to shock people. It was just them, once again, saying look at us, we are more important than the players on these five teams joining the BCHL next year.
If the AJHL suspends all five teams immediately, the BCHL will simply form a new division of five and allow them to keep playing among themselves. There is a big problem with this though.
Where will they get referee’s to work these games?
The BCHL struggles with referee’s as it is this year. Adding five more teams to a referee schedule would be very difficult to manage if not impossible.
If these five teams are not able to play, what does that tell you about the BCHL making this announcement now instead of in the summer? What does it tell you about the five teams allowing this announcement to be made now instead of in the summer.
What it says to parents and players is that the BCHL and these five teams value themselves more than they value the players and their seasons.
If the AJHL does not immediately suspend these teams, what message does that send to the rest of the league?
Teams in every league are business operations, leagues are business operations. In the end, this is business. How people go about doing business though says more about who they are than what they say they are. This announcement and the timing of it, placing players in the crosshairs of business people is simply bad business.
More to come tomorrow on the rationale being used for this decision, and how whats being said does not match what is acually happening.
