The Alberta Junior Hockey League was the talk of hockey world on the weekend over some interesting off-ice drama.
Reports started emerging on Friday night that five teams, the Brooks Bandits, Okotoks Oilers, Blackfalds Bulldogs, Sherwood Park Crusaders and Spruce Grove Saints, would leave the league after this season to join the BCHL.
The BCHL is currently an independent junior league not sanctioned by Hockey Canada after they broke away from them last year, and the BCHL made an official announcement on Saturday that they would be adding those five teams from Alberta.
The AJHL said in a statement that they released on Saturday said that no official notice had been provided to them from those five teams.
— TheAJHL (@TheAJHL) January 20, 2024
In response to that, the league cancelled several games on the weekend involving those five teams, and there’s reports that those clubs could get suspended for the rest of the season.
As for the Grande Prairie Storm, they haven’t been affected by any of this, yet.
The Storm do have games against Sherwood Park, Spruce Grove and Brooks on their remaining schedule for this season, but the status of those games is now in question with the AJHL saying that they are still assessing next steps and schedule implications.
– Kyle Moore, Trending 55 Newsroom
