Friday morning, I talked to a joyous Brant Kersey, a member of the 1999 Bruins who were the last team to go to the SJHL final until this year’s team qualified for the event.
Unfortunately, that joy in the city and the province has turned into a deep funk, with no one sure if the Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League should even continue with the Canalta Cup final this year. There are no easy answers for that.
The Power Dodge Estevan Bruins and the Nipawin Hawks have both had lengthy droughts without a long playoff run and that has no doubt affected both team’s bottom lines. Hosting the Western Canada Cup helped mitigate that but there’s no doubt the Bruins were counting on a huge financial windfall by making the league final and potentially the Anavet Cup. The Hawks didn’t have that luxury, or the luxury of a nice building like Affinity Place that comfortably contains about 2,000 fans.
Everyone in these communities ought to know that it’s the long playoff runs in years like this for the Bruins that will help compensate for the lean years that the team has had in the past and may well have again in the future. Four to six home gates in the playoffs for the final and the Anavet Cup would likely mean up to six figures in revenue for the Bruins, once all the ticket sales for next season – with the renewed interest in the team from casual fans – and merchandise are figured into the equation.
To have that snuffed out for both franchises seems like it might not be the right decision.
And the effect this had on the dreams for the players on both teams. For captain Jake Fletcher, fellow forwards Hayden Guilderson, Kaelan Holt, Zach Goberis and Arthur Miller, defencemen Jake Tesarowski and Tyler Hengen and goaltender Bo Didur, this is their last kick at the can when it comes to junior hockey. They worked from the time they were three or four years old for the chance to play, working at camps growing up and working out when they could have just grabbed a burger. The 16 years that you put in for this moment just won’t be happening.
There isn’t a roadmap to recovery that the league can possibly follow that would please everybody. But the SJHL will have to play games again. Whether that’s next week or September isn’t necessarily the point.
Eventually the game will take over our minds again because it has to. It’s the lifeblood of many communities in Western Canada, including our own. We’ll be able to talk about the calls of the officials, the mind-boggling skill that some of these players have and the thrill and the smells of the game and the food.
We’ll be looking cross-eyed at fans who bring giant airhorns into other team’s buildings and we’ll be annoyed by them because we kind of always are.Â
We’ll be having a quick bite before the game at a local restaurant and talk about the team needing a win more than anything.
We’ll look at some of our rivals on the ice a little bit differently for a few moments, until one of their guys hits one of our guys in a way that we don’t appreciate and we’ll be up in arms about that.
And by doing so, we’re not disrespecting the memory of those who didn’t make it. While we feel crippled emotionally at the moment and we’re all hit by grief, we honour those people by continuing to cheer, go to the games and hold our kids – and our teams – a little tighter.
No one who has been through this past week as a fan or player or coach will ever forget the Broncos. Can triumph win over adversity, even in this extremely severe week we’ve just had? And ultimately, isn’t that one of the reasons we watch?
