KJHL expands to Waywayseecappo

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This article was published 01/08/2023 (1033 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A new hockey team will play out of the Waywayseecappo Arena Complex this winter.

The Keystone Junior Hockey League announced last week that the Waywayseecappo Wild are joining the Keystone Junior Hockey League for the 2023-24 campaign.

“We’ve been working with Waywayseecappo for the last couple of months and to have the news out there that we are expanding again is pretty exciting,” KJHL president Andrew Arksey said.

“We added a team in Peter Ballantyne Cree Nation that plays out of Flin Flon last season and now we’ve added a bit of a southern flair to the league with the Wild.”

Waywayseecappo First Nation band councillor Laura Brandon — the governor for the Wild — says that the council started talking about bringing a Junior B team to the area this past winter.

“We’ve noticed the trend of some of our young hockey players leaving the community and going to play Junior B in other communities, some of which are as far away as British Columbia,” Brandon said.

“We want to give our youth a chance to play and stay home at the same time. Not all of the families have the resources to send their kids away to other provinces.”

When the KJHL put out the call to see if any interested parties wanted to join the six-team league on May 23, Waywayseecappo council decided to submit their bid.

“It was a bit of a quick turnaround and we were a little hesitant and nervous with the timeframe,” Brandon said.

“One of the things we said in our meeting was that there are always projects on the go and things that need to be done … when are we ever ready for anything. We were going to do this and make it happen.

“Like anything else, there’s going be some challenges and some learning opportunities for us at the beginning, but we’re all excited.”

Leslie McKay, who is originally from Norway House Cree Nation, will be the general manager for the Wild and is grateful for the opportunity.

“Since I retired from playing hockey, I’ve always wanted to give back and help out,” McKay said.

“When this opportunity came up, I didn’t hesitate.”

While the official announcement of the Wild joining the KJHL wasn’t made until July 27, Brandon says there was already interest from players who were interested in playing close to home.

“Once it went on social media, the buzz really started to build and parents were quickly contacting asking us when our training camp is going to be,” McKay added.

“We’re working on getting a lot of that sorted out now, especially when it comes to who our coaching staff will be. I’m proud to be a part of this and can’t wait to get things going.”

Arksey says that expansion is something that KJHL has been looking to do since five former teams in the southern part of the province left to form the Capital Region Junior Hockey League in 2018.

“That continued growth is something we want to see keep happening, especially as we provide an opportunity for more players to play close to home,” Arksey added. “We want to see our players, officials, coaches and everyone else continue to take that steps to higher levels of hockey, or in life.

“We’ve seen that this summer with (NCN Flames) coach Cody Genaille going to the new SIJHL (Superior International Junior Hockey League) team in Kenora and with (Sioux Valley Dakota Nation products and Peguis Juniors teammates) Jeremiah and Jackson Jacques committing to Sault College.”

The 2023-24 KJHL season is slated to start on Sept. 30.

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