Local hockey league endures and grows

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This article was published 23/10/2024 (559 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Thirty years ago, Larry Shannon suggested a winter hockey league for adults might be a good idea to exactly the right person.

Not long after Darryl Wolski moved to the Wheat City, Mark Pilgrim sold him his four-team Westman Summer Hockey League in 1992. That’s when Shannon spoke to Wolski.

The Westman Winter Hockey League started in 1994 and has hit a record number of teams this winter with 20.

“He sees me at the rink and goes ‘You know Darryl, this would be a great idea with what you’re doing in the summer to do in the winter,’” Wolski said. “I said ‘Ahhh, nobody would ever do this in the winter. That would be a stupid idea.’

“But I tried it out, and the first year we had eight or nine teams. Now this year we have 20. It’s a big year for us. In previous years we had 16 or 17, but for us to have 20 teams in a city this size … I’m pretty impressed with how it came from that idea from Larry Shannon and I just acted on it and gave it a shot.”

The new season starts on Oct. 28 and depending on ice availability, will be done in early April, just in time for Wolski’s AAA Hockey Challenge that draws youth teams to the city for a month. He took that event over from Dennis Rome in 1995.

When you’ve been in the hockey business for three decades, you start to see second generations, with Wolski noting Matt Calvert played in the AAA Hockey Challenge and now his son is participating.

“You talk about second generations, Joel Snyder is a great story,” Wolski said. “His dad Vern used to run a team years ago in the league and then Joel got old enough and took over.”

Joel was just out of high school when he started playing in the league more than 20 years ago. He filled in as a goalie on his father Vern’s team in the league, and then sold his gear and bought players’ equipment instead.

He’s a big fan of the WWHL.

“It’s the only competitive hockey around Brandon,” Snyder said. “There is senior hockey that’s played around Brandon but not actually in Brandon and it’s in weekends, while this one generally takes about an hour and a half out of your night and it’s in Brandon.

“You don’t have to travel to a far town like Cartwright in the middle of the winter to play hockey.”

That might be one of many reasons there are now 20 teams in its two divisions.

Wolski thinks the fact four clubs in the Tiger Hills Hockey League — the Gladstone Lakers, Miniota/Elkhorn C-Hawks, Pilot Mound Pilots and Wawanesa Jets — have all taken one-year leaves of absence may have impacted his numbers.

“The guys need to do something,” Wolski said. “Brandon has no senior hockey so this is the highest level they can play.”

COSTS RISE

While it still costs about $550 or $625 per player to join the league — about double when he started the league, depending on the roster size of the team a player is on — costs have risen dramatically. His ice expenses rose about 15 per cent this year, with an hour-long rental over $300.

That’s about triple what he paid when he started the league.

Wolski gets no preferential treatment in price, but is next in line after Hockey Brandon gives back the allotment of ice it doesn’t need.

He is also paying more to referees and time keepers, a combined $100 per game.

“That’s 30 years of inflation but it’s dramatic changes,” Wolski said. At the same time, he recently spoke to a league organizer in California who pays $840 per hour.”

The league provides insurance, jerseys, referees, timekeepers and high-end online scoring for a recreational league. Wolski takes a lot of pride in the latter.

“We’ve always been at the forefront from a technology standpoint,” Wolski said. “They come off the ice and can look at their phone and see exactly what happened in that game in real time. Ten years ago it didn’t happen anywhere. We’re one of the few leagues in maybe Western Canada that offers that with our website and stats. It’s one of a kind.”

Snyder, who is also a devoted soccer player, said Wolski continues to do a terrific job.

“It’s great,” Snyder said. “Being involved in multiple leagues around Brandon, I don’t think Beef (Wolski) gets enough credit for what he does. Granted it is a business so he is making money and there’s that aspect of it, but for the most part it runs pretty smooth. There aren’t many problems.”

ISSUES EXIST

Wolski has two twin challenges for his league, and they’re equally daunting. J&G Homes Arena opened in 2022, but the Sportsplex was lost in 2023 when the ice plant failed. It’s scheduled to return in 2025.

With three rinks in the Keystone, that means all the ice use in the city is currently funnelled through just four arenas. With a larger league, that has Wolski looking outside the city limits for ice.

“Something I’ve never done before is I contacted the Rivers arena last week because we’re going to need more ice,” Wolski said. “If and when the Sportsplex opens next September — who knows if that will happen — that’s great, but in the meantime I have to access ice somewhere that’s a decent place and relatively close. I’ll probably have to rent some ice from Rivers to have this league finish on time. It is an issue.”

He said the three rinks at the Keystone Centre and J&G Homes Arena are all completely maxed out.

The more pernicious problem is an issue for every level of hockey. It’s getting harder and harder to find referees, which meant about a quarter of last seasons’s games were worked by one referee instead of two.

Wolski said Ernest Elder assigns the referees, and is worried by how few are available.

“There are no young 15-, 16-, 17-, 18-year-old guys coming up the ladder who want to be referees,” Wolski said. “Our players in our league are not angels and they give it to the referees, and minor hockey is a whole new story altogether. I think with the amount of abuse that referees take, it’s not worth it for the $35 an hour … Referees are becoming like polar bears. They’re slowly dying off and they’re going to become extinct.”

“It’s a real issue that’s not just going to cause problems for our league,” Wolski added. “It causes problems for all hockey.”

One way Wolski helps the referees is with a tough no-fighting policy, with a five-game suspension for both combatants. That’s a hefty to price to play in a 30-game season.

Snyder said the league is competitive but seldom dirty.

“Usually in the regular season it’s pretty OK unless you don’t like the person,” Snyder said. “In my lifetime being there 20 years, I think I’ve seen about five fights. There are fights but most of the time it’s just random punches being thrown and nothing big.

“In the playoffs it gets pretty chippy. Guys don’t want to lose, that’s for sure.”

Snyder’s team, the Shockers, has always been in Division 1 until it dropped down to Division 2 last season. He said new players to the league like Micheal Ferland, Brock Trotter and Josh Elmes just made it too difficult.

“We dropped down due to the influx of ex-pro players,” Snyder said. “We just couldn’t keep up. We’re the oldest team in the league.”

RUNNING SMOOTHLY

While Wolski operates the league, he’s quick to add it wouldn’t be successful without a lot of significant contributions from people like Snyder and the folks who work the games.

“A lot of the unsung heroes are the team captains,” Wolski said. “They’re out there with 10 guys and need four or five more and they go out and recruit through Facebook or Instagram or texting. Of course the referees and the timekeepers make the league operate properly and we’re lucky to have J&G Homes Arena now, which is enables us to have more ice. We would be dead in the water without J&G.”

There has been some competition over the years — Snyder noted the most recent league lasted only a couple of years — but only the WWHL has persevered. He said Wolski can take credit for that.

“Generally speaking, if you have a problem or a concern, you can talk to him about it,” Snyder said. “If you have an idea and bring it to him, he’s an idea guy in general. You can just tell by all the stuff he’s done. He’s a guy who’s always wanting to evolve and do something different or better.”

There is one place he hasn’t ventured into yet that may exist in the future.

The women’s game has undergone tremendous growth in Brandon, but Wolski received just one email asking if there was a women’s league. Unfortunately, the demand simply isn’t there yet for adults, and very few women have opted to play in the WWHL.

That may fall into the hands of whoever runs the WWHL next.

After 30 years in charge, Wolski can’t help but consider what the future holds. He says the WWHL likely has a lots of gas in the tank.

“Maybe the league does but I don’t know if I do,” Wolski said. “Three or four months ago the question was raised ‘Darryl, what’s your succession plan?’ That’s a really good question and I don’t have an answer for that. I don’t know who to hand the reins over to. In all my businesses, somebody has to take over because I don’t want to be doing this when I’m 69 years old.

“Sooner or later, I’ll find somebody who wants to take on the league and maybe they’ll take it to the next level with some new ideas and make it more fun.”

» pbergson@brandonsun.com

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