The Mapleton-Minto 81’s will take a one-year hiatus from the WOAA Senior ‘AA’ Hockey League.
The decision was announced on Sept. 20 after team officials realized they would be scrambling for players.
General manager Rick Fisk said the team discovered it was facing the “retirement of a lot of players,” as training camp got underway earlier this month.
“It was probably a domino effect,” said Fisk, suggesting some players probably made the decision after it was learned “a couple of key players weren’t coming back.”
While he estimates the 81’s lost between 14 and 16 players expected to play this season, Fisk said the team believes a core of players will return for next year.
He added recruiting efforts are underway with graduating junior league players, so the decision was made to suspend operations for a year, rather than fold.
“I think a lot of them are just going to play pickup hockey for this winter and hopefully get the team back together for next year.”
Fisk said 81’s players who head to other teams in the senior loop this year will do so on the understanding they will be released by their new teams if the 81’s ice a squad for the 2018-19 season.
In the meantime, said Fisk, “We’re going to get busy and we’re trying to build a strong executive.”
He noted the team’s executive had dwindled to “basically two people” and pointed out, “any of the real successful teams in this league have strong participation from executive and volunteers.”
Fisk said the 81’s are fortunate that recent playoff success put the team on solid financial footing.
“The last four years we were right there, so financially we were fine. A lot of teams aren’t financially fine. They are in debt to their communities.”
Fisk said it costs over $50,000 a year to run a senior team, with ice time being a major expense, which “A lot of people don’t realize.”
He added the league could do a better job of promoting a circuit that includes many ex-junior, professional and semi-professional players.
“We’ve had a good hockey team now for four years. It’s pretty entertaining hockey.” However, he admitted it can be “tough to find players.”
After three or four years of playing around 60 games a year, “we’re finding a lot of junior kids don’t even want to play anymore,” he said.
Many players “love the game so much (that) come hell or high water, they’re going to play hockey,” said Fisk. However, he added, “nowadays a lot of them have young families and their families are more important and work’s more important and we’ve always preached that.
“It’s the type of hockey you need a 25-man roster for, because they’re never all there at the same time.”
Fisk stressed the team has every intention of playing next year.
“We fully intend to be back next year and that’s how we left it with the WOAA.”
