The Prince George Spruce Kings have missed the B.C. Hockey League playoffs the past two seasons.
That task will be even tougher in 2012 now that the BCHL has eliminated one round of playoffs.
The league announced Wednesday that in the interests of cost efficiency and player development, new rules on scheduling, playoffs and roster size will come into effect in the 2011-12 season.
Just eight of the 16 BCHL teams (four per conference) will qualify for the playoffs to allow for a regular season that will begin and end two weeks later than in previous years. On a one-year trial basis, just three rounds of playoffs will take place, with a champion to be determined in time to minimize the delay before the Doyle Cup (Alberta-B.C.) championship takes place. The league also wants to increase the competitiveness of first-round playoff series.
"It's not going to make our job any easier, we're really not happy with a lot of these changes that came about," said Spruce Kings president Darcy Buryn. "I think it was shortsighted to eliminate that many teams from the playoffs. Hopefully it's just a one-year thing."
Already facing the imminent move of their closest geographic rival, the Quesnel Millionaires, to Chilliwack, the Spruce Kings are dead-set against against the decision to shorten the playoffs. This past season, the top seven teams in each division made the postseason, with the division leaders each receiving a bye into the second round. Now the Kings will have to finish at least fourth to make playoffs.
"The first round of layoffs, by the time you factor in travel, it's not a great financial proposition for some teams," said Buryn. "But I think being in the playoffs does so much for your program. It gets players excited, it gets fans excited, and even if the first round is only a break-even thing financially, it does so much for your program.
"Speaking from the position of having missed the playoffs the last two year, not being in the playoffs is hard on franchises too."
Although scheduling for the 2011-12 season won't take place until the annual general meeting in June, the league has announced it will start the regular season Sept. 23 and end it on March 11. That change is welcomed by the Spruce Kings, but not at the expense of dropping one round of playoffs.
The league is returning to a half-interlocking schedule in which all teams will play each other at least once, but all teams will not visit all of the league rinks. Regional rivalries will be encouraged and there will be more weekend doubleheaders involving the same teams.
In other rule changes, team rosters have been reduced to a limit of 21 players from 23, which the BCHL says will decrease the number of players sitting out games. Each team must have at least one 16-year-old and one 17-year-old, which the league says will help develop more B.C.-raised players. A draft of 15-year-old affiliate players will be held in October but teams will not retain the rights to those players after the season.
The roster rule does not favour the Spruce Kings.
"It costs us less to carry 21 players than it does to carry 23 and most teams look at that as a cost-saving measure, but most of the teams in favour of that have a wide variety of junior B and midget teams within their community, so they can call up players to fill roster spots on short notice," said Buryn.
"We don't have geographic access to that affiliate player pool on short notice and if we run into injury problems there are going to be games where we'll be shorthanded. That's another thing that's going to be a challenge for us."
