The Prince George Spruce Kings are moving back to the Interior Conference.
With the addition of the Cranbrook Bucks, the B.C. Hockey League is expanding to 18 teams next season and league governors decided at their semi-annual meeting Jan. 23 to create two nine-team conferences.
The Spruce Kings, who left the Interior to join the Mainland Division in 2012, will form the new Interior Conference with Cranbrook, Trail, Wenatchee, Penticton, West Kelowna, Vernon, Salmon Arm and Merritt.
The Coastal Conference will include Chilliwack, Langley, Surrey, Coquitlam, Victoria, Nanaimo, Cowichan Valley, Alberni Valley and Powell River.
“With Cranbrook coming into the league next year, the league and the board recognized the need to alter our current divisional alignment,” said BCHL executive director Steven Cocker, in a league release. “The new format makes the most sense geographically and is a logical step for the future of the BCHL.”
Teams will play each divisional opponent six or seven times during the season and will have home-and-home encounters with each team from the other division.
The Spruce Kings and a couple other teams voted to keep Prince George part of the Coastal Conference.
“I knew the majority of the league was in favour of it and to be honest I know it’s probably what’s best for the league,” said Kings general manager Mike Hawes. “Being in the Interior means we’re probably going to spend a little more time on the bus with trips to Trail and Wenatchee and now we’re going to add a trip to Cranbrook in there. But on the other hand we’re out of the Coastal Conference where we would have had to be using ferries a lot more and adding some expenses that way.”
All 18 teams will play a 54-game schedule in 2020-21, four games fewer than the current 58 games and the season will start in mid-September, two weeks later than in recent years, when teams held their training camps in late-August and started the season the first weekend of September.
“The shorter schedule allows us to start our season later and training camps won’t be allowed to start until September 1st and the regular season will start September 18,” said Hawes, who serves on the BCHL’s competition committee. “Those are good things for a lot of reasons. In the places where it’s still summer in September they have trouble selling tickets then.
“It also eliminates some of those 3-in-3 weekends. We pride ourselves on being the safest junior league in Canada and part of that is making sure our payers are well-rested and able to compete hard without risking injury, which a lot of times happens in those 3-in-3 games.”
The Spruce Kings (17-28-2-3-0, fifth in Mainland) are back on home ice at Rolling Mix Concrete Arena on Wednesday to face the Wenatchee Wild (24-22-3-1-0, fifth in Interior). Down to their last eight games of the season, the Kings host the Merritt Centennials on Friday.
The Kings are healthy for Wednesday’s game with the exception of right winger Nolan Welsh, who is day-to-day with a shoulder injury. Defenceman Brendan Hill returned to the lineup Friday in Vernon after missing six games with a knee injury.
