As the community’s avid hockey fans have likely already heard, the Kamsack Senior Flyers will not be playing this year.
Resurrected about four years ago, the Flyers played for three seasons and this year, which would have been their fourth, they were accepted into the Triangle Hockey League with teams from Langenburg, Bredenbury, Esterhazy, Ochapowace First Nation, Whitewood, Kipling and Theodore.
“We had a strong effort to recruit, but it didn’t come together,” said Chris Nykolaishen, a goalie who was to have been the team’s marketing manager.
“We decided that we didn’t want to show up to games short-handed like we often did last year as members of the Fishing Lake League,” Nykolaishen said, adding that last year the team had at times gone to games with fewer than 10 players.
He said that the team had commitments from only eight to 10 players, and although a team is allowed 25 players on a roster, the team could see going ahead if they had solid commitments from 16 to 18 players.
“We’re still keeping hope alive for next year,” he said, adding that because the Flyers had let the Triangle Hockey League know before the scheduling meeting that they would not be fielding a team, there is no penalty.
“A few of the guys may decide to play with other teams, the others will probably play rec hockey,” he said.
The Flyers would like to thank all their sponsors and fans for their support over the past three seasons, he said. “Hopefully, next year.”
