In community rinks across the province, junior hockey playoffs are set to get underway on Friday night with the start of the Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League post-season.
Eight teams remain in the hunt for the Canterra Seeds Cup and a trip to Atlantic Canada this spring to compete for a national Junior A championship at the Centennial Cup in Summerside, P.E.I.
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SJHL commissioner Kyle McIntyre said it’s a time of year which always stands out on his hockey calendar.
“It’s the most exciting weekend of the season,” McIntyre said.
“Teams are going to be all fighting for the Canterra Seeds Cup, it’s going to be a great six weeks of action.”
The Flin Flon Bombers have earned the top seed for playoffs with a 41-11-3-1 record, led by a standout season in net from SJHL Goaltender of the Year Charlie Tritt, who was acquired in a blockbuster deal with the Humboldt Broncos in February.
The Bombers, who reached the SJHL championship series three years in a row between 2022 and 2024, led throughout the season and will have home ice advantage throughout playoffs starting with their opening round series against the Estevan Bruins.
Aside from the Bombers’ dominance and the Melfort Mustangs locked into the sixth seed, McIntyre said the rest of the playoff match-ups weren’t determined until last weekend.
“We really did not see anything decided in our season,” McIntyre said.
“We had first (place) determined, we had (sixth place) determined, but it took 335 games to determine the rest of the placements. That’s great for fans, it’s great for our league, not so great for the health of coaches.”
The Yorkton Terriers earned the second seed on a tie-breaker over the Battlefords North Stars, setting up a first-round series against their longtime Highway 10 rivals in the Melville Millionaires.
Rounding out the league’s opening round series are the two-time defending SJHL champion Mustangs visiting the third-seeded North Stars on Friday night, while the Nipawin Hawks and Weyburn Red Wings will clash after both finished the regular season with 72 points.
Entering playoffs, McIntyre said it’s an important time of year for the league and their franchises for maintaining financial stability through post-season revenue.
“I would say that the overall health of the league is positive,” McIntyre said.
“The health of most of our franchises are positive. The thing that really helps tip the books and tip teams into the black, it’s the playoff response.”
Attendance league-wide has remained on par with the previous three to four years according to McIntyre, averaging around 800 fans per game.
The Warman Wolverines, meanwhile, wrapped up their inaugural season after the former Notre Dame Hounds relocated north from Wilcox last summer.
Finishing 11th in league standings with a 14-36-3-3 record, it wasn’t a strong season on the ice for the upstart franchise.
While the Wolverines’ first playoff game in franchise history will have to wait at least one more season, McIntyre was impressed by the team’s ability to create a strong experience for fans with few returning players from the Hounds.
“Although we tend to measure wins and losses as the benchmark for success, I think they’ve had a very good year,” McIntyre said.
“They’re going to be a cornerstone in the SJHL for years to come and they’re going to be a very successful franchise in the future.”
Further north, the La Ronge Ice Wolves completed their first season playing at the Jonas Roberts Memorial Community Centre on the Lac La Ronge Indian Band.
With millions of dollars needed to update the aging Mel Hegland Uniplex in La Ronge, McIntyre said the move to the modernized arena has opened new doors for the franchise moving forward.
“It’s great for the players,” McIntyre said.
“I think the players have a beautiful rink, they have a beautiful dressing room. There’s a number of Indigenous players that are on the Ice Wolves, they’re excellent role models for the boys and girls of La Ronge and the (Lac) La Ronge Indian Band. I think it’s been a real positive move.”
The Ice Wolves also fell short of playoffs in 2025-26, finishing last in the league with an 11-40-4-1 record to miss the post-season along with the Wolverines, Broncos and Kindersley Klippers.
Flin Flon and Estevan get their series underway at 6:30 p.m. on Friday night, it’s a 7 p.m. start for the Yorkton-Melville and Nipawin-Weybun series, while the Battlefords-Melfort series gets started at 7:30 p.m. on Friday.
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