What’s in a letter grade? Quite a bit when the jump is from B to A.
The Vancouver Island Junior Hockey League will go from Junior B to Junior A status beginning with the upcoming season. Also making the move up in classification are the Pacific Junior Hockey League and Kootenay International Junior Hockey League. The move was long speculated and made official Tuesday.
It fills the gap created when the sa国际传媒 Hockey League, with four Island teams and a steady producer of NCAA Div. 1 players and several NHLers, went from Junior A to independent junior status in a dispute with Hockey sa国际传媒 over certain rules and stipulations.
The impact on the VIJHL, PJHL and KIJHL, however, won’t be felt immediately. The leagues will start out under a Tier 2 classification within the Junior A system and won’t be eligible for the 2024 Centennial Cup Junior A championship tournament. That is open only to Tier 1-status leagues.
It will be a process that will shake out over several years, said sa国际传媒 Hockey CEO Cam Hope of Victoria, with some VIJHL, PJHL and KIJHL teams moving up to Tier 1 and others opting to stay in Tier 2 depending on their budgets and aspirations. Hope said he can envision, at some point down the road, possible inter-league play between teams in the VIJHL, PJHL and KIJHL that decide to go Tier 1.
“The Tier 1 and Tier 2 issue all depends on how fast teams will adapt to the raising standards,” said Hope.
“There are teams right now, especially in the [20-team] KIJHL, who feel they are ready immediately for Tier 1 Junior A status. But there may be other owners within the three [former Junior B] leagues who say this is not what we signed up for and will want to play at the Tier 2 standard.”
Pete Zubersky, owner and governor of the Peninsula Panthers of the VIJHL, sees interlocking play in future seasons, among teams who opt for Tier 1, as “a real possibility.”
There is no monolith of opinion. Each team and each market within the three leagues is different. But the process will take time. Hope said even 2025 would be considered a “fast track” to playing for the Centennial Cup.
“The Cougars have always been a super-competitive organization and I imagine there would be eventual interest in Tier 1 but I can’t speak for the board,” said Chris Lynn, GM and head coach of the Victoria Cougars of the VIJHL.
“There are a lot of unknowns at this point. As the process matures and moves along, each organization will decide what’s best for their franchise.”
The Panthers of the VIJHL are also taking a wait-and-see approach to the Tier 1-2 issue.
“There is so much water to go under the bridge and myriad of questions,” said Zubersky.
“We run an organization as good as any. Over five years, you’re going to see lots of change and lots of moving parts. We’re taking a patient view to see how this develops with things like how many BCHL teams want to come back to Junior A. The bottom line for most teams is how it impacts them financially.”
Hope also mentioned the possibility of some BCHL teams maybe returning to the Junior A fold. The biggest impact, however said Hope, will be opportunities for sa国际传媒 players to play Junior A.
“Less than 50 per cent of the players in the BCHL are from sa国际传媒,” said Hope.
“This new pathway will give more players from sa国际传媒 chances to play Junior A in their home province.”
That is a benefit to the VIJHL that Zubersky also touched on: “I estimate 45 per cent of the players in the BCHL were sa国际传媒 kids, and wouldn’t be surprised if that will go down to about 25 per cent, because the BCHL is now free to recruit European players and 16-17 year-olds from across the country. A lot of those sa国际传媒 players will fall to our league and our calibre will go up. There won’t be a lot of change in the first year but the calibre of our league will go up dramatically in the years after that.”
Lynn has said that overall: “I believe this is a good move for our league. The impact will be felt in future years.”
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