The Storm celebrate a Lukas Konashuk goal during an exhibition tilt against the Whitecourt Wolverines on October 16 at Revolution Place (Photo: Shaun Penner / EverythingGP)

By Shane Clausing

AJHL announces start date

Storm coach Vandekamp excited as AJHL announces regular season start date

Oct 29, 2020 | 4:40 PM

The Alberta Junior Hockey League’s Board of Governors announced on Thursday that the league will open its regular season on November 13.

Teams will play in a division format composed of a North and South Division. The league says that a season end date and a playoff format will be announced at a later date.

The league also didn’t rule out the possibility of there being an AJHL Showcase sometime during the season.

The protocols that the AJHL are taking is aligned with Hockey Canada’s Return to Hockey Safety Guidelines and Hockey Alberta’s Return to Hockey plan.

Each organization will be responsible for figuring out arena capacity limits, social distancing protocols and ticket sale processes.

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With a regular season date set in stone, the league also announced that the exhibition schedule will conclude on November 8.

With the end of the exhibition season in sight, Grande Prairie Storm Head Coach and General Manager Mike Vandekamp says after a long training camp, it’s nice to get back to playing some meaningful games.

“I’d imagine that the players are very excited,” said Vandekamp. “I think for us coaches and managers, it’s going to be a little bit refreshing, just because we’ve kind of been living week by week or two weeks at a time and not really knowing what things look like beyond that, and I’m pretty sure that most guys in these positions don’t live that way.

“It’s nice to see what your schedule is going to look like and those types of things.”

Vandekamp adds the last two months have been a bit of a grind for his squad.

“A lot of practices, not a ton of games so far and I think everybody is itching to play some meaningful games that are going to count in the standings.”

Vandekamp tells EverythingGP that a schedule is still being finalized and will be released once it is done.

The Storm have four exhibition games remaining until the regular season begins on November 13. They’ll host the Fort McMurray Oil Barons on October 30 and 31 at Revolution Place. The following week, they’ll travel Olds to play a pair of games on November 6 and 7 against the Grizzlys.