By Jeromy Corrigan

Blades drop out of 2018-2019 NWJHL season

Aug 17, 2018 | 11:23 AM

The North West Junior Hockey League will have one less club this season as the Beaverlodge Blades have announced they will not be icing a team.

” Due to the low count of players returning and not being able to have a successful recruitment class this spring and summer, we just don’t have the bodies to field a team, ” stated President of the Blades Richard Lappenbush.

With a low number count, the club did not want to put in a team and risk their players potentially getting hurt.

Lappenbush adds there are always plenty of factors going against a small-town team like the Blades, and he revealed it makes it difficult to recruit a team because of it.

” It’s just tough. We have three teams in such a small area (County Kings, Sexsmith Vipers, and Beaverlodge Blades), and with multi-media and everything where players can do their homework quite easily they can pick and choose where they want to play and try-out. Even Peace Country is a big area. There is a big draw, but with the internet and search, there are so many different leagues and options for players to choose from. “

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In a statement via email from the NWJHL to EverythingGP, President Michael Mercredi stated ” Moving forward the league is working on a new schedule and will be updated by early next week on NWJHL web page.  We don’t want to drop any league games, as homes games are crucial in generating revenue for teams’ expenses. It”s news you don’t want to hear losing a team, we were looking to expand with Slave Lake / High Level this year but fell through. “

When it comes to the Blades organization, President Lappenbush says the club will meet over the course of the next few to months to try and figure out the best direction for the Junior Blades, but at this time they are not sure.

” We were extremely disappointed. There were a lot of broken hearts. There were a lot of tough decisions made Wednesday night. We contacted a majority of all the returning players if not all of them Wednesday to let them know first hand before we went public with it yesterday (Thursday). “

For the returning players of the Blades, they will now have the opportunity to go and try and earn a spot with one of the other six NWJHL clubs.

The 2018-2019 NWJHL season is set to begin in mid-September.