BONNYVILLE – The Bonnyville Jr. A Pontiacs will be expanding their cohort group in the coming weeks.
According to head coach Rick Swan, the Alberta Junior Hockey League (AJHL) received approval from the province to increase their cohorts to consist of up to 150 people.
“That means we’ll have the ability to jump into a five-team mini-league or division,” he said. “We don’t know what that announcement is quite going to look like just yet, but we’re excited about it.”
The team will be required to go into a 14-day isolation period in order to join another cohort group, which means games can start at some point in November.
Swan is hopeful this could mean the league could enter into a regular-season of sorts.
The exhibition series for the Pontiacs officially kicked off against the Fort McMurray Oil Barons on Oct. 9. Although the home team lost the six-game series 4-2, the overall consensus from the players was a positive one.
“It didn’t really feel like an exhibition out there,” said left wing Michael Fairfax. “It felt like the season already, which is good. It’s really good for us to get into it now before the season starts up. Everybody’s looking really good, everybody’s playing and we’re getting to see a lot of guys and we’re super excited.”
Left wing Ethan Sundar added, “It was competitive. It was a pretty good match up between us and Fort McMurray. It was good to see how our team was looking compared to last year and get a feel for the game against being off for so long.”
The coaching staff has seen the month-long developmental season and exhibition series as a unique opportunity the team hasn’t had before.
“We’ve been together with our group for seven weeks now and we’ve got the chance to not only build a tight group, but we’ve got a chance to really focus more on structure and practice time than we’ve ever had probably in the history of our game before we actually got to playing games,” Swan detailed. “They were intense, heated, and the execution for an exhibition title is much higher than it’s ever been and they were exciting games.”
Whether or not match-ups will only have 100 spectators in the stands is still up in the air. Swan stated a proposal of a "comprehensive plan on how our facilities can minimize the risk of anyone getting sick or contracting the virus’ is under review."
“With isolation and restrictions and protocols in place, that’s something that we’ve been told and something that we’re optimistic about that maybe our league could be somewhat of a model to show that we can safely get more than the current restricted number in building and maybe that it will open up, not only events from the hockey perspective, but other events of being able to do it with certain protocols and restrictions placed upon fans at indoor events.”
The Pontiacs, along with the AJHL, are being optimistic about the situation.
“It’s great that we even got those cohort numbers, which is massive for us,” Swan noted. “We were grateful to play one team, but now we’re getting the opportunity to play more than one team.”
