The KIJHL rejects expansion, now what? (Opinion Included)

On January 22nd, 2017 the KIJHL held a special meeting to deal with the expansion requests that Quesnel and Williams Lake submitted to join the league. Both communities have supported Junior A hockey teams in the past.

In the 2015-16 season a regular season game was played in Williams Lake and was well supported, so this seemed like an opportune time to join the KIJHL.

However, in a secret ballot cast during the special meeting, which it's only item of business was expansion, 75% of the membership rejected expansion. "Bottom line... 75% did not want to expand" said KIJHL President Bill Ohlhausen.

In his pithy manner, Ohlhausen suggested the league would "certainly" consider expansion in the future, adding, "I think when the membership is in a position to accept it. I don't know all their reasons, but they were not prepared at this time to expand."

This certainly puts to rest the idea of expanding this season so the league can focus on the playoffs; however it it seems to have poked the Williams-Lake-Quesnel-bear and it is arising from its hibernation and will hunt down anyway to get hockey back, and they have several options to chew on: remain focused on expansion, start their own league, or relocation.

At the start of this current season, the league discontinued cross-conference play and shortened the season to help teams budgets; essentially splitting the league in two, in which neither conference will see each other until the KIJHL finals.

The splitting the conferences appeared to create some ambivalence about expansion because it would not impact the Kootenay Conference as much as the Okanagan Conference.

Those two communities could become creative and form a league of their own. It is important to note that the KIJHL sports 20 teams, the VIJHL has nine and the PJHL has ten. The KIJHL is currently bigger than the other two Cyclone Taylor Cup participant leagues combined, making the KIJHL final a mini pre-Cyclone Cup competition. So creating a league that is similar in size and schedule to the VIJHL and PJHL looks appealing.

Another option besides expansion, or creating their own northern league, Quesnel and Williams Lake could be considered as communities for teams to relocate to.

Either way, the Williams Lake and Quesnel communities want in, and they want hockey back. It's just a matter of when and how.