Changes to Sault hockey landscape

The face of minor hockey in Sault Ste. Marie could be very different come September.

In a public meeting on Thursday night, the Sault Major Hockey Association presented the new potential setup for hockey in the city, which would see the association run rep teams from novice up to midget while house league teams would then play out of the Soo Pee Wee.

All of Sault Ste. Marie’s rep teams currently run under Sault Major in some form. At the bantam and midget levels, Sault Major directly runs the teams while the rep teams under the bantam level (pee wee and atom) currently run under Soo Minor Hockey, which answers to Sault Major, with the Soo Pee Wee Hockey League running all house-leagues from tom thumb to peewee.

The Pee Wee league currently also runs ‘A’ divisions at the novice, atom and peewee levels. Those leagues will also run under Sault Major in the new system.

The new system that will be used will have Sault Major run:

Major Midget – Triple-A, Double-A and ‘A’
Minor Midget – Double-A
Major Bantam – Triple-A, Double-A and ‘A’
Minor Bantam – Triple-A, Double-A and ‘A’
Major Pee Wee – Triple-A, Double-A and ‘A’
Minor Pee Wee – Triple-A, Double-A and ‘A’
Major Atom – Double-A and ‘A’
Minor Atom – Double-A and ‘A’
Major Novice – ‘A’
Minor Novice – ‘A’

The associations (Sault Major, Sault Minor and Soo PeeWee) held meetings in February in an attempt to come to an agreement as they attempted to go from essentially three associations to a single association running hockey in the city.

After attempts were made throughout the month, the associations could not come to an agreement which led to the Northern Ontario Hockey Association getting involved. Because of the disagreement, the NOHA was forced to come to a decision as per their regulations.

In a letter to the SooPeeWee Hockey League, the NOHA presented their decision.

“The Soo PeeWee Hockey League will operate House League programming only in the City of Sault Ste. Marie. Sault Major Hockey Association will oversee ‘Rep’ hockey in the A level,” the letter read. “The Sault Major Hockey Association will not be able to register ‘B’ or ‘C’ teams, which is considered to be House League in calibre.”

The Soo PeeWee Hockey League appealed the NOHA’s decision but the appeal was denied earlier this week on the grounds that team classification cannot be appealed.