MWHSHL season underway

St. Vital

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This article was published 30/10/2024 (578 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The puck has dropped on a new Manitoba Women’s High School Hockey League season.

The league’s 2024-25 edition features 28 teams, with the newest team being the Warren Wildcats, and the loop also has a new president — Brad Nechwediuk, who replaced Guy Anderson.

Nechwediuk is also head coach of the Glenlawn Lions girls’ team. He said he’s looking forward to his time as MWHSHL president, not least because he’s long had a passion for developing hockey at the grassroots level.

“It’s a pretty good feeling,” Nechwediuk said. “This is the largest (group_ we’ve had, with 28 teams, and it’s exciting that it’s still growing.”

“It’s amazing that we’ve reached this number of teams, and this level of engagement and participation.”

The league began in 1996-97 with just four teams, meaning its championship team was determined by a round-robin tournament in its early years. Now it has three divisions — the first division has nine teams, the second has 12, and the third has seven.

In its 26th season, it changed its name from Winnipeg to Manitoba to reflect the growing geographical reach, as it now showcases several teams from outsidecity limits.

Nechwediuk said the talent level in the league ranges from “house league… all the way up to AAA-level players.”

Teams in Division 1 typically have several AAA-level players on the team, he said.

One top team looking forward to getting back on the ice is the Collège Jeanne-Sauvé Olympiens, which won the championship in 2021-22n, a year after COVID-19 had wiped out the previous season.

“We’re excited about the season,” said CJS head coach Melissa Boulanger, noting the team will be headed to Toronto in December. “It will be exciting to play some different teams.”

“We have a young team this year, but so far the players have been great, and hopefully they’ve been enjoying it so far.”

Boulanger said eight of this year’s players haven’t played hockey for CJS before, which means there’s a good mix of youth and experience in the ranks.

“It’s very interesting, as some of the players have been with me since Grade 9,” Boulanger said, noting the team’s senior players have “stepped up as leaders” so far this season.

Of all the teams in the Olympiens’ division, Boulanger said CJS will be keeping an eye on the progress of local rivals Glenlawn: “Many of the players are close, and the girls know each other.”

Both teams are powerhouses in girls’ hockey in the east part of the city, with the Lions losing last year’s championship final to the Shaftesbury Titans. The teams are set to meet on Nov. 5.

Visit mwhshl.ca for more information.