Sioux Lookout Bombers join SIJHL
Tim Brody - Editor
SIJHL Junior A hockey action will be returning to Sioux Lookout in September 2022, when the Sioux Lookout Bombers take to the ice.
The Superior International Junior Hockey League (SIJHL) has announced the unanimous approval of the Board of Governors of an expansion application made on behalf of a group based in Sioux Lookout, Ontario.
The SIJHL stated in a press release issued last week, that, “Critical to the expansion process was for the Board of Directors to determine that the application was made by the right people, in the right location, who were looking to join the league for the right reasons and who had a vision backed by a plan that could be executed.”
“Our board really thought they checked off all the boxes,” League commissioner Darrin Nicholas explained. “Sioux Lookout has always been a community that we thought made sense for an SIJHL franchise. The town is within our geographical footprint. There is a great facility there and there’s clearly an abundance of community spirit that we feel will support a team.”
Nicholas said, “No secret, high on our priority list was getting more teams involved, more communities involved in the league.” The Sioux Lookout Bombers are now the league’s eighth team.
Sioux Lookout’s last SIJHL team, the Flyers, operated from 2008 to 2012.
Nicholas added that the league would like to acknowledge and thank Sioux Lookout Mayor Doug Lawrance and Chief Administrative Officer Michelle Larose, “for recognizing the value of the opportunity to bring SIJHL hockey back to Sioux Lookout.”
“As we look around at kind of the landscape on places where we thought it made sense for the league to participate in, clearly Sioux Lookout was a leading candidate with a facility that has already housed a team in our league, that is still capable of housing a team in our league. Geographically, it’s kind of in the centre of everything… that really prompted me to reach out to some officials from Sioux Lookout and that very quickly got me an appointment with the mayor, Douglas Lawrance, and with the CAO, Michelle Larose. They were really instrumental, couldn’t have rolled out the red carpet better to the league. Very quickly after that I was in touch with this group, who the enthusiasm was unmistakable, their desire to make something positive happen in their community, bring back SIJHL hockey… We’re really looking forward to puck drop in Sioux Lookout in the fall of 2022,” Nicholas commented.
“A matter of months ago, Darrin reached out to myself and I got our CAO into the discussion. We had a good discussion and both the CAO and myself had previous experience with Junior A teams, myself with the Flyers and the CAO, Michelle… she kept the books for a Junior A team, so we both had background in it and were both really quite enthusiastic what that brings to a community,” Lawrance shared, adding, “This is wonderful! It’s a homegrown initiative in Sioux Lookout, which I think lends so much strength to it, people who have great backgrounds to do this and great enthusiasm… I think we all saw the benefits that this type of thing brought to the community before and in COVID, you see the real craving for community to get together and celebrate events, celebrate home teams, I think the enthusiasm will be huge at the beginning of this venture… I always thought that the arena and sports are one of the places where it brings all community members together in a common effort. It’s a joy to see.”
Lawrance added, “From the Municipality’s point of view, we’ll be renting ice out – Junior A teams typically practise during the day when the ice would be sitting empty, so that’s a benefit to everyone.”
Lawrance also shared, “This is home grown, home breed, we had local experience the last time that will definitely lend a hand here, the financial model for the teams now and the league is different… it creates a much better opportunity for financial success.”
Nicholas shared, “It was then just a matter of ensuring the correct people were at the helm. The group of Matt Cairns, Austen Hoey, Joe Cassidy and Christine Hoey have been nothing short of thorough and professional. Their energy and attention to detail throughout the whole process easily instilled confidence with our Governors that they were more than capable franchisees.”
Nicholas added of the organizing group, “We’ve got people that have identified themselves to be pillars of the community, that’s very crucial to us to have boots on the ground, I think that’s one of the cornerstones when we evaluate our franchises that are successful, the people that are running it and financing it, they’re also the ones that are shaking your hand when you walk through the rink and taking your ticket at the door and stuff like that. That was a big factor here. Clearly the right place, I spoke about that already, Sioux Lookout is very desirable in the footprint of our league… When we started talking about financing, that really revealed a lot about their vision for the team, how they were going to operate it, it just seemed to fall into line with the way many of our other teams are lined up as well, so all the boxes were checked for this group.”
Matt Cairns, spokesperson for the Sioux Lookout SIJHL group and a local businessperson, shared, “We would like to thank everyone at the SIJHL for their support during this process. I’m proud of the work we’ve accomplished so far and look forward to seeing the excitement and support of the community for the return of Junior A hockey.”
Cairns explained, “We set up kind of a rudimentary timeline, obviously nothing set in stone, it’s still 17, 18 months away, but we set some significant milestones. One of which was to raise $150,000 in support through our Bombers Builders campaign. That amount of money is going to be used to get us through the administrative expense of joining the league, the expansion fees, as well as our first year league fee, I suppose you could say, plus whatever expenses we incur along the way. To reach that goal, we’ll obviously be reaching out to local businesses, First Nations partners, the community in general, there’s a lot of very generous people in Sioux Lookout that we expect to support us through the builders program. A couple fundraisers, still in the early planning stages, but looking at likely at least having a golf scramble here in the fall, in Sioux Lookout. Through the winter I guess we’ll just kind of see how things go in terms of how our fundraising goes, what we need to do to reach our goal of $150,000 by July of next year.”
A local business, Morgan Fuels, has already come forward to support the team.
“Darrell (Morgan, Morgan Fuels president) is an always reliable community supporter. He’s quite the philanthropist, if you will, in terms of community support and he’s also a big hockey fan. We met with him not long ago and he was extremely enthusiastic to support or group and has pledged that support now, and going forwards,” Cairns said.
“In terms of hockey operations, we’ll be starting our search for a coach sometime next year,” he said.
The team will also need to arrange things such as team transportation, merchandise contracts, etcetera.
Cairns said a lot of local history is represented in the Bombers’ logo.
The Sioux Lookout Bombers, he said, is referencing the Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry’s water bombers. “We have a fire base here in Sioux Lookout. Water bombers have been instrumental in keeping our entire region, not just Sioux Lookout, but our entire region safe from annual forest fires,” he said. Speaking to the logo’s colours, he explained that the MNRF’s water bombers are yellow. Green was chosen to represent the forests which surround the community. “Secondary to that, the yellow and green are the colours of the former Queen Elizabeth District High School Warriors sports program, so it’s kind of a quiet shout out to the former program,” he said.
Cairns said the team will be something for local youth to strive towards, “We definitely highlighted the importance of partnering with Sioux Lookout Minor Hockey Association and the high school (Sioux North High School) hockey program to sort of give players something to strive for.”
Austen Hoey, Bombers Director of Hockey Operations, said that having a Junior A team again in Sioux Lookout will give young hockey players something more to aspire to.
“I believe, especially in a community like ours, where Matt alluded to the fact that right now the highest level of hockey for minor hockey players to aspire to is the high school hockey team. Not that there is anything wrong with that, but when there is a junior team here, it does ask those minor hockey players to kind of push themselves a little bit harder, because now they know that the bar they’re looking to get to is that much higher.”
Hoey said the team is looking to contend for the league’s top spot. “We’ve kind of established three C’s in terms of hockey production. We want to build a Culture on the ice, we want to be Competitive on the ice, and want to engage the Community on the ice. What that kind of means is, in terms of competitiveness, we want to make sure from day one, that our goal is to win hockey games, and to build better players.”
He continued, “I have enlisted the advising services of Larry Bumstead, who is currently the head manager of the Winnipeg Jets hockey development and he’s kind of working with me in trying to find the right coach, the right general manager, to bring in the right players and bring in not only the right players skill wise, but the right players culture wise, that fit into a small town, that know what this is about, and that can strive from day one. We are looking to be fixtures in the community from day one. We are looking to be fixtures in the SIJHL from day one, and we are looking to compete for the league title from day one.”
Hoey added, “Eventually, one day, yeah, we will hopefully have players from Sioux Lookout, we’ll have players from the northern communities playing on this team. Is that going to be from day one, well there’s a pretty good chance that’s not going to happen, but who is to say it isn’t going to happen.”
Asked about not returning under the Sioux Lookout Flyers name and logo, Cairns said, “We’re all from the north here, we all love hockey. We’re all sad to see the Flyers leave. It left kind of a void in the community. I’ve wanted to see Junior A hockey come back for several years.” He said of the opportunity to rejoin the league, “It just kind of presented itself now. In terms of our group versus the former group, obviously we weren’t connected with the Flyers. We’re a whole new fresh group. I think we’re the right group. We got unanimous support by the Board of Governors of the SIJHL, which speaks volumes, I think, about the level of confidence, they have in our ability to put a program together that will be successful long-term. Obviously we’ve already sourced out a fair amount of business support in town… we’re also really hoping we can rally the community, not only the Sioux Lookout community, but the area First Nation communities to support the team.”
The Bulletin asked each of the four members of the organizing group why they decided to get involved with the team.
Cairns replied, “First off, I love the game of hockey. I’m a hockey fan, I play not very well, but I do my best to play. I’m a coach with minor hockey and I like being involved with the game and as many aspects of the game as I can. I’ve definitely missed being able to go see games, other than going to Winnipeg to see a Jets game, go see a Moose game, whatever. I go see my beloved Maple Leafs. It’s just been sorely lacking in town, that draw and attraction and exciting high level hockey you can go and see.
“As for why is now the right time, it just kind of stumbled upon our feet, as Darrin said, they approached the Municipality initially, and then through sort of the grapevine we caught wind of it and assembled ourselves into a board and decided we would explore the possibility and take a run at it.”
Hoey shared, “Similar to what Matt was saying, I’m fully ingrained in this community. I was born here. I lived here until I was 19 and then I moved to Winnipeg for just about 10 years for school and to work. A lot of that work was done with hockey development and hockey camps and hockey schools in the Winnipeg Jets and Manitoba Moose organization, through their development programs. When I got back to Sioux Lookout, that was kind of my goal, to try and see if we could get some amount of high level hockey. Right now I’m the coach of the Sioux North boys high school (hockey) team and I was the coach of the Sioux North girls hockey team before that. I think it’s a great fit. There’s no reason why we can’t have a team. There’s no reason why we can’t have a successful team. I think that Sioux Lookout definitely would love to support something like this and you look to even when we had the Flyers, the attendance numbers even in the years we were not great in terms of win-loss record, the attendance for the most part, was still there every time. I think that Sioux Lookout is just such a great hockey town and you couple that with the First Nation communities, we are the Hub of the North, hockey is essentially a religion to a lot of the First Nations communities, I’ve seen it first-hand multiple times and I know that they would very much love to support this team.”
On April 23, the Little Bands Native Youth Hockey Tournament posted on their Facebook page, “Little Bands Native Youth Hockey Tournament Committee supports the SIJHL’s newest team the Sioux Lookout Bombers. Exciting team and hockey for our area.”
Joe Cassidy, who is also a municipal councillor, said, “After the Flyers left, there was a bit of a void left and one of the premises I campaigned on was bringing more things to Sioux Lookout for people to do, to fill that void of Junior A hockey, and to help promote that and bring that to Sioux Lookout. I feel like that fits very well with what I want to do. Myself and Matt, we already coordinate the men’s hockey league in town (Sioux Lookout Hockey League) together. We know we work good together. We have a good relationship with Austen and Christine, so this group came together quite nicely. I couldn’t be happier with the group we’re going forward with. The other thing is, with bringing junior hockey to Sioux Lookout, I don’t feel there is a better way to promote this town and the people in it and bring in 20 plus young kids here every year to go back to wherever they’re from across Canada, US, and tell stories about Sioux Lookout. I think that’s a big bonus for this community.”
Christine Hoey said, “I’ve spent the better part of my adult life working to make Sioux Lookout the best place it possibly can be. I was also born and raised in Sioux Lookout. I went away to school and I came back and spent the last 20 odd years working with my family’s companies, which allowed me to have extra time, evenings, weekends, so on and so forth, to be a part of any kind of festival, event, fundraising effort. I really, really truly believe in this town. I’m a lifer, obviously. When the guys contacted me to join them I said, for sure. I’m there. We’ve had lots of great talks and I truly believe that we can work well together to make this the best possible and the most successful that we can physically and mentally handle. I’m super excited. Like I said, I’m very involved in the community, I have a lot of contacts, and now that we’re allowed to go out and share it, I can’t wait to promote us and the team.”
The SIJHL is a member league of the Canadian Junior Hockey League and presently has seven member teams: Dryden GM Ice Dogs, Fort Frances Lakers, Kam River Fighting Walleye, Red Lake Miners, Thief River Falls Norskies, Thunder Bay North Stars, Wisconsin Lumberjacks.
The Bombers’ expansion into the league is conditional on the Sioux Lookout hockey group obtaining membership in Hockey Northwestern Ontario for which an application will be made in the coming weeks.
2021-22 will mark the 20th anniversary season for the SIJHL.
“Come September of 2022 we hope to be in a very good position, both operationally, financially and hope to have all our ducks in a line and put on a good show in September for the fans here in Sioux Lookout,” Cairns concluded.
