Rangers gearing up for another exciting year
October 8, 2024, 1:11 pm
Ryan Kiedrowski, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
Last year’s season will be difficult to top, but the Moosomin Rangers are ready to embark on another winter of Senior hockey in the Big 6.
“Obviously, last year, it’s going to be tough to top,” said Rangers’ manager Paul Stapleton. “When you win the league championship, it comes with certain expectations, of course. Right now, I’m hoping we obviously have another successful season—whether we win the league or not—that’s a sort of bold statement to say!”
Last year’s Big 6 championship saw the Rangers battle the Redvers Rockets through three tight games, with Moosomin ultimately emerging the victor in each of the challenges. It would be the first in 20 years—and only the second time in Rangers’ history—that the team would win the championship.
“The only unfortunate part is last year, the championship game when we won the league, we were on the road down in Redvers,” Stapleton said. “It would have been unbelievable to win it at home, in front of our home crowd.”
This season will be a big rebuilding year as many Rangers alumni will not be returning for the 2024-25 season.
“Unfortunately, we did lose 11 players in total,” Stapleton said. “We took a big hit where we lost like four of our defensemen from last year’s team. A couple elected to go back and play in Brandon, and we had two that retired. But so far we have had an opportunity to pick up two that should help out.”
At this point, Stapleton won’t name specifically who they’re looking at bringing onboard, but the prospects do look good.
“One of the guys actually had a good pro career, so he should come with lots of experience, and should certainly help fill a void back there,” Stapleton said. “And another guy we picked up, he’s played lots of senior hockey, a big, strong defenceman, so again, that should help. We have also picked up a player that played in Carlyle last year, and he was an over a two-point game guy, so that will help fill the void, as we lost Brock Trotter, one of our top scorers from last year’s team as well.”
Another possible source to fill the roster is just over the border in Elkhorn. The Miniota-Elkhorn C-Hawks have decided to take a year’s leave of absence from the Tiger Hills Hockey League as they couldn’t come up with enough players to consistently commit to a regular season. Rather than attempt launching into the 2024-25 season and possibly dropping out part-way through, the team made the difficult decision to sit out for a year.
This may prove as an opportunity for Moosomin to draw a few extra players, but the big question remains whether or not those prospects would be considered imports.
“We're still trying to land about two or three people from that team, but it’s going to be based on logistics and what we are going to have to classify as imports, as we only have room for four imports,” Stapleton explained.
Stapleton and Rangers’ coach Ferrel Horn attended the recent Big 6 league meeting on Sept. 29 for more information on the process, ensuring the Rangers would be compliant in bringing over some Elkhorn players.
“We have to make sure that the players that we’re looking at, that they’re within the distance of this being the closest community,” Stapleton said. “So if we can score that, they can come and play here without being classified as imports. Otherwise, we’ll have to make some decisions.”
The Rangers already have three imports on the roster, including Carter Sawchuk, who rounded out the top three goal scorers last year with 34 points. This will be Sawchuk’s third year donning the red, white, and blue.
“So we’ve got room for one more, and we’re hoping to grab two or three of the guys from Elkhorn,” Stapleton said. “The closest community to you that has a senior team, if you live within those confines, you can come and play being a non-import.”
With the C-Hawks taking a break, Stapleton noted they thought the rules might not apply, but since the team didn’t actually leave the THHL, the closest senior hockey for those prospects would be Elkhorn and the import rule applies.
“Due to the fact that they played in Elkhorn last year, if they come play here, they will be classified as imports, is what we found out,” he said. “Technically, that team is still in existence, because they’re just taking a leave of absence. So if we grab people from Elkhorn, we will have to classify them as imports, rather than if the team just disbanded, then we would have been able to grab them, because then they would fall into that category of Moosomin being the closest community to them that has a senior team. That’s why now it’s a little dicier.”
The Big 6 league is not immune to teams sitting one out, as the Bienfait Coalers will be taking a one year leave of absence.
“They’re taking a leave of absence as well,” Stapleton stated. “And I know there’s a couple players that confirmed that they are going to Carlyle, and as far as I know, they are going to be classified as imports, simply because the team hasn’t folded. They’re just take a leave of absence.”
The Bienfait break also means two fewer games in the league this year. For a nice and even home-and-home meeting for everyone, that would mean 14 games in the regular season for each team, which was seen as a bit scant on ice time.
“We had put everybody’s name in a hat, and then each name got pulled out, and each team got an initial away game and each team got an additional home game to at least play 16 games,” Stapleton said. “We just felt 14 games was just quite not enough.”
The luck of the hat saw Moosomin’s additional home game playing host to the Midale Mustangs, while the away game has the Rangers on the road to visit the Oxbow Huskies.
“This is our fourth year in the league. We were fortunate to win the league, we lost in the finals the year before, and our first year back, we lost in the second round. So we’ve been very fortunate so far, since we’ve rejoined the Big Six,” Stapleton said. “The community really got behind our team in the last few years. Last year, community support for our team was unbelievable. It was great to see.”
Practices for the Rangers will start soon, anticipated to begin Oct. 16, and the first game of the regular season will be the home opener on Nov. 1 when Midale comes to town. Usually, the Rangers prefer to have a few more days in for a practice, plus work in an exhibition game before heading into the season proper, but Stapleton is confident in this year’s team.
“We still have a good core of players that have returned,” he said. “So I do anticipate being competitive again this year. It will be easy to make the playoffs, because there’s only eight teams, and every team is going to make the playoffs!”
