Sorry guys, I was supposed to get this done earliere today. Other events intervened --
but you have the details from others.

CIHL AGM, May 28, 11


CIHL adds two new teams, loses one and
creates three division for 2011-12 season

Representatives of the Central Interior Hockey League voted to accept applications from the Quesnel Kangaroos and the Lac La Hache Tomahawks to join the league for the 2011-12 season, and
created three divisions for the new season's schedule. The three-team West Division will now comprise the Prince Rupert Rampage, the Terrace River Kings and the Kitimat Ice Demons, the East Division will be the Smithers Steelheads, Houston Luckies and Hazelton Wolverines. The remaining four teams,
the Omineca Ice, The Quesnel Kangaroos , the Williams Lake Stampeders and the Lac La Hache Tomahawks will make up the South Division. The league accepted the withdrawal of the Burns Lake Braves from the lineup.

All teams will play an interlocking 18 games schedule featuring home and away series with teams in their own division, with the remaining games against the closest competition in the East Division.

For playoffs, the two top teams in each division will advance along with two wild card teams, with the highest points total – with the remaining two lowest-point teams eliminated.

J.C Brown of Smithers Peak Radio was elected president of the league and will be drawing up official schedule as quickly as possible. Former Smithers goaltender, Jamie Deba will take over as league statistician. Josh Armstrong of the Prince Rupert Rampage will remain as vice-president, while Terry Marleau of the Kitimat Ice Demons will become past president. Former league president and treasurer, Rose Ruffell of the Burns Lake Braves has turned over duties of league treasurer to Colin Smith, general manager of the Hazelton Wolverines.

Al Navrot, a former coach of the Williams Lake Stampeders presented details of plans for the Lac La Hache team while Curtis Gassoff, who played last year with the Williams Lake Stampeders, made a presentation on behalf of the Kangaroos, in Quesnel.

The league will continue to use the Pointstreak statistical system.

The league representatives also agreed to support an application from the Kitimat Ice Demons to BCAHA to host the Coy Cup in 2012. The team won the Coy Cup for the fourth time in six seasons in Prince Rupert in March. This coming season will be the Ice Demons' 10th anniversary season.

Looks good. Too bad Burns left the league. Oh-well, we did increase by 1 team. Good luck with the new executive. Good to see new people step up.

...as I sat at the meeting, I had a flood of questions, but there was a significant agenda that included a full review, prior to a merge to eliminate duplication among three documents, the CIHL Constitution, the Regulations and the By-laws.

But I am unsure how the three-team divisions will stack up, how a sensible and acceptable schedule cam be arrived at -- and of course, some questions about the ability of a small community like Lac La Hache to fit in as it will have to. There are many similarities between Hazelton and Lac La Hache -- both are principally native communities, but LLH has several more (as many as 16) reservations to seek players. So, as at the meeting, I didn't want to jump to any conclusions...but a 200 seat arena suggests all the questions you might need. Hazelton gets it done -- but has yet to exhibit much competitive success. I hope the new team in charge can turn that around.

The vote for LLH was not unanimous.

It was for Quesnel.

This suggests to me that there is some significant doubts that LLH will have to erase among the team reps that were at the session.

All of that being said, the vote was sufficient to include the new teams and I wish them every success.

We reached agreement on the new set up very quickly, maybe too quickly, because since leaving the meeting, I have had some e-mails about the possible schedule that I was not really able to answer with clarity.

I will await with interest the first draft of the schedule from the new prexy.

There was agreement to that the old CIHL website needs worked on, needs to be updated and kept current, with a link added to Pointstreak. I posted the agm -- but JC plans to take the website on as well. He'll find it quite a load all in all -- but I have npo doubt that he is energetic enough to get it done.

This meeting however, was one of the more forward-looking AGMs in a long time, to I don't want to rain on any parades; so season 2011-12 will be very interesting.

anyone know when the schedule should be done?

J,C, Brown seemed adamant it would be quick!