by Phil Ambroziak

The good news for local hockey enthusiasts is Meadow Lake Minor Hockey, the Meadow Lake Senior Broncos and the Meadow Lake Junior ‘A’ Mustangs will all be back in action this fall. The not so good news, at least for the organizations themselves, is finding adequate dressing room space at the Meadow Lake Arena to accommodate the influx in teams, especially on nights when busy league schedules dictate back-to-back games at the same venue.

During Monday’s (May 27) meeting of Meadow Lake city council, local legislators were originally scheduled to consider a motion to enter into a new lease agreement with the Mustangs for the 2019-20 season subject to changes to ice time booking and dressing room conditions presented during the meeting.

On hand to discuss the matter with council were the city’s parks and recreation manager Robin Mitchell, Darryl Worms of the Meadow Lake Broncos, minor hockey president Jace Andersen and councillor Glen Winkler who excused himself from the council table to instead answer questions in his role as Mustangs general manager. The trio discussed their desire to work together to make the upcoming season work for everyone, but it’s a difficult task considering the Mustangs should know their schedule in the coming weeks while minor hockey and the Broncos won’t have their respective schedules in place until later in the year. The situation could become even more complex if minor hockey is able to establish a Midget ‘AA’ team for the fall.

Meanwhile, the issue of dressing room access was also discussed with everyone agreeing there needs to be more space created to accommodate larger teams. Use of the Stampeders’ corral also came up with Mitchell saying no team should have exclusive rights to the area and should certainly in no way be leaving their gear and other belongings in the room when other teams are scheduled to use it.

“From what I’ve heard tonight, I think there’s a real strong possibility this can all be worked out,” councillor Curtis Paylor said “For us to enter into a lease agreement tonight might be a little premature. I don’t really see anybody disagreeing about what we have to deal with and what we have to get to. I think we should table a decision until at least our next meeting. I don’t think anybody is going to get left out”

Council agreed to revisit the matter at a future meeting.