James McCarthy/NNSL photo
Extraordinary circumstances have prevented the Northern Hockey Challenge from allowing senior men's teams to compete a home-and-home series between Hay River and Yellowknife.
The Hay River Huskies and the Yellowknife Flyers were tentatively set to have the second half of the series in Hay River on the weekend of March 28 & 29.
"Obviously, everything is changed, which we fully understand," said Greg Rowe, one of the organizers of the games, referring to the COVID-19 crisis that has closed the Hay River Community Centre.
"But our intent is to keep it going," he said. "And certainly the players and the communities have supported it very well, so we fully expect that we'll be able to again host it next year, and keep moving it forward."
Rowe said the Northern Hockey Challenge has been "thrown some curveballs" since it began as a six-team event.
The challenge began in the 2012-2013 season with three teams in the NWT and four in Nunavut.
It has since become a competition between Hay River and Yellowknife.
However, it was not held for two years as the Hay River Community Centre was rebuilt, and it was not held in 2018 because of the South Slave Arctic Winter Games.
And last year, there were two games in Hay River, but none in Yellowknife.
This year, there was a game in Yellowknife on Feb. 8 as part of the Hockey Day in Canada national event.
"It worked out with Hockey Day in Canada," said Rowe. "We were able to tie it together and really showcase senior hockey at a prominent venue, and certainly Hockey Day in Canada was a great audience to be able to play senior hockey."
However, the game itself didn't turn out as he had hoped, with the Yellowknife Flyers winning by a score of 11-5.
"It sounds a little more lopsided than it really was," said Rowe. "We just didn't have the start we wanted. Yellowknife had a very strong team and they jumped out in front of us and we just got a little too far behind. But we did make a game of it in the second and third periods, and it was a closer game than the final score. I think we outshot them badly."
Rowe said it was fun to get back to Yellowknife this year.
Senior hockey is for players 18 years of age and over.
"There's certainly been an appetite from both communities to want to have good caliber, fast, fun games to watch," said Rowe of Hay River and Yellowknife. "So that's really what we're trying to do is just keep it going, and there's certainly been good support from both communities."