For years, Thompson Blazers management has dreamed of having a single rink to call home for the B.C. Major Midget League regular season.
That dream won’t be realized in time for the 2015-2016 campaign.
BC Hockey released the BCMML schedule on Thursday and, as has been the case in years past, the Blazers will be hosting games in a number of arenas in and around the Tournament Capital.
“Obviously, being our first year [running the team], we were hoping to get all of our games out of Sandman Centre, but it is what it is,” head coach Don Schulz said. “They gave us the dates and Sandman Centre wasn’t available.”
The Blazers have been trying to establish a home rink for years. In recent seasons, former head coach Mark Chase pushed for the club to be housed in Memorial Arena.
Schulz said the Blazers are now aiming for the Sandman Centre — the club has put in an application to establish a permanent dressing room in the space now reserved for visiting Western Hockey League teams.
That room will be vacated following the 2016 IIHF Women’s World Hockey Championship, for which another large dressing room is being constructed at Sandman Centre.
Breaking down its 20 home games, Kamloops will play 11 times at Sandman Centre and seven times on McArthur Island — three times on the Olympic-sized sheet and four times on the NHL-sized rink. The club will also play one game at Memorial Arena and one game in Chase at Art Holding Memorial Arena.
“It’s not really that big of a deal,” Schulz said of playing in multiple arenas.
The desire to have a rink is more of a preference. Most BCMML teams play out of the same facility throughout the regular season.
“Up until his point, they’ve played minor hockey and they’ve had to do that all through their minor hockey league career, so it’s more of a continuation of what they’ve already experienced,” Schulz said.
Thompson will open the season on Sept. 19 at the Sandman Centre against the Fraser Valley Thunderbirds.
The club will then head out on the road for the first of two showcase weekends — Sept. 26 and Sept. 27 at the Richmond Oval.
The second showcase will be held on Jan. 23 and Jan. 24, again in Richmond.
The Blazers will host two homestands of six games apiece — the longest of the season. The first will span from Oct. 3 to Oct. 25, while the second will close out the regular season, beginning on Feb. 13 and wrapping up on Oct. 28.
The club’s mettle will be tested when it embarks on its longest road trip of the season, which spans 12 games — more than one-quarter of its 40-game slate.
Thompson opens the trip on Nov. 14 with a pair of games in Richmond against the Greater Vancouver Canadians.
The club will also make stops in Kelowna to face the Okanagan Rockets, in Abbotsford to play the Fraser Valley Thunderbirds, in Prince George to take on the Cariboo Cougars and in Port Coquitlam to tackle at the Vancouver NE Chiefs.
The trip concludes in Nelson on Dec. 20, when Kamloops will play its final two games before Christmas against the Kootenay Ice.
The 220-game BCMML season wraps up on Feb. 27 and Feb. 28. The Blazers will be home to the defending league champions, the Chiefs, to close out regular-season play.
Playoff competition for the Cromie Memorial Cup is slated to begin on March 4, with the championship series scheduled to start on March 18.
The Pacific Regional Championship, in which the winner of the BCMML takes on the winner of the Alberta Midget Hockey League, will run from April 1 to April 3. The winner of the best-of-three series will represent the Pacific at the Telus Cup, the national midget championship, which will be held in New Brunswick form April 23 to April 30.