By Peter Watts /

The late Bill Hunter loved to talk about the NHL coming to Saskatoon.

Remember the ol’ promoter trying to bring the St. Louis Blues to town — waxing eloquently about how great the ‘Saskatoon Blues’ would be and how warmly they’d be welcomed by the people of Saskatchewan.

The Saskatoon Blues never happened, of course, but the recent training camp visit by the New York Islanders seems to have been well received by the hockey fans of northern Saskatchewan.

“It was a great week,” said Saskatoon minor hockey executive director Kelly Boes.

“Credit Union Place sold out in 30 minutes for the two exhibition games and that’s with about 14,000 seats available in the building.

“In conjunction with the Islanders camp, we ran a pre-season bantam tournament. We had the Toronto Young Nats and the Vaughn Kings from the Toronto area and Sun County Panthers from the Windsor area come in.
And we had two teams from Saskatoon and a third team from Humboldt to take part.

“All the players went to the Blades/Regina WHL game on the Friday night. They also went to see the Flames and Islanders on Saturday and the Oilers and Islanders game on Sunday. And the two teams that played in the final, got to play it at Credit Union Arena before the Oilers/Islanders game, so I’m sure that was a special treat for them.”

It was a great start to what promises to be a big year in Saskatoon for the grand old game. The Blades are a pre-season pick to be a powerhouse in the Eastern Conference of the WHL.

The Huskies continue to build a strong program under veteran head coach Dave Adolph and expect to be in the thick of the battle for Canada West supremacy in university hockey. And, of course, there’s this little hockey tournament to be played through the Christmas New Year’s period.

“I’m told that tickets have been going pretty steadily for the world juniors,” Boes said. “Right now, the only way to get a ticket is to buy the 21-game package in Saskatoon.

“But I suspect that individual game tickets will be made available shortly. By then, the building seating should be up to about 15,500.

“And we’ve got some special activities coming up in December which we will unveil shortly.”

In the meantime, the minor hockey season is underway and Boes reports some good news on that front.

“We’re up about seven teams over last season,” he said, “and that means another hundred youngsters or so will be playing this season. Most of the growth is coming in our younger age groups. Given the economic challenges a lot of families are facing right now, I think this is good news.”