Watrous

for the majority of teams nowadays the bulk of the players are coming from Saskatoon.  don't think this is about making it more convenient for imports at all, also there were rumours about a couple of teams folding which would bring the LLHL down to 5 teams... and like you mention here the lack of local kids... how many kids are there actually from leroy that are playing? 2? 3?  how many years can they survive trying to pull guys in from other areas just to make a team.  The money is the money... its not going anywhere... impossible to use a salary cap, and it will always go in cycles... teams get good, they  win, have guys retire, other teams get tired of getting beat so they fundraise and spend more and they get good.  and round and round it goes.  it used to be $100-150 per game was a big deal... now that doesn't cover the gas to drive to foam lake and back from saskatoon.  People seem to forget everything is costing more these days.  Do players need to get paid $500-600 a game?  hell no, but there are teams that will pay it so here we are.  and just about every team has a van for the city guys... its a smart move saves money in the end rather than paying 3 vehicles worth of gas a game.  think about Wadena for example, and Wynyard... both teams have played approx 30 games this year likely saving about 150-200 a game in fuel by having a van.  that's 4500-6000 in fuel savings in a year.  won't take long to pay for a van at that rate and likely had a sponsor/sponsors help with the purchase of it.

This isn't just a problem in the LLHL. Small towns are dwindling. Period

I talk to players and management from many teams in many leagues over the years. But Irecently I have heard from at least 5 teams in the SVHL that they are doubtful that they will be able to field a team in as little as 3 to 5 years. And not entirely because of money needed to buy imports, but because there is almost nothing coming up through minor hockey. In fact many towns with good senior teams have no minor hockey at all. I can see towns like central butte - Loreburn combining or craik- Davidson or lucky lake - dinsmore or lanigan -Leroy. It’s likely the only way senior hockey survives.

Nothing new...Loreburn and Dinsmore combined well over 10 years ago. Kenaston and Hanley combined even longer ago. Lucky Lake and Dinsmore have combined as well in previous years. And you're correct in it will happen again that towns will combine when need be.

However Loreburn-Central Butte or Davidson-Craik combining? Hell would freeze over before that would happen...that be like Watrous-Lanigan combining or Southey-Raymore!

On the flip side, senior keeps some of these small town rinks alive. It’s a lot of work no doubt to run a team, but it’s good for the towns.

The other option would be to have something like a 8 team Saskatoon Senior Hockey League and a 8 team Regina Senior Hockey League with all teams playing out of the cities. I don’t think anyone in small town Sask would want that.

You had me at “coke”

I was on the board of a team who was all locals and didn't win. We had hardly any fans. We brought 3 imports in and had the rest locals. The fans doubled. Then we brought 2 more imports in and had 3 deep season with one banner being hung. The rink was half full for most league games and full for playoffs and provincials.

A few years later we went for a provincial A run and loaded up. The rink was empty because we had only half a team of locals.

It's hard to please everyone.