FLIN FLON, Man. — The Flin Flon Bombers quite possibly couldn’t have picked a better time to win their first Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League championship in 33 years.
To say the least, times have been tough for the Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League's only Manitoba-based franchise. It was only a couple of years ago that the city’s largest employer, Hudbay Minerals, shut down most of its mining operations in the community. And last summer saw most of Flin Flon’s 5,100 residents evacuated from their homes for over a month due to severe wildfires in the area.
So when the Bombers took the ice for the 2025-26 campaign, it was all a welcome distraction from what had been some difficult situations.
And, oh, what a distraction they turned out to be.
After spending most of the last decade flirting with SJHL championship glory, the Bombers finally broke through, sweeping the Yorkton Terriers in four games last month to win their first Canterra Seeds Cup since the 1992-93 season.
“That was a big thing we tried to embed in the team, that with the hope and excitement and we were a distraction from everything that's gone on in Flin Flon over the last couple of years,” said long-time Bombers head coach Mike Reagan. “There's so much negativity with the mine shutting down and then the forest fires and stuff like that, for us to be able to do that for our community, to have something that people can rally around and take their minds off some of the devastating situations we were put into, I think is a real pleasure for us.”
As nice as the SJHL title was, there was still the order of business that is the Centennial Cup national junior A championship. After going through a tough start in their first two games in Summerside, P.E.I., the Bombers rallied to win their final two games and in the end came a mere three goals away from advancing to the playoff round.
Flin Flon opened with a 1-0 loss to College Francais Lounguiel before dropping a 7-2 decision to Toronto and picking up their first win with a 6-4 victory over the Greater Sudbury Cubs. That set the stage for their round-robin finale against the Truro Bearcats, where Flin Flon needed to win by five goals to move on to the playoffs.
They’d come as close as could be, building a 3-0 lead and pulling their goaltender late to try and get the two goals they needed, but the Bombers would give up an empty-netter and go on to a 3-1 win.
Seeing their team get that close to potentially moving on and eventually playing for a national title was naturally disappointing to the club.
“It's a little bit frustrating because we thought that we were the better team in three out of the four games,” Reagan said. “We really liked our first game. When you hold a team to 12 shots you should win that hockey game. Maybe there was a little bit of scoring rust early on in the tournament, but as it went on, I thought we got better and got back to the team that won the league. In a tournament like that, you just don't know exactly how the goals for and goals against are all going to work out and which team you need to beat at that time.”
Reagan’s crew knew they were in tough needing a five-goal win to advance, and their coach couldn’t be prouder of their effort in such circumstances.
“I think that the guys gave themselves every opportunity and chance to win by five. We played our best game in the last game, so it's unfortunate,” Reagan said. “I have to give the guys a lot of credit. They could have easily folded the tent when they found out they had to win by five, but they threw everything they had into it and just came up a little bit short.”
And with that, Flin Flon’s storybook 2025-26 campaign came to an end.
“Overall it was one of the best seasons I've ever had as a coach, the most enjoyable,” Reagan said. “It just goes to show that when you have 25 guys that are all committed and pulling in the right direction, it can be very enjoyable and you can have a lot of success.
“Going into the year, we thought we'd be a contender, but we didn't think that we'd have the season that we did. Things just kind of clicked for us at the right moment and we built confidence and belief.”
A major part of the Bombers’ success was their pure malleability when it came to picking up certain facets of the game and what they needed to do to win.
“They soaked up every little bit of knowledge that we could throw at them and it was just a real pleasure to coach this group,” Reagan said. “I'm sad that the season's over, that I won't get to coach this group of guys again because they just made it so enjoyable to go to the rink every day.”
Interestingly enough, as good as Flin Flon was this year, there’s the potential for an even better campaign in 2026-27. The Bombers have a deep corps of veterans returning to their lineup for the 100th anniversary of the team, all of which now have a taste for winning and know what it takes.
“We had a lot of 17 and 18-year-olds from the previous season coming in this year, and I just think that we've grown so much through this experience,” Reagan said. “Those 17-year-olds are now going to be 19-year-olds, and those 18-year-olds from a year ago are going to be 20. So I think that we've got a really good core.”
And if that leads to a run of success not previously seen in Flin Flon, no one there will be complaining.
“Now that we've got over the hump of winning the championship, hopefully the same sort of thing can happen again. We felt that we've always had a contending team and for whatever reason just couldn't get the job done, so maybe we've learned something through this run and this is the straw that breaks the camel's back," said Reagan.
