The summer is winding down, the rinks are getting busy again and across Saskatchewan, junior hockey players are getting their first real taste of the 2026-27 season.
With the SJHL regular season just over two weeks away, most teams are now well into training camp, and the picture is beginning to take shape.
The opening night is set for September 18, with all 12 teams in action and each club scheduled to play 56 games.
But before the games count, there are plenty of questions to answer.
Can the Flin Flon Bombers repeat as Canterra Seeds Cup champions? Can the Yorkton Terriers get back to the league final? Which teams are ready to make a jump? And which young players are going to emerge as the next group of SJHL stars?
For the defending champion Bombers, this season will look a little different.
Mike Reagan, who guided Flin Flon to its first SJHL championship since 1993, has moved on to the WHL's Kelowna Rockets. In his place is a very familiar face, Cole McCaig, who spent seven seasons with the Bombers as an assistant coach and assistant GM before spending the last couple seasons with the BCHL's Brooks Bandits.
McCaig knows there are expectations in Flin Flon, especially coming off a championship.
“It’s an honour and a privilege to be named the next Head Coach & General Manager for the Flin Flon Bombers,” McCaig said. “I look forward to working with this group of talented players and building upon the winning culture in place.”
The Bombers are also entering their 100th anniversary season, making an already important season even more significant.
Closer to home, the Yorkton Terriers have plenty of reason to be optimistic.
The Terriers are coming off their best playoff run in more than a decade, reaching the SJHL Final for the first time since 2014 before being swept by Flin Flon.
Head coach and GM Emery Olauson believes that experience will be important moving forward.
“We’ve played five rounds of the playoffs in two years, and I think we’re getting better at that time of year,” Olauson said. “Growing from it, learning from it and being able to draw on that experience, I think it’s going to be huge.”
And Olauson isn't expecting anything to come easy at camp.
Yorkton has four teams of players competing for spots, including more than 20 junior-aged players.
“The competition at camp is going to be fierce,” Olauson said. “We’ve got four full teams of players that are going to have to be filtered down into one.”
That competition should make for some interesting decisions over the next couple of weeks.
The same can be said in Melville, where the Millionaires are hoping several years of drafting and developing young players will start paying off.
Head coach and GM Doug Johnson believes the organization is in a much better position heading into this season, with several draft picks now ready to push for roster spots.
“It’s been two years, three years in the process where we’re going to finally see some draft picks that we made come in,” Johnson said.
Johnson also likes the experience returning to his lineup, particularly on the back end and among his forwards including top scorers in Kale Margolis and Rylan Oatman.
And then there are teams looking to take a major step forward.
Warman enters its second season in the SJHL after finishing 11th last year. The Wolverines struggled to score in their first campaign, but head coach and GM Brett Pilkington will have a much more experienced group this time around, including as many as 10 returning forwards.
The Wolverines will have to replace their first-ever captain, Vincent Palmarin, but Pilkington has already seen what Palmarin's leadership meant to the organization.
“Vincent is the definition of a hockey player,” Pilkington said when Palmarin committed to the University of Calgary. “He leads from the front and is willing to take on anything for the betterment of the group.”
La Ronge is also beginning a new chapter, while teams like Melfort, Humboldt, Battlefords, Nipawin, Kindersley, Weyburn and Estevan will all have their sights set on the playoffs.
And that's really what makes September so interesting in junior hockey.
The preseason gets underway this weekend, with 33 exhibition games scheduled before the regular season begins September 18.
For players, the next couple of weeks are about earning a spot.
For coaches, it's about finding the right combination.
And for fans, it's about finding out whether last season's contenders will remain on top, or whether a new challenger is ready to emerge.
Either way, the wait is almost over. The road to the 2027 Canterra Seeds Cup starts in just a couple of weeks.
