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North Stars top SJHL team on pre-season CJHL rankings

Sep 2, 2016 | 5:00 PM

On Friday, the pre-season rankings for the CJHL were released and only two Saskatchewan teams made the top 20 spots: the Battlefords North Stars, at 13, and the Estevan Bruins, at 20.

The MJHL’s Portage Terriers hold down the top spot, while the Trenton Golden Hawks of the OJHL and the Soo Thunderbirds of the NOJHL come in second and third, respectively.

According to the release, these initial rankings are based on factors that include, “the league in which the teams belong to, last season’s results in regular season and playoffs as well as initial recruiting efforts for the upcoming season.”

North Stars head coach and general manager Nate Bedford said he doesn’t put much thought into the rankings.

“Those [rankings] are for people that aren’t hockey coaches,” Bedford said. “If hockey coaches are looking where that number is, they’re not focusing on the right thing. I don’t try to look at where other people think we are. I’m worried about where we think we are.”

Forward Layne Young, who led all rookies in the SJHL last season with 75 points, also said the rankings mean little at this point in the year.

“Right now they don’t mean a whole heck of a whole lot,” Young said. “We’ve got to win games to stay on there, obviously.”

The first set of regular season rankings will be out September 26, 10 days after the regular season begins.

All 10 junior A leagues in Canada are represented somewhere in the top 20. Three leagues are tied with the most entries: the BCHL, AJHL and MHL, with three each.

 

Nathan Kanter is battlefordsNOW’s sports reporter and voice of the Battlefords North Stars. He can be reached at Nathan.kanter@jpbg.ca or tweet him @NathanKanter11