The Whitehorse Oldtimers Hockey League (WOHL) is back in action for the 2021-2022 season.

The WOHL plays four games on Sundays starting at 4:30 p.m., and two games on Wednesdays starting at 8:30 and two games on Thursdays starting at 8 p.m. at Takhini arena.

The teams play games consisting of two 20-minute periods with stoppage time.

League president Bernie Adilman was asked how he’s feeling about looking forward to a new season.

“Good. We’re back to – obviously the pandemic changed things last year and we had to break into a couple of … we went into an older division and a younger division and we had mixed responses to that, but it’s something we had to do.

Since the mid-90’s we’ve been running a one-team division so we’re going back to that and we’ve got eight teams and a healthy waiting list so looking to kind of get back to normal so yeah, it should be fun.”

Adilman explains how the league adapted to the COVID-19 situation last year.

“We basically took everybody who signed up and we did it by age – we have 128 guys that sign up – we took the top 64 and drew a line across and that age was about 52 and a half, so anybody who was older than 52 played in one division and anyone who was younger than 52 played in the other division … we had two four-team divisions that just played within themselves.

“We had to play within those because of the number of people … it was okay.

“We’re damn lucky to be able to play. It worked out quite well, but personally, I’m happy to be back to our normal eight teams … it mixes things up a bit.”

“We just run one division of eight teams. We have a draft, we select … pretty standard, had eight teams for most of the years. We select eight guys from the league and they each take their turns drafting a team … we just did that last week. So now we’re ready to start on Sunday.”

The league started in the mid-80’s, with the first AGM in 1986.

They have a 42 game schedule which goes until the middle of March.

“We have a double-knockout playoff that will run us to early April,” says Adilman.

“We have a tournament in February … we used to have a lot of out-of-town teams come to it, but it’s hard now for people to travel, especially with COVID …. but we usually have eight or nine teams in the tournament.”

With a new season comes the excitement of playing with new friends … and old enemies.

“We had a whole bunch of new owners … people who drafted this year, so they mixed things up quite a bit. If you get drafting for a few years in a row, you tend to pick the same guys, so things are mixed up quite a bit this year, and that’s what we liked about it.

“Someone you played with against last year who you couldn’t stand is suddenly your teammate so you really like him. That’s kind of fun. We’re always joking about that.”

All in all, Adilman says he enjoys the league.

“It’s a good league, and it basically runs itself now.”

“Nobody’s skated with any of their teammates yet, so who knows what’s gonna happen. The first game’s always fun.”

Sunday Results

Yukon Inn 7 Air North 4

Yukon Inn’s Walt Liley wasted little time getting the scoring going in the 2021-22 Whitehorse Oldtimers Hockey League season when he scored 46 seconds into the first game Sunday at Takhini Arena. He added a second goal later in the game to pace his team to a 7-4 win over Air North. (He also somehow managed to stay out of the sin bin).

Rob Green chipped in with two goals and two assists for the Inn, and Laurie Malo, Blaine Demchuk and Kevin Topping also scored in victory.

For Air North, it was James Pugsley, Kerry Pettitt, Dustin Heffner and Bernie Heffner recording goals.

Firth Rangers 7 Medicine Chest 1

Shawn Kinsella notched the first hat trick of the season for Firth, and Nate Clark, Peter Kirby, John Pereira and Doug Cote added solo markers. Gerry Brandt spoiled the shutout in defeat.

Kilrich 4 Capri CMW 2

Danny Johnson didn’t wait long to bulge the twine in his oldtimers debut, as he scored 2:34 into the game to help Kilrich down Capri.

Other Kilrich skaters to score were Scott Palfreyman, Wade Harrison (a one-footer) and Johnny Sembsmoen. Gerry Rivest and Bruce Demchuk, with a rare marker, replied for Capri.

Tim Hortons 6 EDI 3

Two more oldtimer newcomers left their marks early for Tim Hortons, as Pat Shaw scored twice and Willy McKenna added a single. Josh “Turkey” Turcotte added a pair for the coffee crew, and Marty O’Hagan rifled in the other one. For EDI, it was Brian Currie on a patented end-to-end rush, Ian Boyce and Mervin Jacobsen.

– Submitted by Bernie Adilman