Is anybody in Slave Lake still interested in junior hockey? Evidently not enough to make whatever effort it takes to revive the Jr. B program that once thrived in town. The more recent experiment, the ‘pay-to-play’ business model that brought the Icedogs to Slave Lake for a few seasons, was less successful, and left a bad taste in a lot of mouths.

It would be easy to write off the whole project (the Icedogs style of junior hockey, that is) as something destined to fail. But look at High Prairie. Same league, same concept and the team and franchise are apparently highly successful.

Successful, that is, if you don’t count the fact the Red Wings and every other team were banished from the Greater Metro Hockey League (GMHL) for “financial challenges and various other issues.”

Whatever those issues, the ouster didn’t stop the Red Wings and the rest of the GMHL West teams from quickly forming their own league. Recently they even accepted a team from Viking Alberta into the fold – one that according to a story in last week’s High Prairie South Peace News didn’t have a town or an arena to play in as of a couple of weeks ago.

You get the impression of the whole thing being made up on the fly. Still, you have to give those involved credit for trying to make a go of it. But junior hockey again in Slave Lake? Don’t hold your breath.