MJHL announces pre-season schedule

The Steinbach Pistons will have to be road warriors to start the 2024/2025 Manitoba Junior Hockey League (MJHL) season, and that will start in the pre-season.

The team has scheduled four exhibition games this season, and all of them are scheduled to be played outside of their home rink. The Pistons will be playing Winkler and Niverville twice this September in exhibition games, with all of the team’s games taking place in Winkler and Niverville.

Steinach head coach Paul Dyck confirmed while games will be away, the team’s training camp will remain locally based inside the T.G. Smith Centre

The games in Winkler will take place in the smaller Icon Arena, as the Centennial Arena undergoes intensive renovations.

Steinbach has also back-loaded home games into their schedule, only anticipating 10 home games in the first half of the season in La Broquerie’s HyLife Centre before the anticipated opening date for the new Southeast Event Centre Dec. 31.

Niverville is also only playing two teams in MJHL pre-season action, scheduling three games against Selkirk and two against Steinbach. All but one game against Selkirk will take place in Niverville this year.

The MJHL’s pre-season schedule has the 13 clubs playing 31 games between Sept. 1 and Sept 15. Only two franchises have scheduled games from outside of the league, with the OCN Blizzard playing a home-and-home series their neighbours to the north in the Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League’s Flin Flon Bombers.

Virden has a similar schedule, facing off against the nearby Estevan Bruins for a pair of games.