Superior International Junior Hockey League

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Superior International Junior Hockey League

Head Office	Thunder Bay, Ontario
Official Web site	SIJHL
Chairman	Ron Whitehead
Referee-in-Chief	Gary Nistico
Founded	2001

The Superior International Junior Hockey League is a Tier II Junior A ice hockey league under the supervision of the Canadian Junior A Hockey League and Hockey Canada. The winner of the SIJHL playoffs competes for the Dudley Hewitt Cup with the winners of the Ontario Provincial Junior A Hockey League and the Northern Ontario Junior Hockey League. The winner of the Dudley Hewitt Cup then moves on to compete for the Royal Bank Cup.

1 History
2 The Teams
3 2006-07 Bill Salonen Cup Playoffs
4 Bill Salonen Cup Champions
5 Former Member Teams
- 5.1 Former Interleague Teams
6 See also
7 External links

[edit] History

Although founded in 2001, the SIJHL is another chapter in a long history of Thunder Bay Junior "A" Hockey. The Fort William War Veterans were the first representatives of the Thunder Bay region, winning the 1922 Memorial Cup as Canadian National Junior "A" Champions. Although there is not abundant information on the subject, the Thunder Bay Junior Hockey League may date back to the War Veterans, and may have existed on-and-off until 1984. From 1984 until 2000, the region (Hockey Northwestern Ontario) was represented by a single team at the Junior "A" level -- the Thunder Bay Flyers. The Flyers played their regular season games in the United States Hockey League, America's Tier I of Junior Hockey, and returned to Canada for the playoffs. The Flyers won the Dudley Hewitt Cup as Central Canadian Junior Champions in 1983, 1988, 1989, 1991, and 1995 The Flyers were also National Champions in 1989 and 1992, winning the Centennial Cup. The Flyers folded after the 1999-2000 USHL Season.

The folding of the Thunder Bay Flyers opened the way for a rebirth of Junior "A" hockey in the Thunder Bay region. The league came back to life under the "Superior International" label in 2001 with 5 teams, including the Thunder Bay Wolves (now the Fort William North Stars), the First Nation Featherman Hawks (now the Thunder Bay Bearcats), the Fort Frances Borderland Thunder, Dryden Ice Dogs, and the Thunder Bay Bulldogs.

The current SIJHL includes Fort William, the Bearcats, Dryden, the Thunder Bay Bulldogs, the Schreiber Diesels, and the Marathon Renegades. The Bottineau Lumberjacks played a part time schedule with the league before returning to the US Junior College hockey ranks for the playoffs in 2005-06. Fort Frances has seemingly folded for good. The league picked up the Marathon Renegades for the 2006-07 season. The announcement of the North Shore franchise was made on July 7th in Marathon. There are also talks of bringing in the Wisconsin Mustangs and possibly ex-NSHL teams like the Wawa Travellers for 2007-08.

[edit] The Teams

Team records are as of December 8, 2006.

Team	Centre	2006-07 Record	Points	Rank
x-Fort William North Stars	Thunder Bay	33-6-1-0	67	1
x-Schreiber Diesels	Schreiber	24-10-1-4	53	2
x-Dryden Ice Dogs	Dryden	22-18-2-0	46	3
x-Thunder Bay Bearcats	Thunder Bay	20-15-1-2	43	4
y-Thunder Bay Bulldogs	Thunder Bay	12-25-1-0	23	5
y-Marathon Renegades	Marathon	3-34-0-0	6	6