A Warman Wolverines player helping serve breakfast at a KidSport event during the preseason. (Facebook/Warman Wolverines)

By Nick Nielsen

Hard work done, let's play hockey

Behind the scenes in welcoming the Wolverines to Warman

Sep 9, 2025 | 4:20 PM

It’s taken a lot of work and a lot of people to get ready for the inaugural season of the Warman Wolverines, but now they are two preseason games away from dropping the puck for their first season in the SJHL.

Cole Kachur is the team’s founder, and also sits on the team’s board of directors as the governor. He said the interest in getting a team into Warman has been there for a while, but not having enough ice for the teams already present in town was the biggest hurdle to get over.

“Even if all parties involved would have wanted an SJHL team, things just weren’t aligned because they didn’t have enough ice times. A lot of Warman minor teams were already traveling far outside the city to practice and play games, and it was a teller point amongst Warman minor hockey players and parents, and so over the past number of years, but specifically this July, a second arena was completed attached to the Warman Home Centre Communiplex, and that freed up a lot of ice time, where now not only did they have room for Warman minor hockey, being able to host tournaments and other things, which they haven’t done in a number of years, but it created enough time spots where they could actually entertain a junior franchise.”

Running a junior hockey team isn’t cheap with expenses such as ice fees, equipment, travel expenses like food and hotel rooms, and that’s before any staff get paid. Securing community funding was crucial for the Wolverines. Some teams in the SJHL have yearly budgets close to $1 million just to break even, and that’s for teams that are already established in their city.

Kachur is incredibly appreciative of the people that have stepped up with their donated funds and time to help make this team a reality.

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“Like anything, there’s been peaks and valleys. There’s been times where we’re not sure that we have the right approach and other times where, we felt we had this whole thing figured out. But I will say right from the get-go, specifically on the corporate sponsorship and corporate interest within our club, the city of Warman has really stepped up and a lot of the local businesses who aren’t big conglomerates, it’s those businesses that have really stepped up because they want to show some Warman pride and showcase what the city has to offer.”

The two Co-Founders of the team were Kachur himself, who is the principal owner of the Kachur Management Group in Saskatoon and serves as both Governor and Vice President for the team, along with trial lawyer Jonathan Abrametz out of Prince Albert who also serves as the team’s President . Tyler Helm who farms near Shellbrook but his son played hockey with Warman’s AA programs, is the third member of the ownership group. Kachur said there is a shared vision amongst the three of them to help transition the team to a community-owned team like the rest of the SJHL.

“As of right now, it’s the three of us who are co-owners and co-founders with the team, and the goal is over the next number of years that we’re going to transition it to more of a community based model similar to what you would see in other SJHL locations across the province. But somebody had to step in. It costs a few bucks to get things going and to build the foundation, and so our goal is to build up an awesome hockey market in Warman and build up a great team, and hopefully at some point in the future, the community will step up and decide that they want to take ownership of the club and truly make it their own.”

A big part of that strategy is going to be community involvement on the side of the players. Most SJHL teams have their players helping out within the community whether it’s fundraisers or public events that need a little more excitement added in, and even though the season hasn’t started, Wolverines players have already been out in their community too helping serve breakfast at a KidSport event.

“Basically, anybody associated with our team, with the exception of the owners, are all living in Warman and part of that community, and so we expect to grow fans from day one. The goal is that we’re there for a long time, and fans who started with us when they’re eight, 10, 15 years old, they become lifelong fans, just like you’d see in the Melfort or Flin Flon market where there’s a legacy kind of fan, and so really the best way to do that is by being involved, showing your community that we care, and really participating to whatever extent possible.”

While the Wolverines are positioned in a great place in the province with their proximity to Saskatoon, it also puts them in close proximity to competition with the Saskatoon Blades, especially considering the rink in Saskatoon is on the outskirts of town towards Warman. Not only that, but some people in Warman already have that tendency to head to Saskatoon for their shopping, work, or other needs.

While that proximity to the Blades could be viewed as a challenge, the Wolverines are embracing it instead with an agreement to sell Blades jerseys at Wolverines games, and vice versa. Ticket sales are the biggest revenue generator for teams by far, and Kachur isn’t shying away from the fact that they will have to do some work to convince Warman hockey fans to come buy a ticket to a Wolverines game rather than heading down the road.

“To us, what we have to focus on is providing good entertainment value, and I think it’s our goal to kind of have a similar type of game gate to what the Blades or the WHL teams do rather than maybe some of the SHL teams. We’re hoping to have a lot of excitement, a lot of entertainment within our in-game production. At the end of the day, we want families who are coming to Warman Wolverine games to feel like they’re happy that they spent their money with us and within their community.”

The Wolverines open up their season against the Humboldt Broncos on Sept. 19 at the Warman Home Centre Communiplex against the Humboldt Broncos, and they already have their first theme night set with their Truth and Reconciliation night on Sept. 28 when they play host to the Kindersley Klippers.

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Nick.Nielsen@pattisonmedia.com