A look at SJHL travel across the league

battlefordsNOW broke down travel times for all the teams in the SJHL to see who has a bad road schedule and who has it rather easy.

First, a pattern

It isn’t all that surprising to see that the Sherwood Division, made up of teams in the far North or northeast (Flin Flon, La Ronge, Nipawin, Melfort) travel more than central teams, such as the North Stars, Kindersley Klippers and Humboldt Broncos. The four Sherwood division teams take up four of the top five spots in terms of the most kilometres they will travel in the 2017-18 season.

Flin Flon takes the top spot at 17,111 km.

They will travel more than 3,000 km in one month on three separate occasions this season: October, December, and February.

Their February 2018 is also the most any team will travel in any single month in the season at 4,271 km. But the reason isn’t because of any long road trip South. It’s because their divisional opponents aren’t very close. In February, they’ll make two separate trips to Melfort, two separate trips to Nipawin, and one to La Ronge. They do also head South to Yorkton, Melville, Notre Dame, and Estevan (the trip overlaps into March), but each of those five divisional road games represents over 600 km to get to the game and back home.

That’s one hell of a way to end the season.

The Ice Wolves clock in at 16,690 km for the season as a whole, a close second to the Bombers.

Nipawin and Melfort are third and fifth, respectively, at 14,655 and 14,277.

North Stars, and their division, in the middle

The North Stars and their divisional opponents – Humboldt, Kindersley, and Notre Dame – also aren’t significantly close to one another. Yes, the North Stars and Klippers get to play each other 10 times again this season, which helps because they’re 200 km apart, but Wilcox, where Notre Dame plays, is over 400 km from both Kindersley and the Battlefords. Plus, Humboldt is nearly 300 km away from Wilcox.

In fact, it would be closer for the Hounds to travel to Brandon, Man. than for them to head to the Civic Centre for a date with the North Stars (which they’ll do three separate times this season).

That’s why the Hounds will travel the fourth most this season, with a total of 14,460 km, and the North Stars, Broncos, and Klippers aren’t far behind them.

The North Stars will travel 13,956 km this season, the sixth-most of the 12 SJHL teams. That’s significantly down from last season, when they clocked 15,735 km, thanks to a hectic October (4,709 km). This year, the middle is the toughest, while the beginning sees them play almost no games at all, and the end isn’t too hard in terms of road games. Their busiest road month will be January, when they’ll travel 3,795 km.

The surprise (at least for me)

When I first began calculating the distances teams will travel this season, my initial thought was teams in both the far North and far South (Estevan, Flin Flon) would both be at or near the top.

Boy was I wrong.

The entire Viterra division (Estevan, Weyburn, Yorkton, Melville) has schedules that will see them travel the fewest kilometres.

Weyburn will travel the least of all teams, at just 10,931 km this season. In fact, the Hawks will have clocked more kilometres by Jan. 20, than the Red Wings will clock all season long.

It’s also probably safe to say the Red Wings will have the easiest 2018 of all teams. 14 of their 24 games from Janurary until the end of the season are at home, and seven of their 10 road games are one night trips to places within a close proximity.

The Bruins, who are the cloest to the U.S. border, will travel the third-fewest, at just 12,070 km, more than 5,000 less than Flin Flon. The Bruins do have the longest single road trip (which, they’ll actually do twice in the same month), as they top 2,000 km in a single trip when they head north to Flin Flon, La Ronge, Nipawin and Melfort in November. The reason their overall total is so low is because of plenty of matchups against Weyburn, Notre Dame, Melville, and Yorkton.

Below is the full ordered list of how far teams will travel this season:

Flin Flon Bombers: total of 17,111 km
La Ronge Ice Wolves: total of 16,690 km
Nipawin Hawks: total of 14,655 km
Notre Dame Hounds: total of 14,460 km
Melfort Mustangs: total of 14,277 km
Battlefords North Stars: total of 13,956 km
Humboldt Broncos: total of 13,494 km
Kindersley Klippers: total of 13,395 km
Yorkton Terriers: total of 12,733 km
Estevan Bruins: total of 12,070 km
Melville Millionaires: total of 11,931 km
Weyburn Red Wings: total of 10,931 km

nathan.kanter@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @NathanKanter11

by Nathan Kanter

A look at SJHL travel across the league

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