After lengthy discussions and assessments of its player roster at the beginning of September, the Board of Directors of North Peace Navigators decided to request a leave of absence from competition for the 2026-2027 season.
General Manager and Head Coach Jody Menssa says the decision to not ice a team in this upcoming season was made after the recent training camp. He says it was clear the team did not have the depth or player numbers to ice a competitive Junior B hockey team.
“We’re not icing a team this year because we do not have enough players,” explains Menssa. “There’s multiple reasons for that decision, but the immediate cause is the league expansion.”
Menssa says that his main concern is the league expansion, noting that now the pool of potential hockey players is spread out over more interested teams.
“The current number of teams in the region, including Fairview, Slave Lake, and the Navigators, did not work previously,” says Menssa. “So why would it work now when there are less players in that regional pool from a hockey growth prospective at the younger ages.”
Menssa says North Peace Navigators’ traditional player recruitment area was directly impacted by the league expansion.
He says the team recognizes that expansion and growth are part of junior hockey and that players ultimately make their decision of where they want to play. However; because the team operates in a northern area with a small regional player pool, extra teams competing for the same players has added an extra layer of complexity to their ability to recruit. This has made a direct impact on their ability to assemble a competitive roster for the upcoming season.
“This is not a fault of Slave Lake, but it is an environment that we are in,” he explains. “Now we’ve got our eight teams in the league and many of us are pulling players from the same recruitment area. We were not approached or offered any insight as to how this could possibly affect our organization. We came off a good season on and off the ice and this has hit us hard.”
Menssa says this same issue is being faced by teams throughout North America, with an extensive expansion throughout both Canada and the United States. He says it is widely known that enrolment into hockey programs has diminished because of the expense of having children play. As a result, when the kids progress through the system there are fewer players to choose from but continually more teams.
Menssa says in Peace River’s case, there were some very promising players and prospects showing talent through the training camp, but the board did not believe it would be responsible to enter the season hoping that enough additional players would become available.
“As a result of the expansion, we lost three of the players who were expected to play for us,” Menssa explains. “We also lost an assistant coach to the expansion. Any potential players we had coming from that area were no longer coming here.”
He says that ultimately an additional six of the guys who were expected to return to the NAVs decided that they were not coming back for various reasons.
“Most of them had different opportunities, mentioning that they wanted to go to the states because they had a buddy that was going,” Menssa says. “So, the buddy recruited them to go down and now they’re doing different options because they want to have different hockey experiences or different life experiences.”
Menssa says in the spring it is hard to replace those numbers, but more likely. When it is just days before the training camp and they’re faced with player departure, with players going to school or a variety of other locations, the chance of replacing them is much less likely.
He adds that the board thought of trying to continue recruiting through September, hoping to assemble a roster by October. However; he explains that would incur additional expenses and asking the league, fans, and community partners to continue planning around a team they could not guarantee they could ice.
“Making this decision now gives our players the best opportunity to find places to play, gives our sponsors and partners clarity, and allows the league time to adjust the schedule,” he says. “We intend on using this year to rebuild our model and position the North Peace Navigators to return to ice for the 2027-2028 season.”
Menssa explains they still intend on continuing to operate this year, maintaining the NAVs locker room, operating Flight Deck Concession and Lounge, and remaining active in the community.
Menssa says the whole board is in a grieving stage, and this was a very difficult decision for them to make. He adds that they do acknowledge that they may have to change their player recruitment strategies and the model they’ve been following.
“It’s not a decision that was taken lightly,” he concludes. “We know something has to change from the structure itself, and the expansion was our downfall.”
Menssa says that the board will let the dust settle for the next couple of weeks and give themselves to clean up some administrative tasks. He says their team is determined to be back at the rink in 2027.
“We’re going to formulate a strategy of what we’re going to do through the winter to review our organization as a whole, recruitment, and other aspects of our team,” he adds. “We need to look at ourselves and the values we stand for to see if we will continue with those or going to change in order to match a recruitment model that we need to do. We need to strategize and work collaboratively to determine how we set ourselves up for success gong forward.”
Emily Plihal
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter