Norskies, Iron Rangers looking to move up in 2017-18 — SIJHL Season Preview

The Minnesota Iron Rangers and Thief River Falls Norskies will both be looking to make a move up in the Superior International Junior Hockey League in the 2017-18 season.

The 2016-17 season was not friendly to the Minnesota Iron Rangers who managed just seven regulation wins in 56 games in the SIJHL – a Canadian junior league that includes four teams from Northwestern Ontario and two others from northern Minnesota.

For the Norskies, the season was better than satisfactory. As an expansion team, the bar couldn’t have been set too high. The Norskies proved to be competitive in its first season finishing with a 30-21-2-3 record for 65 points and fourth position overall, just one behind the third place English River Miners and three points back of second place Thunder Bay North Stars.

The Norskies were unable to convert that into playoff success though, falling in a fourth vs. fifth play in series to the defending league champion Fort Frances Lakers.

Overall, the Dryden Ice Dogs were the class of the league, winning 45 of its 56 games and then moving through semis and the championship series to claim the Bill Salonen Cup, adding that to its regular season championship and moving on to represent the league in the Dudley Hewitt Cup tournament.

The same six teams are back for the 2017-18 season with play beginning on Sept. 22 when Thief River Falls travels to Fort Frances to begin the new season against the same team that ended its previous season. The Iron Rangers will open its campaign the following day on home ice against the Thunder Bay North Stars.

Both teams will get an exhibition test on Friday (Sept. 8, 2017) as the Iron Rangers will travel to Fort Frances and the Norskies will travel to Manitoba for game against the Winkler Flyers from the Manitoba Junior Hockey League.