Steinbach Minor Hockey reports a good response to its decision to extend the registration deadline this fall. Only 152 players had signed up as of August 27th, prompting the association to extend the deadline to September 4th. Association president Tim Friesen says 41 additional players registered, bringing them to 193, which is six more than last season.

"Bantam is up a little bit, U-16 is down a little bit, everywhere else we are roughly the same or up slightly."

Friesen says the executive met Thursday evening to set up the teams.

"Right now, we are looking like we will have the same number of teams in each age category as last year. U-16, it looks like we will be trying to combine with another minor hockey association, which gets worked out at a regional Eastman meeting later on in September."

Friesen notes there are several different opportunities for U-16 players.

"There's AAA provincial, there's city AAA and there's also the high school hockey team as well. The people who haven't made those teams end up playing on the U-16 community teams."