The Steinbach Regional Secondary School will open the 2021-22 Winnipeg High School Hockey League season Wednesday against the Oak Park Raiders.

The opening face off is scheduled for 4 p.m. at the T.G. Smith Centre.

"We're very excited," said Sabres first-year head coach John Laninga. "We had a great training camp and we also had some exhibition games in the past couple of weeks. We're very excited to get the ball rolling here on official game play on Wednesday."

Steinbach Regional recorded two wins and a loss in the pre-season.

The Sabres defeated Gabrielle Roy 4-2. The SRSS split a pair of games with Lord Selkirk. The Sabres beat the Royals 5-2 and lost 4-2.

The Raiders dropped their season opener 6-5 in overtime to Garden City last Friday.

"We're going to be a young team this year and I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing," noted coach Laninga. "We've got a lot of players that are hard workers. They're eager to get their feet wet in some WHSHL action."

When asked about the growth of high school hockey at Steinbach Regional, Laninga said the important step was the jump up to Division One a couple of seasons back.

"When you start off a program you're always building so we were in Division Two for a long time and finally a couple of seasons back we made the jump up to the Platinum Promotions Division. Now it's just about continuing to build this program and we want to compete each year."

The SRSS lost out to St. Paul's in the opening round of the 2019-2020 Platinum Promotions Division playoffs.

The 2020-21 season was cancelled due to COVID-19.

Laninga has replaced Lawney Penner who was behind the Sabres bench since day one.

Penner was an assistant coach when the SRSS joined the WHSHL in 2013-14 and had been the head coach since season two.

"Very excited to have this role," Laninga said. "The Sabres hockey team is something that I'm very passionate about. To fill Lawney's skates, that's a tall task. I think very highly of Lawney. He's been an incredible mentor for me over the last number of years. I'm excited to still have him working with us this season. I also have another assistant coach, Nico Chiasson who is very energetic and brings a lot of knowledge to the program as well."


photo courtesy Paul Reimer