The Carillon Senior Hockey League's 16th season will begin with a pair of games Saturday night.

The defending champion Ste. Anne Aces meet the Blues in Lac du Bonnet and the La Broquerie Habs take on the Red River Wild in St. Jean.

"It's very exciting," said new CSHL president Stacey Neufeld. "It should be a very competitive league this year. With Steinbach and La Broquerie finally putting their differences aside and combining together, I think it will be good. Playing out of La Broquerie, they're going to get really good support there. That community has been missing the senior aspect of it and it's good to have another team in the mix."

The Aces, Blues, Wild and Grunthal Red Wings returned for the 2018-2019 season but the St. Malo Warriors have taken a one-year leave of abscence.

"It's a tough loss," Neufeld said. "They're always a very competitive team as well. If you just don't have the numbers it's better to cut your losses and say you can't do it rather than showing up with nine skaters or just your bare minumum and having a rough go every game. That's how more injuries happen."

Neufeld has replaced Ray Laing as CSHL president.

The former Steinbach Huskies forward saw his playing days come to an end three years ago.

"I like to stay involved in the game and I figured this would be a great way to do it," said Neufeld. "I did play against a lot of these guys and played with some of them. I said at my first meeting, 'Just because I played with these teams doesn't mean I'm going to favour them or show hatred towards teams I played against.' If they all of a sudden think I made a bad call or they don't agree with it - gladly call me out on it and we can discuss it. I wanted to make it very clear there will be no favouritism towards any team in the league."