Some of the best Indigenous hockey teams from across Saskatchewan and Manitoba will be on display at the 2025 Senator’s Cup in Prince Albert this weekend.
The Senator’s Cup is hosted by the Prince Albert Grand Council (PAGC) and will run through Saturday and Sunday at the Art Hauser Centre and Lake Country Co-op Recreation Centre.
2025 will mark the first year that Senator’s Cup games are played at the brand new recreation centre, which opened earlier this spring.
Organizer Robynn Dorion says the new facility is a game changer for the tournament to allow more teams to participate.
“Having a second facility for this huge tournament, we get a lot of downtime and recoup for the next day and make it even more successful. It adds success and it adds more teams. There’s more space for everyone, more parking space. It will definitely draw more attention to Prince Albert and it’s good for the businesses. It’s good for the people that live in Prince Albert because we’re bringing in a good amount of spectators, players and people.”
Games will begin as early as 8 a.m. on Saturday with the final set for 7 p.m. on Sunday evening at the Art Hauser Centre.
Throughout the tournament, teams will play two 25 minute run time periods with the last three minutes of the second period being stop time if the score is within a three goal differential.
The format of the tournament will be a double knockout with a team needing to lose twice to be eliminated. In the final, the B-side winner will only have to defeat the A side winner once in order to win the tournament.
Dorion says PAGC is hoping the tournament will support a welcoming environment for hockey fans from all over.
“When you come here, you will be greeted by kind people. We try to put the kindest people at admission, at the box. We just want everybody to have a good time here. You’ll feel safe in the facilities and in the tournament itself. We have high security and we have good smiling people all throughout the weekend. We have 17 teams this year, so it varies from year to year of how many teams we have. You’ll see a lot of our sponsors, you’ll see a lot of vendor tables. People are willing just to help one another here. We’ve had a great past few years, and it’s just getting better every year.”
Two teams have made their way from out of province to attend the Senator’s Cup from Manitoba.
“From all of PAGC, we’d like to thank Norway House Bruins and Peguis Mean Machine for joining us at our tournament along with our neighboring First Nations and for our PAGC First Nation communities coming to try and battle out the championship for this year.”
sports@paherald.sk.ca
