The BC Hockey League, along with the Penticton Vees, have announced changes to the 2021/22 schedule involving games against the Vernon Vipers and Wenatchee Wild.

 

With the land border closed for Canadians traveling south to the U.S., the league has introduced a plan that will see visiting teams fly into Washington State and return back across the land border.

 

Players and staff traveling across the border will follow all COVID-19 guidelines, including providing a negative test before crossing into the U.S. and before returning to Canada.

 

The Vees were slated to be in Wenatchee on Friday, October 9th, Friday, December 10th and Wednesday, January 5th. The October 9th game was moved to the South Okanagan Events Centre, seeing the Vees play back-to-back games at home in the opening weekend of the season.

 

The games in Wenatchee for Penticton will take place from Thursday, January 27th to Saturday, January 29th. Thursday and Saturday’s start times are for 6:00 PM while Friday, January 28th will have a face-off at 7:05 PM at the Town Toyota Center.

 

Penticton was originally slated for a home-and-home set of games against the Vernon Vipers in the last weekend of January. The Vees will now host the Vipers on Wednesday, February 9th at the SOEC for a 6:30 PM face-off while Penticton will go to Vernon on Sunday, February 27th for a Sunday evening affair at Kal Tire Place with a 5:00 PM face-off.

 

For a look at the newly updated schedule, please click HERE.

 

Alberni Valley, Cowichan Valley, Nanaimo and Surrey were originally scheduled to play one-off away games in Wenatchee and will now make those games up amongst each other. Those four home games will not be made up for the Wild, which means they will play 50 games this year instead of 54.

 

Due to the unbalanced schedule caused by these changes, the BCHL regular-season standings will be determined by point percentage rather than total points.