The Golden Horseshoe Conference of the Greater Ontario Junior Hockey League is no more. The league announced this morning that it is realigning its conferences, to now include two larger conferences as opposed to three like in previous years.
All of the teams from the former Golden Horse Conference, including the Caledonia Corvairs, Fort Erie Meteors, Hamilton Kilty B’s, Pelham Panthers, Port Colborne Sailors, St. Catharines Falcons and Welland Junior Canadians, will remain in the same conference, however they’ll have some company.
The Ayr Centennials, Brantford Titans, Caledon Bombers and Cambridge Redhawks have all been added to the conference, to bring the number of teams to 11 teams. The GOJHL’s other conference, consisting of teams from Southwestern Ontario, like the Strathroy Rockets, St. Thomas Stars, and Komoka Kings will have 12 teams, as hockey clubs from Stratford, Elmira and Kitchener-Waterloo come over.
GOJHL Interim Commissioner Tim Simmons says this will make the regular season more important, and eliminate the three-team Sutherland Cup Round Robin, which over the last three seasons has included winners from all three conferences.
Now, the top eight teams in each conference will qualify for the playoffs. Teams will still play 50 games in the regular season.
The names of the two newly-formed conferences will be released in the coming weeks. The full list of teams in each conference can be found below.
