Port aux Basques hockey players disappointed over town not being included in new senior league

Ryley Nadon, left, and his brother Drew have played hockey for the Port aux Basques Mariners since 2017. The team was left out of the new Central-West Senior Hockey League and currently isn't playing. (Alex Kennedy/CBC)

The senior hockey season in western Newfoundland began two weeks ago, but one community has been left a healthy scratch.

The Port aux Basques Mariners, a member of the West Coast Senior Hockey League since 2017, were the only team not to make the move to the Central-West Senior Hockey League this season alongside teams in Corner Brook, Deer Lake, Stephenville and Grand Falls-Windsor.

Ryley Nadon, the team's starting goaltender, said that came as a disappointing surprise.

"I spent most of my year and last year thinking if I was going to play again this year, because I'm a little older and have a three-year-old at home now. But once we got closer, the excitement started to build, and I think you could feel the buzz around Port aux Basques," he told CBC News on Friday.

"To have that kind of taken away is always a little bit tough."

An October news release from the team cited "unforeseen circumstances" that kept them from putting a team on the ice. Nadon's brother, Drew — the former captain of the Mariners — believes the travel distance between Port aux Basques and central Newfoundland could have played a factor in the team not being brought into the CWSHL.

Both brothers said they feel for the community, which accepted them after they moved from Ontario to Corner Brook as teachers and tried out for the Mariners in 2017.

"It's nothing like anywhere I've ever played before," Ryley said. "You get to the arena two hours early, and people are already at the game…. It becomes a part of their weekend plans, right? Watching the Mariners play."

Four of the five teams in central and western Newfoundland are now part of the Central-West Senior Hockey League, leaving the Mariners on their own. (CBC Graphics)

"The way I describe Port aux Basques to all the younger guys on the team is [that] it's a special feeling, but also never take it for granted," added Drew. "It's not the NHL, but to those kids and a lot of the fans that are there, to them that's everything."

Drew Nadon said he was sad and frustrated at times by how the Mariners were left out of the league, saying it felt like a pillar of hockey in western Newfoundland had been tossed to the side.

Both he and his brother received calls to play with other teams this season, but both have declined because they said it wouldn't feel the same as playing in Port aux Basques.

They both hope the town's hiatus from senior hockey is temporary.

"One of the misconceptions is that, you know, people in Port aux Basques are bitter toward this league, but that's not the case," Drew said. "I think it would be nice to be part of it for the Port aux Basques community."

Download our free CBC News app to sign up for push alerts for CBC Newfoundland and Labrador. Click here to visit our landing page.