Riley the Raider proudly waves the Raider flag during their WHL championship winning season last year. (Jeff D'Andrea/paNOW Staff)

By Jeff D'Andrea

Raiders raising banners

Raiders begin WHL championship defence on Sept. 20; three camp invites to Ivan Hlinka

Jun 26, 2019 | 2:35 PM

The Prince Albert Raiders will likely need more than a few minutes of presentation time before their season opener on Sept. 20, but nobody in Prince Albert will be complaining.

Before the Raiders kick off the 2019-20 season against the Saskatoon Blades at the Art Hauser Centre, the Raiders will hang four banners into their rafters — a banner marking the Scotty Munro Memorial Trophy victory for best regular season record, and championship banners for the WHL Finals, Eastern Conference and East Division.

“We’ll be raising four banners that night, and do it in front of our closest rivals, it just makes it even more special,” Raiders Business Manager Michael Scissons said. “For every P.A. Raider fan to know that Saskatoon has to sit on the bench and watch us raise those banners, it’s going to be special.”

“There’s nothing more special than to open up that opening game and raise some banners in front of the crowd that helped us along the way,” Scissons added. “We expect that opening crowd to be no different than what we saw down in the stretch in the playoffs — we expect it to be a packed house.

In fact, the Raiders-Blades rivalry will likely amp up in intensity even more than previous years, due to the divisional shakeup caused by the ICE franchise moving from Cranbrook, B.C., to Winnipeg, Man.

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With that, the Winnipeg ICE moved to the Raiders’ East Division and created three natural and easy to see rivalries within the division — Winnipeg/Brandon, Regina/Moose Jaw, and of course Prince Albert/Saskatoon. All three rivalries will play each other 10 times throughout the season, and play the rest of the teams in the division six times.

The Raiders will have a home-and-home series to start the year against the Blades on Sept. 20-21, a home game on Oct. 4, a road game on Dec. 15 to wrap up the first half of the season, a home-and-home Dec. 27-28 fresh after the holiday break, a home-and-home Feb. 28-29 and another two-game set to wrap up the season on March 20-21.

The Swift Current Broncos, with whom the Raiders tangled with up to eight times a season with in years past, will only play against the Raiders four times per year going forward. That change is due to the Broncos moving over to the Central Division as a result of the ICE’s relocation.

Canada Russia Series

The Art Hauser Centre will host the championship game of the 2019 CIBC Canada Russia Series on Nov. 14, marking the first time the Canada Russia Series has visited Prince Albert since 2008.

“We’re pretty excited to have a national event back in Prince Albert. We were fortunate enough to have a couple of our games on national TV during that Blades round two series, and this yet again another nationally televised game showcasing some amazing talent in our game. You’re looking at the best WHL players going head-to-head against some elite players from Russia coming here, which will be Game 6 of that series. We’ll be handing out the trophy that night on centre ice at the Art Hauser Centre. It’s going to be pretty awesome to sit there and see a tremendous group of athletes playing together. The future stars of the NHL playing here together at once, it’s going to be great.”

Heading West

The Raiders will embarking west earlier than usual this year. They’ll play their first game on U.S. soil on Oct. 19 against the Everett Silvertips, and will wrap up their U.S. swing on Oct. 26 against the Spokane Chiefs.

Other highlights

The Raiders will have a rematch of last year’s WHL final series, against the Vancouver Giants on Oct. 8 at the Art Hauser Centre.

The new-look Winnipeg ICE will play their first game in Prince Albert since their relocation on Sept. 28.

Out of the Raiders’ 34 home games, 25 of them will be on either Friday or Saturday. Friday will have the most games with 16, while Saturday will have nine games at the Hauser.

Three Raiders going to Hockey Canada camp

Hockey Canada announced three Prince Albert Raiders will be attending the 2019 National Men’s Summer Under-18 Selection Camp July 26-30 in Calgary.

Kaiden Guhle, Ozzy Wiesblatt and Jakob Brook are all on the list to represent Prince Albert. Last season, Guhle and Wiesblatt both played with Canada in the 2018 World Under-17 Hockey Challenge.

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Jeff.dandrea@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @jeff_paNOW