When the puck drops in Carlyle and Oxbow tonight, the Big Six Hockey League will resume play for the season, bringing exciting senior hockey to southeast Saskatchewan.

This year, the league is welcoming a new team to the fold, the Kipling/Windthorst Oil Kings, making it ten teams in the league. To balance out the schedule, there will be no divisions, and each team will play the other teams in the league twice, for a total of 18 games.

There are two games on the schedule tonight, as the Midale Mustangs head to Carlyle to start the season against the Cougars. The Cougars are hoping to improve from last year when they picked up just three wins on the season. Midale, meanwhile, wrapped up the 2017-18 campaign with a .500 record.

The other game to start the season has the Yellow Grass Wheat Kings opening their third season in the league by travelling to Oxbow to face the Huskies. The Wheat Kings are looking to recapture some of the sparks from their inaugural season when they played in the league championships when the action starts. They are aiming to build off last season’s 15-7-2 regular season finish. For the Huskies, they finished the year with a record of 10-14-0 but had some potential with a high powered offence they will be looking towards to kick-start this season.

The season continues Saturday as the Oil Kings travel to Carnduff to open their season against the Red Devils. Carnduff finished the regular season last year with a record of 19-4-1, but came up just short of the league title, losing out in the finals to Redvers.

Yellow Grass heads to Beinfait Saturday to take on the Coalers, while Midale is in Arcola to take on the Combines. Arcola/Kisbey has nowhere to go but up this season, and they are optimistic they will have no problem improving on last season.

The league champion Redvers Rockets will have to wait until November 9th for their home opener. They will be playing host to Carlyle.