Minor hockey schedule-makers in Saskatchewan are burning the midnight oil in the coming days to look at a start to the season, but things are just a little bit more complicated for the Prairie Hockey Academy in Caronport.

Normally they'd be playing in the Canadian Sport School Hockey League (CSSHL), but with the Saskatchewan Hockey Association isn't allowing out of province travel.

“I think when families make the decision to attend a hockey academy, we do that with the idea and the goal of development in mind,” said P.H.A. president Justin Simpkins. “The hurting side for us is that our development has been really going since week one of school, and we’re still having the opportunity to train and practice every day. Normally, with the CSSHL we play on weekends also so it’s not really out of the norm for us, but unfortunately, we don’t get to travel and play against some of the other student-athletes from across Canada.”

The U16 and U17 teams will be playing in the Saskatchewan U18 AA hockey league.

From the P.H.A’s Standpoint, Simpkins said they're happy to get the competition in the league at this point.

“We’ll see our young men the opportunity to get busy every single weekend to play games, and have a dozen games under their belts at Christmas break,” Simpkins said. “I guess we’ll take it a month at a time at that point in time, and see if things open up further in the new year or if we shuffle things up and enter into another six-team mini-league at that point.”

The other teams in the P.H.A.'s division are the Notre Dame U16 and U17 teams, the Swift Current U18 AA Broncos and the Regina U18 AA Capitals.

It is a chance for the two PHA teams to play each other a couple of times in a regular season, which would be an extremely rare occurrence at any other time.

“I think a big thing we talk about a lot at the academy is this idea of learning how to compete and not compare with each other,” Simpkins said. “When you learn to compete, the purpose of competing is learning to strive together and help each other out in our development. I’m not going to say there won’t be some big body checks and some friendly banter, but at the end of the day, I think it’ll be a unique opportunity to see us actually push each other to get better.”

The Moose Jaw U18 AA Warriors will be in a division with Estevan, Weyburn, Lumsden, and the Notre Dame Argos and Hounds.

The U15 AA Warriors, meanwhile, will be in their own pool that includes Swift Current, Notre Dame Hounds and the U15 prep team, as well as the Regina Aces and the Pat Blues.

Although no dates have been announced yet for the P.H.A. or the Warriors teams, exhibition games for these leagues can start as early as this Saturday and the regular season may begin Nov. 1.