The Western Professional Hockey League was announced in 2021 as an upstart league looking to provide a new professional league to the western United States, along the lines of the ‘Single-A’ level that the Southern Professional Hockey League currently sits at in the southeast US.
Since that initial announcement, the league has only announced a single team as an inaugural member, announcing the Billings Blizzard as their first team in the league that will start play in 2022-23. The league has previously announced a team in Las Vegas, but that team would not be set up to play until the 2023-24 season at the earliest.
In a recent press conference from the Blizzard announcing their first head coach and revealing their logo, question marks were expressed as to whether the WPHL would be set to go for the 2022-23 season.
Blizzard owner Keith Russ was quoted as saying, “Regardless of the league, we intend to play. Even if we have to play as an independent (team) we intend to have professional hockey here regardless of whether the league fills enough teams or not. We still intend to play even as an independent if necessary.”
General Manager Stu Bertrand echoed the sentiment. “Hockey is coming back no matter what,” Bertrand said. “If we are part of the WPHL, wonderful. But if we have to play an independent schedule, hockey is going to happen in Billings. We’re going to make it work. It’s just a lot of the logistic stuff we’re trying to nail out.”
The last update from the league came in December of 2021, with their social media handles stating to expect further announcements in January 2022. As we look to roll into April however, there have only been re-shares of the Blizzard’s news so far.
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