The Great WHL Adventure #3: Prince Albert Raiders

The third stop in my quest to see every WHL team play in their home arena takes me to the Gateway of the North where I stumble across the coolest one-day rebrand I've ever seen.

Junior hockey was made for the small town. No one else embraces a sports team like a tightly-knit community with nothing better to do, creating an incredibly passionate fan base that will support their team through hell or high water. It’s one of the reasons I wanted to see every WHL team in their home arena; not only would I be able to see some less well-known towns across the prairies, but I could also experience the intensity that only a small town can bring.

Yet, when I started to look into each location I’d be travelling to, I was surprised to find that, according to Stats Canada, only one of the 22 teams was actually located in a small population center, the Swift Current Broncos. Most of the rest of the league were in cities of 50,000 people or more, with over half the league in centers with a population of at least 100,000 and three more had over 90,000. That very much opposes the perception of the WHL as a rebellious, gritty prairie league. Even a city like Saskatoon doesn’t fit that description, despite being in the middle of Canada’s most rural province.

The Great WHL Adventure: Starting Out in Saskatoon

That brings me to Prince Albert. Although it’s the third-most populous city in Saskatchewan, it was listed at just under 38,000 people in 2021, making it the fourth-smallest location in the WHL. It also is very much out of the way of…everything. Sitting at 140 kilometres and an hour and a half north of Saskatoon, it’s considered the Gateway of the North since there isn’t much beyond it other than forests and lakes. It’s one reason I had never travelled up there during my time living in Saskatchewan, but when Chad, who accompanied me to my first game in this adventure, offered to join me on a road trip north, I finally had the excuse I needed to check out one of the true small towns left in the league.