The Commissioner of the Superior International Junior Hockey League feels things will truly return to normal following the announcement earlier this week that will see requirements for Covid testing and mandatory use of the ArriveCAN app drop at land border crossings effective Saturday.

Darrin Nicholas says its full steam ahead for the league.

“We may be done with some of the restrictions that we had to deal with previously that has really hampered our operations for sure, so based on what we’ve gone through the requirement to dump some data into an app before hitting the border was kind of the tip of the iceberg for us.”

The requirement to show proof of vaccination will also be dropped, which will expand the league’s options due to the disparity of vaccination rates between the Canadian teams versus their American counterparts.

“I know for a fact it certainly hampered our recruiting efforts for the Wisconsin team” said Nicholas in an interview Tuesday, “with such relatively low vaccination rates amongst the American population and some options on where to play for these athletes that didn’t require them to be vaccinated.”

The SIJHL consists of seven teams spread throughout Northwestern Ontario and Wisconsin. The league’s 2022-2023 season got under way this past weekend.