As is customary each year, the BC Hockey League’s 18 teams aren’t allowed to make trades with any of the 117 teams in the Canadian Junior Hockey League between Dec. 10 and New Year’s Day. It’s simply because the national association of junior A leagues has an annual trade freeze between those dates.
However, it doesn’t prevent BCHL teams from making trades with each other, as iss evidenced by the Dec. 17 deal that saw defenseman Declan Ride go from Victoria to Cranbrook for forward Noah Leibl and future considerations.
One of the big questions that arose after the BCHL withdrew from the CJHL earlier this year was how the separation would affect transactions between BC’s junior A league and others across the country. The truth is, it hasn’t affected the transaction wire to and from Canada’s western-most province at all.
Just before the trade freeze came into effect on Dec. 10, the Nanaimo Clippers swung a pair of deals with teams outside the province. In fact, Clips general manager and head coach Darren Naylor also made a trade with an Ontario Junior Hockey League club the day before the freeze.
Those deals saw Nanaimo bring in 2003-born goaltender Brett Mirwald from Humboldt of the Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League, 2002-born forward Ben Kotylak from Calgary of the Alberta Junior Hockey League, and 2002-born forward Mateo Dixon from Toronto of the OJHL.
Since transactions for the 2021-22 season started on June 1, BCHL clubs have made a total of 130 trades, with 78 of them involving teams in the CJHL.
| Leagues in the CJHL | # of trades involving BCHL teams (since June 1) |
| Alberta Junior Hockey League | 25 |
| Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League | 16 |
| Central Canada Hockey League | 14 |
| Manitoba Junior Hockey League | 13 |
| Ontario Junior Hockey League | 7 |
| Maritime Junior Hockey League | 3 |
| Northern Ontario Junior Hockey League | 0 |
| Quebec Junior Hockey League | 0 |
| Superior International Junior Hockey League | 0 |
The last normal season before the pandemic with specific roster deadlines was 2019-20. That season saw a total of a dozen trades consummated between BCHL teams and those outside of BC from the lifting of the CJHL trade freeze on Jan. 1 through to the trade deadline of Jan. 10.
With the 2021-22 season approaching the halfway mark and all but one BCHL team in the playoff hunt, trade activity leading up to the deadline should pick up as teams fine-tune their rosters in anticipation of the awarding of the Fred Page Cup for the first time in three years.
