You can find the oddest things on the Internet in the midnight hour.
After I came back from Tuesday's dramatic 6-5 win for the Wilkie Brewers over the Border City Blue Jays in North Saskatchewan River Baseball League playoff action, I spent the next hour or so catching up on social media on everything I missed during the course of day.
Following a discussion with my younger brother about the rather intense World of Outlaws sprint car race that happened in Pennsylvania that night, which is obviously what most men in their 20s talk about on a nightly basis, my next stop was Rod Petersen's blog.
After seeing how the Rider Nation was reacting to the news that Darian Durant is more than likely not going to be in the lineup on Friday night when the Ottawa Redblacks head to Regina, I happened to notice a post from Regina Pats play-by-play man Phil Andrews.
In his round-up of Western Hockey League events, he mentioned that there was talk of a new rink being proposed in Lloydminster that is eyeing up a WHL team.
As someone who covered the league for the last couple of years in Moose Jaw, I immediately had questions.
First some background on the story, which was originally posted by Tyler Marr of the Lloydminster Meridian Booster on Friday.
Last week the Frog Lake First Nation chief and council announced their concept for an entertainment complex that would be located west of the city of Lloydminster in the County of Vermilion River, which is just off of Alta. Highway 16.
The complex, which is 140 acres, will include a 7,500-seat arena, a full-service hotel and convention centre, a casino, a fine-dining restaurant and a number of plots that can be used for other developments.
When it came to the arena, Project Manager Bruce Simms said the goal was to have the rink be home to a WHL team in the future.
“It will be home for a franchise, which we will have to purchase at some point, either ourselves or possibly with partners,” Simms told Marr.
Now, barring something completely unforeseen when it comes to having more than 22 teams in the WHL, a brand new expansion franchise won't be coming to The Border City anytime soon.
So if a team is going to relocate, which one will it be?
Well unless this bizarre rumour someone told me at the Memorial Cup about the Swift Current Broncos moving back to the Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League has any legs to it, and I highly doubt it does, then the only team that fits that bill is the Kootenay Ice.
The Ice, who have won three league titles and captured their only Memorial Cup in 2002, have had much documented attendance woes over the past couple of years and they missed the playoffs for the first time since moving to Cranbrook, B.C. this spring after a dreadful 12-win campaign.
The Chynoweth family, who own the Ice, have openly said they have wanted to sell the team since 2011 but there hasn't been any takers, yet.
A community like Lloydminster, which has a population of nearly 30,000, makes sense as a possible place to relocate a franchise to. However, there are a number of other locales that have also expressed interest.
Over in British Columbia, both Abbotsford and Chilliwack have WHL size rinks that are ready to go if need be, though the move of the Vancouver Giants to Langley presents some problems for Abbotsford as the rinks there are just 35 kilometres apart.
Wenatchee, Wash. is another location that has come up from time to time. They have a population of 32,000 and a 4,300-seat arena this is currently home to the Wenatchee Wild of the British Columbia Hockey League.
Then there's Winnipeg, which is a true wild card in all of this.
Yes, the Manitoba Moose are already there along with the Winnipeg Jets, but if the AHL affiliate ever moves to Thunder Bay, Ont. like it has been proposed in the past, you can bet the Jets ownership group will look to follow in the footsteps of the Calgary Flames and the Edmonton Oilers in bringing a major junior hockey team under their umbrella.
While there is competition from a number of other cities to get a WHL team, the biggest question mark for me is the size of the arena.
If it ends up having 7,500 seats as it is currently proposed, it would have a bigger capacity than 16 of the current rinks in the WHL.
The closest rink to it in size is the ENMAX Centirum in Red Deer, Alta., which was used to host this year's Memorial Cup.
While the rink was a near sell-out for the entire tournament, I was told that it wasn't the case for Rebels games earlier in the season and even during the playoffs, which included a seventh and deciding game in the quarter-finals with the Regina Pats.
There's the saying that if you build it they will come, but I'm not fully sure that would happen right away in Lloydminster with a rink as big as they are hoping to build.
Also, what would this mean to the Alberta Junior Hockey League's Lloydminster Bobcats?
Would they stick around in the AJHL? Would they return to the SJHL after leaving in 1988? Would they move to another city in Alberta where they would be the main attraction?
In reality though, we're still a long way from knowing if any of this will happen. This is still just a concept and a proposal for something new to the Lloydminster area.
Let's wait and see if everything gets approved first before we can fully start the guessing game.
