By Jim den Hollander

Editor/Publisher – Saukhockey.info

Saukhockey.info has been a sort of experiment for the past several years – something I dabbled in while pushing an official launch further and further into the future.

Some renewed interest in the early months of this year helped me realize this website/facebook page could become everything I hoped with a little effort. The events of the past few months have made me question whether the timing is right to head into the next phase and turn this site into the source for all information for hockey in Sauk County.

It is my love of the greatest game on earth and a desire to spread information on it that keeps bringing me back to this site and another – Midwesthockey.info. I found that my scope was too wide for Midwesthockey.info and I was more often than not overwhelmed with the challenge of posting original items from pro and junior leagues across the Midwest.

Saukhockey.info seemed like a more attainable goal and it still does, but that doesn’t mean it’s not overwhelming in the heart of the season.

With the separation of teams from the South Central Cyclones (story coming on that real soon), there are now even more teams to be on the watch for starting this fall. Sauk Hockey includes the Dells Ducks junior team – one of about 60 that will compete in the USPHL Premier league starting in September; four varsity hockey teams, and now three youth hockey organizations with competitive teams at the Squirt, Peewee and Bantam levels along with some 10U 12U and 14U girls teams, all vying to be a part of their respective State Championship tournaments in March 2021.

On top of that are the Mite level teams which play at different levels of competition depending on age and ability; local tournaments and local players such as Kaylee Engel (Northland College) and Juliana Teske (Augsburg) from Reedsburg, Sebastian Frank (Gustavus Adolphus) who attended Wisconsin Dells High School and Jordan O’Connor (UW-River Falls) who backstopped the Sauk Prairie Eagles as they begin the College careers along with others already on college teams.

Originally, and currently, the plan was to hit up local businesses for business card advertising sponsorships. I was thinking of pushing that for one more year just because of the issues everyone is enduring currently, but my colleagues have said I should continue on this course and it seems the best plan.

I have decided to make June 1 2020 a sort of soft launch date. I will update at least once a day with something after that. It’s a terrible time to hit up local businesses for sponsorship, but I will be sending out a to many local businesses over the next few months as I look to get this off the ground with business card advertising and sponsorship available on some regular vlog type regular shows I am planning as well.