Patrick Boyle was elected as the new president of the Moose Jaw Minor Hockey Association’s (MJMHA) board of directors at Monday night’s annual general meeting.

“My son is in Novice right now and maybe it’s just my nature to get involved and try to make things better, so I’m going to try to advance the sport in Moose Jaw and have more kids playing hockey and having a good time doing it,” said Boyle after Monday’s A.G.M.

Rhona Johnson resigned as board president midway through this past season and vice-president Cortney Lacelle served as acting-president for the rest of the season and the plan was for him to move into the role of president this year, but that changed at the A.G.M.

A motion was past to reword the MJMHA constitution so that the vote for president is held in even-numbered years, while the vice-president’s term will be up in odd-numbered years. Boyle edged out Lacelle and JD Craig in a vote for president.

Lacelle will remain on the board as vice-president.

Boyle said he was approached during the meeting to see if he’d be willing to put his name forward for president.

“Truthfully, I went to the bathroom and came back and my name was on the board,” he said.

“It’s exciting, I can’t wait to get to work and try to see what the current state is. I’m also planning to do some research here and go around to other associations across the province to see what’s working right for them and bring that back here.”

During the meeting, there was a discussion on what the association has been doing in regards to player development over the past few years. MJMHA had Warriors assistant coach Scott King working with their tier programs, Dave Beisal worked with goalies, Dustin Ernest provided development help with the house league teams and Kelsey Graham with the female divisions.

Boyle said that an increased focus on development is something that he will be looking at going forward.

“We need to look at the system as a whole for development,” said Boyle. “We want to develop some more players and kids that want to play at those higher levels, we need foster that and move that talent along, and kids that want to play in house league, we need to make sure that they have a good time doing it.

“We need to keep developing our systems, maybe look for some new partnerships to expand the game and move it along in the City of Moose Jaw to where it should be in compared to other centres.”

Registration numbers have remained steady over the past three years with 690 players hitting the ice this season in Moose Jaw. That was down seven players from the 2016-17 season.

The biggest issue remains the drop in numbers from Peewee to Bantam and Midget. There was 102 players registered in the Peewee Division this year, but that dropped down to 60 in the Bantam Division and just 37 in the Midget Division.

Boyle said that’s something that they need to continue working on.

“I coached minor football in Alberta for 8-9 years, we built a program from the humble beginnings of a bantam team moving into a peewee, bantam and midget program, so seeing how that developed and moved along, maybe there’s some things that I learned there that I can bring that’s a little different for Moose Jaw Minor Hockey,” he said.

“It’s a tough time for minor hockey associations because there’s a lot of other entities popping up and we want to keep them playing here and develop those players that one day they get to the Moose Jaw Warriors or are coaches or we get people that enjoy the game and live in the city of Moose Jaw and be involved because they came up through the system.”

In other news from the A.G.M, Moose Jaw Bantam Mavericks head coach Stephane Gauvin was presented with the Gerald Noble Memorial Coach of the Year award.