The defending champions of the Tiger Hills Hockey league can’t fill their roster and the Boissevain Border Kings have decided to take a one year leave of absence.

Over the past several year’s the team turned more and more to out of town players.

Jay Pringle is a Boissevain born player and played his minor hockey in Boissevain and is the team’s goalie.

“We asked for the leave because we were close to enough guys and went back after the league meeting to check with everyone who was on the fence about playing. A few guys all of sudden weren’t as committed and when you lose some key guys and a few guys with work and everything couldn’t make as many as they originally thought we decided we didn’t have enough to make it work for this year.”

Pringle says you need at least 18 guys to commit to make the season work. He admits the new import rules are what hurt the team’s ability to find enough players this season. “For sure it has hurt us and when a bunch of people haven’t played in a few years then you’re just trying to start from scratch trying to get those guys back and everyone was was really good about it. We got close but just couldn't do it in the end” said Jay Pringle.

A number of players off of last year’s Border King roster are lacing it up with other teams such as Deloraine, Wawanesa, Hartney and Killarney.

Jay Pringle says he’ll continue to work at getting a team together for next season.

“We had 16 committed to playing at some portion of the year and 10 to 12 players said they could make every game. When you’re trying to play with 10 or 12 guys starting in October it doesn’t work because it never ends at that in January.