Mark your calendars, Blazers fans.

The Kamloops Blazers will play their 2021-22 home opener at Sandman Centre on Friday, October 9, against the Prince George Cougars – a team they faced six times during the abbreviated 2020-21 season.

The Blazers beat the Cougars in five of those games.

With the anticipated lifting of health restrictions, it is expected the 2021-22 WHL regular season will see the return of fans in the stands, in some capacity.

“I’ll be there, you bet,” Mayor Ken Christian told NL Sports. “I’m looking forward to seeing the new crop of kids and things getting back to normal at the Sandman Centre and across the WHL.”

The 2021-22 WHL regular season will see a full slate of 68 games between Friday, October 1 and Sunday, April 3, 2022, though there won’t be any inter-conference games.

“Without fans… it’s felt like a really long time. I know that we are really excited and I know our fans are really excited to be back and for the new season to begin,” Blazers President and COO Don Moores said.

The entire regular season schedule will be released on Wednesday, June 23. The preseason schedule will be announced this coming Monday, June 21. Playoffs meanwhile are scheduled to get underway on Friday, April 8, 2022 using the Conference Playoff format last used in 2014.

“In the next week and half, [we’ll be reaching out] and all of our season ticket holders will have the first right to decide if they want to continue with us. They’ve been so loyal to us,” Moores added. “We know there will be questions and we plan to have answers as soon as we can.”

Information for new season ticket holders and other ticket packages will be released later in the summer.

Puck drop for the Blazers home opener is 7 p.m. As always, you can catch all Blazers games on Radio NL.

Save the date! ⏰
October 9th! 📅
🏆🏆 pic.twitter.com/uj6L67XtBN

— Kamloops Blazers (@blazerhockey) June 16, 2021