The Nanton Palominos are bringing NHL rough and tumble style hockey to High River.

The Senior A Men's team traditionally plays out of Nanton, but after being forced to take a year off from Covid among other government restrictions was unable to hold their spot in Nanton's Tom Hornecker Arena, and so are bringing the fun here.

Palominos GM, Kelly Otto says Nanton didn't adopt the REP program in time.

"The team has been around for over 75 years, but the league schedule was basically done when the Province introduced the REP program. Both Fort Macleod and Nanton decided they weren't going to support the REP program at that time, which means we lost our ice slots there and had to scramble to find a place to play which ended up being High River.

Nanton did eventually adopt the REP Program, but the league schedule had already been finalized and wasn't changeable.

The Palominos will play in High River for the season, and Otto says they're bringing high-ranked talent with them.

"So senior hockey ranges in guys from 20 to 35 or 40 years old, that used to play extremely high-level hockey, like we have ex-NHL players on some teams, many played Junior hockey or in the WHL." Otto says "This league just gives them that opportunity to continue to play competitive style hockey, while maintaining other jobs and families etc."

He says that doesn't stop the games from being hot, fast, and maybe even aggressive though.

"You'll find that a lot of the games get very heated, and in our case rivalry will be very strong."

High River's Colten Hayes, who used to coach the High River Flyers Junior B hockey team is now playing on the Innisfail Eagles team which is coached by Brian Sutter and boasts some other NHL talent.

That right there, maybe a point of contention, creating rivalry among the two teams says Otto.

"They have a bit of an older roster, their team consists of 30-35-year-old men mostly, who have played very high-level hockey, and when they play us this weekend and our team is young kind of hotheads, we might find that game will be really competitive and heated as well."

Currently, the Palominos are third in the Ranchland Senior Hockey League, with a 3-1-0 record.

They'll host the 3-0 Innisfail Eagles whose roster is heavy with College, Jr A, Major Junior, and ExPro's (91% of their roster) on Saturday, November 27 at the Bob Snodgrass arena in High River.

Puck drop is at 8:15 p.m.