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A lawyer representing some Indigenous hockey teams in Manitoba is arguing in court that all the “white teams” got together and formed a new Junior B league which excludes First Nations.

All of the teams were part of the Keystone Junior Hockey League until May when five teams left to create the Capital Region League.

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“White teams quietly got together and removed themselves leaving behind the First Nations teams,” lawyer Jamie Kagan told court Wednesday.

The First Nations teams complained, and a Hockey Manitoba tribunal ruled that former KJHL players would need a release to play in the new league and pay a $500 fee. The decision was to protect the KJHL from a mass exodus of players, which Kagan argued would spell the end of the league.

But that didn’t happen before the new league hit the ice in October.

Peguis First Nation, Norway House Cree Nation, Opaskwayak Cree Nation, Fisher River Cree Nation and Cross Lake First Nation filed a statement of claim in October against Hockey Manitoba, the Manitoba Amateur Hockey Association, the new league and the five teams in it.