Kingston Kings will open their Ontario Junior C Lacrosse League season as scheduled Sunday afternoon.

They just won't have the opponent they expected to be playing.

The league received notice Sunday night that the Kahnawake Hunters, the Kings' scheduled opening-day foe, were seeking permission to suspend operation of their junior C team for the 2012 season.

Instead, the Kings will host the defending East division champion Cornwall Celtics Sunday afternoon at Centre 70. Game time is 3 o'clock.

After failing to show up for games in Gloucester and Kingston in 2011, Kahnawake paid fines totalling $2,000 and the Kahnawake association in Jaunuary assured the junior C council that it would be able to put a team on the floor for 2012. Though the Hunters withdrew from the Kingston Shootout tournament in March, they subsequently assured commissioner Charlie Simpson that personnel problems had been overcome.

In a memo to Simpson Sunday night, the Hunters indicated that help promised to the junior C team from within the Kahnawake organization did not materialize.

"The Kings executive has had serious doubts about Kahnawake's ability to field a team since they failed to show up for a game here in Kingston last July," said Kings general manager Hal Cowie. "This comes as no surprise. In some ways our division just became much tighter, as Kahnawake was expected to be a weak team."

The surviving four East division clubs rewrote their schedule so that all teams retained the same home dates. The teams will still play a 16-game regular season.

The Kings defeated Kahnawake 6-5 in their regular-season opener last year en route to a 9-6-1 record.

Cornwall finished the 2011 regular schedule with 15 straight victories and they were undefeated in six playoff games as they won the division title. The Celtics then lost all three games at the provincial championship tournament.

Kingston did not fare well against the Celtics, losing all six meetings, including three in the division final series.

Kingston had three losses and a tie at the Shootout tournament on the weekend. The Kings have subsequently trimmed the roster to 27 players.

The Kings will have their final pre-season practice tonight (Wednesday) at Centre 70, from 8 to 10 p.m.