10 WHL Things By Glen Erickson, Volume XIII

1. Game Of The Week – It was pretty much everything Western Hockey League fans could want. The Medicine Hat Tigers waltzed into the Art Hauser Centre this past weekend and dealt the Prince Albert Raiders only their second regulation time loss of the season, 3-2. The game winner in a well-played, exciting contest scored with 1:27 to play, was an absolute fluke, as moldy a goal as I’ve seen for quite some time. But, they all count! Give the game highlights on the WHL website a peak, or better yet, dig it up on Victory+ and see how the entire sequence evolved. Yuck! The Raiders (17-2-4) invade Co-Op Place in Medicine Hat Wednesday night for a rematch with the Tigers (16-6-3-2). For my money, these are two of the top five teams in the WHL and that’s my current GOTW for now…Honourable mention this week? The Kamloops Blazers and Penticton Vees play a home-and-home doubleheader this weekend. The Blazers are on a run of late, 6-3-1 in its last ten games. The Vees are still collecting points but have stumbled a bit lately, 3-3-2-2 in its last ten outings. I wonder if things might get a little feisty!
2. “CheckFlex” – The new rink boards at the Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Portland are part of the recent renovation, said to be the first of their kind in the Canadian Hockey League. When I interviewed Josh Critzer of the ‘Hawks in late November, he spoke glowingly about the new technology. “From a visual standpoint it’s awesome, our players love it,” Critzer said. “As they get introduced, their name and their hometown and the numbers are kind of rotating around the boards. And we’ve got photographers on ice who are able to capture what we’ve got. A lot of teams have some of these LED boards, but they’re up around the area kind of separating the lower bowl and the upper bowl. Ours are right down by the ice, which is where everybody’s looking. They’re right in your eyesight and it almost kind of forces you to look there. Some of the photos and videos we get are just so powerful. Then you get the guys lining up for the national anthems and we’ve got the flags, the Canadian anthem, and then it flips over to the flag, to the American anthem.” There is a safety feature of sorts as well. The new boards are designed to flex and absorb impact, which is intended to be safer for players. “These boards are 100% static when the puck is in play, and it just looks like just a regular old board. And the best part is, from a hockey standpoint, the players have said they feel very much like regular boards.”
3. CHL USA Prospects Challenge – All in all, I thought it was pretty good hockey. Team CHL outshot Team USA in both games but couldn’t quite score the series clinching goal. USA goaltender Brady Knowling stole the show in the first game at Calgary, stopping 42 of 44 shots in a tilt where the CHL probably deserved a better fate. The next night in Lethbridge, a late goal by the CHL gave the hosts the win in game two and forced the unique, “super overtime”. It was a 20-minute period of 3-on-3 hockey that ended just shy of the six-minute mark when USA forward Victor Plante tallied the winner. “In overtime we could have won it early, we had great chances, but that’s the game,” said Team CHL Head Coach and Medicine Hat Tigers (WHL) General Manager and bench boss Willie Desjardins. “I’m thinking, last night and today, it’s going to come down to overtime, and anything can happen in overtime. You knew that because I felt we’d play hard, I was hoping we would get a win, but you still had to win overtime, and in overtime, it can go either way.”
4. Things I Liked – Team USA had the advantage of arriving in Alberta as much more of a cohesive team. I think it showed. The structure associated with the USNTDP creates this. For Team CHL, it’s basically an all-star team thrown together for a couple of practices and a light skate, then have at it…On what I will refer to as the “admin side”, the communication and information packaged for media by the key personnel at the CHL office was very well done, very professional. It was everything I needed, so I would be interested to hear from anyone with a differing opinion and solution…I’m glad the city of Lethbridge and the Hurricanes were involved. So many of these events seem to land in major centres with bigger venues.
5. Things I’m Not Sure About – I just don’t dig the format. In past years, the Top Prospects Game included CHL players set up across two teams, which meant we saw about 40 players from the league. With the new format, we only see half that. Casual hockey fans across Canada are unlikely to recognize much of what the Team USA roster offers. Personally, and I know I’m not alone, the new format doesn’t really resonate as a true international event rivalry. That will come in a few weeks at the 2026 WJC…Is it time to change the 3-on-3 overtime? I’m not advocating to get rid of it. Whether its major junior, the NHL or these glitter games, I would like to see a new rule implemented. Once a team advances the puck across the centre red line, it cannot deliberately carry or shoot the puck back across the red line into its own territory. If this occurs, the play is blown dead, no player changes are allowed, and the faceoff moves deep into the offending team’s zone. I just don’t enjoy the “keep away” part of the program and circling back the length of the ice so a team can change on the fly. I prefer the teams being required to attack, you know, in the “attacking zone’! I’m fine with the risks that involves. Obviously current coaches and players are not.
6. A DUB Aversion – During my days in Kelowna, a few of us used to chuckle about the Vancouver Canucks when we would drain a few bottles of Kokanee while talking hockey. Make no mistake, British Columbia is a Canucks province and there are rabid supporters in the Okanagan Valley. A couple of us would often ask these super fans why the Canucks seemed to have such an aversion to selecting players from the Western Hockey League at the NHL Draft. It made for spirited conversation and the majority of us sincerely believed there was not enough WHL presence. I was often on the side of chastising the Canucks, especially given the Vancouver Giants were so easily accessible over at the Pacific Coliseum, and now the Langley Events Centre. (No, the team’s selection of Sawyer Mynio and Braeden Cootes lately does not get them off the hook with me!) Every WHL team would roll through the lower mainland, yet come time for the NHL Draft, the Canucks penchant to look overseas instead of its own backyard frequently had me shaking my head. Of course, smarter hockey people than our band of merry men were making these decisions, but as a WHL fan, ignoring the constant traffic into the region had me constantly befuddled.
7. “The Steel City” – The Pittsburgh Penguins certainly haven’t demonstrated a WHL aversion at all of late. Ben Kindl (Calgary), Harrison Brunicke (Kamloops), Tanner Howe (Regina/Calgary) and Peyton Kettles (Swift Current/Kelowna) have all been drafted and signed to entry level contracts. Kale Dach (Calgary), who was drafted out of the AJHL, and Ryan Miller, captain of the current edition of the Portland Winterhawks, are recent Pens draft picks. Looking back to 2022, Owen Pickering (Swift Current) was Pittsburgh’s first round pick, the year where it only made four picks in total. In 2023, the Pens selected Brayden Yager (Moose Jaw), who has since been dealt to the Winnipeg Jets, with the14th overall pick. Time will tell how these DUB players might contribute to success in The Steel City.
8. “We Breed Lions” – It’s a book written by Rick Westhead that was in the works for awhile. It seemed inevitable given the profile associated with the trial in London, Ontario involving charges brought forward by a young lady and the Crown against five members of Hockey Canada’s gold medal winning team at the 2018 WJC. An old media wag I’ve stayed in touch with suggested to me the book “might stir the pot a bit”. Canadian sports journalist Stephen Brunt wrote the “Foreward” and his commentary on some remarks about Westhead attributed to former NHLer Kevin Lowe, added some early bite to the book. Released November 4, I took the time this past week to give it a listen, as I prefer audiobooks while traveling frequently between Medicine Hat and Saskatoon. Coincidentally, I rolled through Swift Current on my most recent trip, a city that has experienced a few incidents Westhead, who provides the narration, features early on in the book. At first blush, it comes across merely as a laundry list of sexual assaults associated with various levels of amateur and professional hockey over the years, but there are examples from football south of the border as well. Frankly, it’s all pretty tough to absorb and at times I simply had to turn it off to avoid having to pull my car off the road to puke. Some of the commentary is just so totally twisted. And I have to ask, do the buses these teams travel on have a cone of silence in the back? Geezuz! The ink isn’t completely dry on this weeks-old publication, so to speak. I do wonder about any potential fallout or reaction. No doubt, it’s not a book I’d recommend for the faint of heart.
9. Randoms – A tip of the cap to one of our readers who pointed out that goaltender Olaf Kolzig was born in South Africa. We had opined that Harrison Brunicke (Kamloops), who is toiling with the Pittsburgh Penguins, might be the first ever South African-born player in the NHL. Kolzig played for the Tri City Americans before moving on to play over 750 NHL games, mostly with the Washington Capitals. In 2005, he played an important role in preventing the Americans from being relocated out of the Tri City area as part of a then new ownership group that included some other former players…We mentioned the Prince Albert Raiders play in Medicine Hat Wednesday. It doesn’t get any easier though, as the Raiders will roll into Calgary and Red Deer before an early start Sunday in Edmonton. That’s a tough road trip, four games in five nights…The hottest teams in the league right now are the Oil Kings and Prince George Cougars. Both are 8-2 over its last ten games. At the other end of the spectrum, Swift Current (2-8) and Calgary (2-5-2-1) have had a bit of a tough time…The 2026 Memorial Cup host team, the Kelowna Rockets has shown some signs of life of late at 6-2-2 in its last ten games. The Rockets don’t have a player among the top 40 in the scoring race, but goaltender Harrison Boettiger (6-2-1 in 11 appearances) leads the DUB with a .926 save percentage.
10. Randoms, Part Deux – The Kamloops Blazers one-two punch of rookie J.P. Hurlburt and Chicago Blackhawks prospect, Nathan Behm, lead the scoring derby with 48 and 41 points respectively. The Blazers also have a good one in Tommy Lafreniere. The Edmonton Oilers prospect has 34 points, including 19 goals. He’s on a heater right now with points in 12 consecutive games…Portland’s Ryan Miller extended his point-scoring streak to 19 games…The top scorer among overage players is Kooper Gizowksi of the Prince George Cougars, with 12 goals and 23 assists…Among imports, Miroslav Holinka, in his second season with the Edmonton Oil Kings, has scored 14 goals and added 24 assists, good for third in league scoring…Three first-year import players are among the top ten in rookie scoring so far. Everett’s Matias Vanhanen from Finland (6-31; 37), Kelowna’s Tomas Poletin from Czechia (14-10; 24) and Prince George’s Dmitri Yakutsenak from Russia (10-12; 22)…Something for Seattle Thunderbirds fans to celebrate! Defenceman Brenden Dillon of the New Jersey Devils played his 1,000^th NHL game Monday. He has skated for five teams in the big leagues and upon review of his career numbers on both the WHL and NHL, it’s apparent that durability has long been his strong suit. Dillon played 297 games, regular season and playoffs combined, with the T-Birds over four seasons…I’m not a big soccer guy, but I will pay attention Friday to the 2026 World Cup draw. I’m curious to see who joins Canada in its pool for preliminary round games. Depending which countries are drawn, the provinces of Ontario and BC will be in for some serious tourism dollars, while Commonwealth Stadium, perhaps the best open-air soccer facility in Canada with capacity of about 60,000, sits empty in Edmonton.

(Glen Erickson is a hockey writer based in Medicine Hat, AB)