10 WHL Things, Volume 10

By Glen Erickson

1 – Heaters – The hottest team in the Western Hockey League right now? Well, there are two of them and the safe guess would be the Everett Silvertips, the top team in the league. The Tips are 12-2 on the season, riding a six-game winning streak and have a 9-1 record in its last 10 games. But they aren’t the only smoking hot team right now. Check out the surprising Tri City Americans, also cruising along with six consecutive wins. Out of the gate, Tri City struggled to a 1-3-1 record until a doubleheader sweep of the Kamloops Blazers on home ice was followed up by an unlikely comeback win over the visiting Kelowna Rockets. An overtime win over the Portland Winterhawks completed a perfect four-game homestand before a couple of decisive, three-goal victories at Wenatchee and Spokane this past weekend. Curiously, the Americans have the second worst power play in the league at 15.9% efficiency, scoring seven times with the man advantage. The team’s other 37 goals have all come at even strength. The Amerks start a six-game homestand at the Toyota Centre in Kennewick tonight against the Edmonton Oil Kings, before heading east in mid-November for its road trip through Saskatchewan and Manitoba. Is Tri City for real? Over in the eastern conference, the Swift Current Broncos have won four straight.

2 – Coolers – What is happening in Portland? After a 5-1 start, the Winterhawks have dropped seven straight games. Sure, they picked up two points along the way from a pair of overtime losses, but why is this team headed in the wrong direction? Four of the losses have come on home ice. In the Eastern Conference, the defending league champion Moose Jaw Warriors are 0-6-1 in its last seven. The Warriors have three games remaining on its road trip through the B.C. Division. There really does seem to be a circle of life in major junior hockey. Remember when these teams met in the 2024 WHL Championship Series in May?

3 – From the Booth – Checked in with Lance Doll in Medicine Hat. Born and raised in The Hat, he rides shotgun with the Tigers new play-by-play voice, Will Bryant. Doll has been at it for four seasons, providing colour commentary at homes games on Wild 94.5. He’s excited for the current edition of the Tigers and for hockey fans in the Gas City. I asked him if he’s noticed more energy at Co-Op Place so far this season. “Yeh, there’s a different vibe in the building this season,” Doll said. “And I feel it outside the building, too. The build up for this season…and for next season. The team’s involvement in the community has been huge, too.” Game nights can make for a long day, as Doll and Jesse Christianson, host the Wild 94.5 radio morning show on weekdays from 5:30am – 10:00am. Christianson – God love him, rumour has it he’s a Roughriders fan – is also the Tigers Arena Host on gamedays. Lance and Jesse host the informative and entertaining weekly podcast, “Tigers Uncaged”. It’s worth a listen.

4 – Trivia – Former WHLers Scott Hannan, Shea Weber, Duncan Keith, Luke Schenn and Tyler Myers have quite a few things in common. Any thoughts?

5 – Gate Receipts – Was there any team in the Western Hockey League that benefited more from the presence of Connor Bedard than the Saskatoon Blades? Other than the Regina Pats, I think not. But stay tuned. It would be interesting to see the numbers, as unlikely as that would ever be, to truly analyze how financially beneficial Bedard’s time in the Queen City was for the business that is the Regina Pats. I don’t know what arrangements might exist relative to concessions revenue at the Brandt Centre, but consistently high ticket sales typically translate into just-as-high food and beverage sales. That should be a great deal for both the venue and the tenant. And how about merchandise sales? Must have been some pretty darn good numbers.

6 – Population Explosion – With Bedard in the lineup, the Pats were a great road draw, especially during the team’s B.C. Division road trip and then, during the second half of the 2022-2023 season when the wunderkind’s arrival in each market was preceded by the marketing suggestion that his visit would be the last time WHL fans could see him play in major junior. In Langley against the Vancouver Giants, the population in the building was 5,276. At Victoria (7,006), Kelowna (6,407), Kamloops (5,544), Prince George (6,027), and on their way back east, a tilt in Edmonton against the Oil Kings attracted 8,264 spectators. It’s unlikely these teams have seen numbers like this since – they’re just impossible to sustain. A four-games-in-six-nights road trip through Alberta in early February saw the Pats draw 36,066 fans; Red Deer (7,287), Calgary (17,223), Lethbridge (5,378) and Medicine Hat (6,178). Bedard dazzled the crowd in Calgary at the Saddledome with a highlight reel, breakaway tally, one we’ve all seen many times and Hitmen play-by-play voice Brad Curle was johnny on the spot with a terrific call.

7 – Go Blades Go – While Lethbridge (5,378) and Medicine Hat (6,405) were fortunate to see the Pats again that season, the numbers in Saskatoon were off the charts when the schedule makers had the Pats visiting the Blades on each of the final two weekends of the regular season. A total of 14,768 fans crammed into SaskTel Centre for each of those contests, but that was just the start! The Pats and Blades met in an epic first round playoff series that would eventually go the full seven games with Saskatoon eliminating Regina. The Blades hosted four of the games – in fact they lost the first two on home ice – and averaged 11,932 fans per game in the series. That’s well over 77,000 tickets sold over a couple of weeks. Those numbers are just astronomical by WHL standards.

8 – Special Visitors – Interesting chat with WHL alum, Dennis Beyak last weekend as he and his wife Bev, plunked themselves down at our dining room table for a couple hours of reminiscing, and a beverage or three. Beyak is probably best known for his work at TSN as the Winnipeg Jets television play-by-play voice, along with a number of annual international events, but his career in the WHL is quite extensive with stops in Saskatoon, Victoria, Seattle and Tri City. As the assistant general manager of the Saskatoon Blades back in the mid- to late-1980’s, he had a front row seat for some exciting major junior hockey and went on to leadership roles with host committees for the Memorial Cup tournaments in Saskatoon and Seattle. He’s watched a bunch of future NHLers do their thing in the WHL. I keep egging him on to write a tell-all book. Don’t hold your breath!

9 – Memory Lane – A quip from Beyak about how the heavily favoured Blades prepared for a regular season game against the division-rival Swift Current Broncos back in the late 1980’s during Joe Sakic’s final WHL campaign where he tallied 160 points. The Blades were perhaps the top team in the league, with a roster that included the likes of young Kelly Chase, Curtis Leschyshyn and Kevin Kaminski, tough customers but also valuable offensive producers as juniors. “The Broncos had a bunch of injuries,” Beyak remembered. “We were confident we’d catch them with a pretty lean lineup, we’re thinking, geez, they’re coming in here with maybe 15 guys. We thought we’d just run them out of the rink. Problem is, they double-shifted Sakic. He probably played about 50 minutes. I think they beat us 7-2, 7-3? I think Sakic had five or six points.” Imagine if Sakic had been around for the 1988-1989 WHL season? That’s when the Broncos blew through the WHL playoffs without a loss, then won the Memorial Cup. Sakic was selected 15^th overall at the 1987 NHL Draft and stuck with the Quebec Nordiques, playing 70 games as a 19-year-old rookie during the 1988-1989 NHL season.

10 – Scout’s Honour – Beyak is enjoying his retirement these days and has been able to devote some time as an associate director with the Western Canada Professional Hockey Scouts Foundation. It’s a noble and valuable initiative, born of conversations among the scouting fraternity to ensure recognition of so many scouts and their contributions to the game. Beyak was honoured – much to his surprise – at the WCPHSF gathering in Okotoks, Alberta this past summer. He received the Ace Award (named for the late Ace Bailey), presented annually to a member of the scouting fraternity or someone involved with the scouting community for contributions above and beyond what may have been expected. There’s a nifty write up on the Foundation’s website about how the award process unfurled prior to the gathering at Okotoks in July, and how his wife, Bev, was politely sworn to secrecy prior to the presentation. It’s well worth a read if you can make the time. Beyak was actually a 2024 co-recipient, sharing the prestigious honour with long-time WHL scribe and WCPHFC historian, Gregg Drinnan.

*RANDOMS – Found what looks like a boo-boo while scouring attendance numbers. I reported average attendance of 2,614 at Regina Pats home games through its first seven contests at the Brandt Centre – a total of 18,297 so far this season. Now it’s changed to an average of 2,287 through eight home games. Curiously, there was no attendance figure provided on the Oct. 25 scorer’s sheet, a tilt the Pats dropped on home ice to the Calgary Hitmen by a 3-1 count. That was the team’s eighth home game. … Kamloops had its four-game winning streak snapped in Langley by the Vancouver Giants Monday, but forward Nathan Behm had himself a week. He collected 10 points, four of those goals, and surely is destined for WHL Player of the Week honours. …One of the great lines from a hockey personality this past week, Martin St. Louis, head coach of the Montreal Canadiens: “Why would I listen to a critic when I would never go to them for advice?”… Hannan, Weber, Keith, Schenn and Myers are all defenceman, each has played over 1,000 regular season games in the NHL, and they are all Kelowna Rockets alumni. Schenn and Myers are still active, along with former Kelowna rearguards Tyson Barrie (811) and Damon Severson (721).

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