10 WHL Things, Volume XXVII

By Glen Erickson

Greetings to all Sesame Street aficionados! This week’s contribution is brought to you by the letter “P”. Post-season? Penticton? Points? Politics? Pshaw!! Proceed with caution!

1 – Post Season Implications – One of the terrific matchups on the Western Hockey League schedule this week features the Prince George Cougars battling the Victoria Royals. In fact, it’s a doubleheader on Vancouver Island as the Cougars invade the Save On Foods Memorial Centre. The outcomes will certainly impact the B.C. Division standings. Prior to the dandy divisional double dip this weekend, both teams had the league-leading Everett Silvertips on their dance cards. The Cougars managed a split with Everett on home ice at the CN Centre, dropping the first contest and winning the second game. The Royals dropped their holiday Monday tilt at home to the ‘Tips, 3-2. Victoria (32-15-3-6) has a five-point lead on Prince George (31-17-4-2), but the Cougars have two games in hand. Looking forward a few weeks, if neither B.C. Division rival can separate from the other, the WHL schedule makers will look like geniuses. The Cougars and Royals are slated to meet for another doubleheader on the final weekend of the regular season up in Prince George. Will those games be meaningful? Or perhaps, meaningless?

2 – B.C. Division Schedule – A closer look at Victoria’s remaining schedule confirms a rather tough task. Victoria has eight games remaining against upper echelon western conference opponents, including doubleheaders at home against Prince George, Spokane and Portland, and the aforementioned double dip in Prince George. The finale in northern B.C. winds up a season-ending run of five straight games on the road for the Royals. Through March 14, Victoria will play seven straight games on home ice before hitting the road. Of its final 12 games, the Cougars will play three at home, then five straight on the road before enjoying home cookin’ for its final four games. It really does look like a two-horse race in the B.C. Division, but the pesky Vancouver Giants are only four points back of the Cougars.

3 – A Tipping Point – How about those Silvertips? Their 11-point lead atop the WHL standings has shrunk to seven points and there is no sign the banged-up Medicine Hat Tigers are slowing down. Everett has been hammered by the injury bug too, for much of 2025 and while nobody ever points to injuries as an excuse, which is kind of silly IMO, they darn well impact a team’s ability to consistently play at its highest level. Medicine Hat is 7-1-1-1 in its last 10 games, while Everett has gone 6-4. This past weekend, the Tigers (239 goals for) overtook the Silvertips (237 goals for) as the highest scoring team in the WHL. Everett has played one less game.

4 – East Bound and Down – The race in the East Division continues to heat up. The Prince Albert Raiders (31-18-3-1) have been the division’s best team in 2025 and scurried up the standings to lead with 66 points in the hunt to secure the number two conference seeding for the post-season. But the Brandon Wheat Kings (29-16-4-3) are on a 7-0-1-1 run of late, good for 65 points with a game in hand on the Raiders. Prince Albert, which hammered the Moose Jaw Warriors 8-2 Monday afternoon, travels to Brandon for a Tuesday night affair, the lone game on the WHL docket. The Saskatoon Blades (28-18-3-4) are not out of the mix yet with 63 points, but they’ve tailed off since their trade deadline fire sale. It would appear unlikely the Swift Current Broncos (28-23-1-1) will threaten for the division title, but they will make the playoffs. Brandon’s next seven games are against Central Division opponents, the first three at home before four on the road. Methinks this stretch of games will tell the tale for the Wheaties’ East Division title aspirations. However, Brandon winds up the regular season with six games against East Division teams which at this point are all behind them in the standings.

5 – Penticton, Part 1 – The intriguing news percolating among junior hockey followers concerns potential WHL expansion, the addition of the Penticton Vees. If, and when, the time comes, the league will address things and either way, it will be a helluva good hockey business story. The Vees have been a tier two (Junior “A”?) powerhouse organization for many years, and I think the South Okanagan Events Centre would instantly become a favourite among visiting teams…and media! I covered a pair of Vancouver Canucks Young Stars Tournaments at the SOEC and it is absolutely a top-notch facility. I feel like I’m in a pretty good position on all of this. I don’t have any “inside” information, which leads me to reflect on a great piece of advice I was given many years ago. That is, “If you don’t know, you don’t have to lie”. When the WHL is good and ready to make an announcement, it will do so.

6 – Penticton, Part 2 – Certainly, I have questions. Territorial fees payable to the Kelowna Rockets because the cities are within 100 kilometres of each other and any expansion fees might never be entirely divulged, but the numbers would be eye-popping. If every existing franchise cashed a big cheque, it could make up in part for some of the devastating losses on the business-side incurred during the covid-19 pandemic overreaction. So, who are the money men in all of this? How about the mechanics of roster construction…the BCHL and WHL approach this differently. Would there be an expansion draft? Would the league allow Penticton to participate in the WHL Draft? Would the Vees get a first-year perk to include more than three overage players, much like the league granted the Everett Silvertips in its first WHL season? Adding a 23^rd team gets us closer to what I believe is the magic number…24! Then, I’d love to see a true balanced WHL schedule, one that enables every fan base to see every team at least once each season. Boy, so much to mull over! How long before the WHL provides all the answers?

7 – Penticton, Part 3 – Another piece of the puzzle that might materialize could be the return of Fraser Rodgers to the WHL. I hope so. He’s currently the Vees’ Vice President of Business Operations and Director of Broadcast & Communications. WHL followers will remember Rodgers, who spent five seasons in Prince George as the Cougars play-by-play voice, in addition to a number of other public relations responsibilities. Rodgers arrived in B.C.’s Northern Capital from Penticton after a run with the Vees from 2011 to 2017. He landed back in Penticton, a homecoming of sorts, prior to the 2022-2023 season.

8 – Penticton, Part 4 – I enjoyed an interesting piece of audio on the weekend. It was a discussion between Regan Bartel and Jon Keen, a couple of good Saskatchewan lads who have found homes in British Columbia and ply their trade in the Okanagan Valley. Bartel has called WHL games for about 30 years, the majority for the Kelowna Rockets. Keen, in Kamloops, might be four or five years behind Bartel and contributes to a few different WHL news sources. They call games for the two WHL teams most closely located to the city of Penticton, so this eventuality would be very impactful in their neck of the woods. Bartel headlined it all, “we aren’t putting the cart before the horse, but we have to discuss the issue”. What I did found compelling was the notion that if the Vees become a WHL team, they might arrive under new ownership. Now, I haven’t seen anything in the public domain that suggests the Vees have even been for sale. But, maybe? You should be able to dig up the audio at RocketFan.ca.

9 – Scoring Race – As predicted in this space last week, Andrew Cristall of the Spokane Chiefs took care of business and surpassed the 100-point mark. Cristall has scored 39 goals and 64 assists in 44 games, good for a whopping 2.34 points per game. Since arriving in Spokane at the trade deadline, the Washington Capitals prospect has chipped in with 43 points in 16 games. That’s 2.69 points per outing! Consensus 2026 NHL Draft number one pick Gavin McKenna of the Medicine Hat Tigers will be next to hit the century mark. McKenna has tallied 30 times and added 69 helpers for 99 points and is riding a 32-game point scoring streak. He’s collected 70 points on the heater, good for an average of 2.19 points per contest during the streak.

10 – It’s Over – It’s 13 losses in a row for the Kelowna Rockets, including too many blowouts, and this has to be the worst losing streak in franchise history. This is just a disaster, but it will all come to end on the final weekend of the WHL schedule. Kelowna (16-32-4-2) is solidly in last place in the western conference, five points behind the Wenatchee Wild and nine points out of the final playoff spot, currently occupied by the Seattle Thunderbirds. An old saying suggests “you are what your record is”, and that’s clearly the case for the Rockets this season. Amid so much excitement when the CHL selected the city of Kelowna to host the 2026 Memorial Cup, the lack of success on the ice since then has been an absolute head-scratcher. I know plenty of the good people in the organization well enough to really feel for them, so I’m glad the organization is seeing support at the gate despite the tough times. But for the brain trust, building a solid contender for next season seems a herculean task at this point. Stay tuned.

RANDOMS – It has been interesting listening to Canadian hockey fans embarrass themselves by booing and jeering at the Star-Spangled Banner lately. Any notion this is sending some kind of productive, meaningful message, is just pure fallacy. While some of the Trump administration policies can certainly be polarizing, I’m not really up in arms over any democracy’s desire to put their country’s interests first when it comes to operating the business of government. Sadly, putting our country first has long been a shortcoming in the Great White North. While Canadians kept hitting the domestic snooze button during the past decade or so, the crop of spend-thrift politicians currently vacationing away from the House of Commons was busy financing far too many problems beyond our borders. Too many Canadians have complicitly sat idly by, allowing unprecedented mismanagement and woke obsessions to rule the day, orchestrated by an ill-qualified Prime Minister and a clown-car cabinet. But sure, keep hating on the Americans…It will be interesting to see the viewership numbers after Thursday night’s Four Nations Faceoff finale between Canada and the USA. In the meantime, put your feet up and enjoy!