Stackhouse’s 10 Weekend Thoughts
1 – MILS LOSE DRURY – The upside-down world of Junior A hockey resulted in a major gut punch to the Melville Millionaires this week as SJHL leading scorer Caden Drury walked out the door and signed with the Brooks Bandits. Because the Bandits are part of the BCHL and are considered unsanctioned hockey, there is no recourse for the Mils here. They get zilch in return. It’s a bold move for Drury who, really, has nothing to gain and everything to lose. Having said that, he had a hat trick in his first game Friday night. The Bandits are 19-and-4 but do appear to have openings on their second line, which is not bad but it’s a far cry from being the top dog in the entire Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League.
2 – WILD WORLD OF JUNIOR HOCKEY – As of today, there is absolutely nothing stopping the pillaging of players from SJHL, MJHL, and AJHL teams to clubs in the BCHL. Drury isn’t the only one to have left a club that has invested significant time, money, and effort into developing an elite player. Thanks for nothing I guess, and people wonder why there’s no loyalty anymore. There are some measures that can be taken by these other leagues to try and curb the exodus. First of all, Hockey Saskatchewan has been quite lenient and cooperative, letting players who leave for BC and end up getting cut, return to play in the SJHL. I’d bring that to an instant halt. If you want to go to BC, go ahead. Doesn’t work out for you? I guess you should have thought of that before you left. I’d put the same sanction on BCHL coaches as well as any staff person listed on the teams’ website. Hard ball is hard ball. If BC won’t ‘make a trade’ with Junior A teams, then Junior A teams need to be backed up by their governing bodies somehow. The other thing is I’d drop the 20-year-old roster limit and allow teams to roster as many overagers as they want. It’s clear Junior A teams have to build programs on a year to year basis and they have to assume everyone is a one-and-done player. The other issue that really burns me is that the very NCAA programs that the SJHL teams are trying to send players to will often work against them and encourage players to leave for those other ‘superior’ leagues. I’ve got first hand knowledge of NCAA scouts coming to events put on by the SJHL and MJHL to look at players and then while conversing with them after games, encouraging them to leave for another league.
3 – BCHL IS NOT THE BE ALL-END ALL – I understand the perception that players need to leave for greener pastures in the USHL, NAHL, or BCHL in order to achieve scholarship dreams but I’d also suggest that to be somewhat of a myth. I’ve seen many leave envious positions on their SJHL clubs only to fall flat in one of those other leagues and not realize their scholarship hopes because the scouts can, much more easily, determine just how good a player is when he is going up against that so-called better talent that the USHL, NAHL, and BCHL have to offer. But, there are other factors at play, including opportunity for adequate ice time or the ability to fit into a new system. The flipside is that I’ve seen many players from BC who weren’t given a fair shake, come to Saskatchewan and leave with an NCAA scholarship that would be nowhere near attainable if they remained stuck on a fourth line out there. One example off the top of my head is Nick Vandenbeld, a BC product, who played 2 years in the BCHL and then two years with Melfort. He left with a four year NCAA scholarship to Mercyhurst and he never would have gotten that if he stayed in BC.
4 – BCHL DOESN’T HOLD THE HAMMER ANYMORE – With the NCAA allowing major junior players to enroll and play, the league most directly impacted in a negative way is the BCHL so I am not real sure why players are leaving their Junior A homes for BCHL teams. Their leverage is pretty much gone. If you don’t play major junior, the rest of the leagues are all the same. Since the official announcement in early November, the BCHL has lost over 30 players to the major junior ranks so that tells me there is still quite a ways for that league to go before they are even close to being on par with the WHL. Chilliwack, alone, has lost six. So what we are seeing now is the trickle down from that.
5 – WHY NOT PARTNER WITH WHL – Years ago when I was directy involved with the SJHL, I was a lone wolf in that I advocated for teams to established official working relationships with teams in the WHL that would allow for players to have a more smooth transition between the two leagues and not worry so much about the NCAA. Using Melville as an example, I can recall many instances where Jamie Fiesel tapped into the WHL to strengthen his roster and it worked. Levi Lind, Brayden Metz, Ryan McDonald, Tyson Predinchuk, Sean Aschim, Christian Magnus, Cody Hanson, Kelly Friesen, Derek Edwards, Derek Parker, and Brett Parker all come immediately to mind and I’m sure there are others. Yorkton utilized WHL players like Kevin Dziaduck, Josh Garbutt, and Perry Faul to win a championship. They also had strong teams built around the likes of Justin Keller, Chantz Petruic, Jared Legien, and Dakota Odgers. Ideally, you want to use players who can’t get the appropriate amount of ice time at the major junior level and hope you can develop them for a solid WHL career and in exchange you want players who are out of major junior options to come back your way. It wouldn’t be perfect. You will win some and lose some but surely there are agreements that can be put in to place that incentivize players to report to the SJHL instead of other leagues when they are released from the WHL. One lever that could work is yanking any Canadian scholarship money accumulated while playing in the WHL in the event a player doesn’t go to the SJHL (this becomes more complicated now with players being eligible to play in the US but players released aren’t likely to be strong NCAA candidates). I’m sure there are other factors that could better influence players but I’m not as involved as I used to be. I think the other thing I would look at is dropping the requirement for underage juniors to play in their home province. I’ll cite Brandon as an example here. They are playing a lot of 16 year-olds and not all of them are in prominent roles. Send them to an SJHL team to gain experience and keep them on a call-up shuttle so the player can see they aren’t being given up on. All it will take is a couple of sucess stories to further cement the partnership.
6 – UNIVERSITY CANADIAN HOCKEY – Indirectly associated with some of this mess that has been created in Junior A hockey is the long standing misconception that playing university hockey in Canada is a joke. I assure you it is not and I’d put up a strong team like UNB, Saskatchewan, Mount Royal or Alberta against any NCAA powerhouse and I bet you the Canadian team would do just fine. The problem in Canada is the governing body is so badly run that there is, not only, no promotion of the product, but a horrible false narrative that it’s glorified rec hockey. Players wanting to play at a high level and get an education at the same time should look more at Canadian schools. Depending on the academic program, it’s common for a student athlete returning to Canada to have to take further education in order to be qualified for his industry anyway.
7 – HIDDEN GEMS IN CANADIAN UNIVERSITIES – I’ll go one step further and say that because of the bad image Canadian university hockey has, there are many players who could make the NHL but don’t even get a sniff because the NHL teams have zero investment in those players. Have you watched Colorado or Philadelphia this week? I have and I can tell you that without even watching a single second of Canadian university hockey that if you put UNB netminder Samuel Richard between the pipes of either of those two teams, the results would be better. Richard is 48-and-6 over 2 ½ seasons with the Reds. He has a GAA of under 2.00 and a SPCT of .920. With nothing to lose, you’d think the Flyers or Avs would roll the dice on someone like that. But Richard is only 6’ tall and 175 pounds. He went undrafted despite posting 7 shutouts and well above average numbers in two full seasons with Rouyn-Noranda (QMJHL). Millions of dollars have been invested in other goalies within the minor league systems of Philadelphia and Colorado so they will go through every single one of those guys first and have disastrous results rather than try something out of the box like this.
8 – TROUBA – I have no sympathy for Jacob Trouba or the Rangers. There was plenty of baggage and red flags with him when he left Winnipeg that I was astounded the Rangers had nobody else on their team that would make for a better captain. Maybe being a captain isn’t what it used to be, I don’t know. But, Trouba making $8-million a year was an overpay before the ink was dry. Trouba was so bad the Rangers were willing to just waive him if he wouldn’t agree to a trade within his modified no trade clause. It’s too late, but no trade clauses shouldn’t be allowed in pro sports. Players are commodities and teams need to have an option in the event the player isn’t living up to his end of the contract. If you can’t trade him and if the contract is guaranteed no matter what then what can a team do? While it’s true nobody is holding a gun to the head of Chris Drury to pay an average defenseman $56-million, the reality is that Trouba was even worse than what anyone projected and in a salary cap world, there needs to be an ‘out’ for teams or else get rid of the cap. I think what’s going to happen is even worse. It’ll be put into the next CBA that teams can’t waive a guy who has a no-trade clause.
9 – GOLDEN AT BAT – Major League Baseball is floating the idea of a ‘golden at bat’ rule and it is, not shockingly, being widely criticized. Basically, a team would be allowed one opportunity to pick any player it wants to bat at any point in the game. The idea is so stupid it never should have reached public domain. But maybe baseball has reached the point that any publicity is good publicity. How about we just get rid of the batting order altogether. Let Juan Soto bat for everybody and if he doesn’t hit a home run, send out the other guys to run for him. Stupid.
10 – ANOTHER ‘NORMAL’ PREMATURE TRAGIC SPORTS DEATH – In New York this past week, a 17-year old boy collapsed and died during a charity hockey game. Connor Kasin was a Senior at Massapequa High School on Long Island. He lost consciousness during a game Saturday night benefitting the family of another teen who died in an April 2023 car crash. No information on the cause of death has been released. Here’s what I can tell you and you can discard the information if you want, but there are now so many premature deaths amongst young people that overall trust in public health has been completely destroyed. When I see Sask Health Authority pushing vaccines of any kind I just laugh. They don’t get it. The numbers back up the notion that most of us are skeptical. Is it possible some of us will die because we don’t trust Health Authorities when we should? Perhaps. But, if our rulers really cared about our well being, they’d be taking major steps towards rebuilding the trust that was blown up during Covid rather than pretending they didn’t lie like drunken sailors for over two years. The fact that, in Saskatchewan, nobody of note lost his/her job is telling despite overwhelming evidence that public service was not only not provided, but people were duped. Get over it you say? I guess consider yourself lucky that your life wasn’t wrecked from lies by those who are supposed to be serving the public. I don’t expect to change anyone’s mind but there is an official American document that was released this week that vindicates ‘crazy’ people like me. Of course the science will always be different in Canada. Have a great week.
(Mike Stackhouse is a freelance writer/broadcaster)
When you rail on about how things are screwed up; I’d counter with asking how do you know things are not going exactly according to plan? 10) – The NDP proved a point made 70 years ago. Socialized public medicine does not work and was never intended to. Nurses are the worst humanity can offer. The organization is a public institution inhabited by predominantly female nurses with significant mental issues and attachment problems. They believe they run the show. Teachers by extension are the worst “student” who go back into education as they can’t deal with reality. Again predominantly female… Read more »
Them are quite the comments.
This clown is looking for reactions/responses , if people stopped responding or down voting the troll would go away.
You truly need a lots of help. I couldn’t imagine what you are like in person or what your dog must deal with.
On the university hockey thing, I think it’s the most underrated level of hockey there is. I don’t understand why universities don’t promote it a bit and make it more of a “thing”. I have been to a few U of M Bisons games in recent years and they are by no means a powerhouse team, but there is real talent there…lots of former junior A standouts, many former WHLers, even the odd guy with pro experience. But I don’t think I’ve ever seen more than 200 people in the stands for a game, sometimes it’s less than half that.… Read more »
Right? I was going to U of R games in early 90a. All those great Regina Pats from the Sillinger/Heward/Kovacs Era- that mid 80s to 1989. All those guys went to school. So to take a “date” to the sherwood twins on a Friday night. That was a heart check. Other guys were lookin for love at Manhattens. It’s very good hockey. They got rid of the red line long ago and no fighting. It’s basically what they did then – the NHL does now. Why not promote? Two words – Dick White. Awful. Those u of r games were… Read more »
The people who are in charge of Canadian University sports hate it. That’s the simple answer. They need to go.
Media could force this product on to people through frequent promotion and primetime broadcasts. It’s worked with women’s pro sports so why not push Canadian university sports (both men and women).
If you put it right in front of everyone’s face …they’d like it. I have no doubt.
Men’s USPORTS Hockey continues to be the best kept secret on ice across Canada.