10 WHL Christmas Things!
By Glen Erickson
The annual break in the Western Hockey League gives the players a bit of a breather, with the exception of eight WHLers who have been busy in Eastern Canada preparing for the 2025 World Junior Championship. Their respective WHL teams will get back to business this coming weekend.
1 – If the Playoffs Started Today – I always enjoyed the divisional format in the first round of the WHL playoffs, as some of the 2/3 matchups made for great rivalry series. Of course, some pretty good teams would see their season end abruptly after round one. This season, the two division winners are seeded first and second in each conference based on point totals and the next six teams in the conference are also ranked by point totals. If the playoffs started today, Medicine Hat would host Prince Albert, Saskatoon would host Edmonton, Lethbridge would host Swift Current and Calgary would host Brandon. Out west, Everett would host Kelowna, Prince George would host Vancouver, Spokane would host Portland and Tri City would host Victoria. Frankly, I don’t see anything particularly riveting in any of those matchups at this point. Second round festivities would certainly be interesting!
2 – ‘Tis the Season for Roster Juggling – As mentioned last week, I spoke with Bruce Hamilton a couple weeks ago, prior to the Team Canada selection camp, and we covered a handful of topics. With a season-and-a-half to go before the 2026 Memorial Cup, I asked Hamilton how he sees the Rockets roster evolving, which includes input from his son Curtis, who became the team’s assistant general manager when he retired from professional hockey. “Oh yeah, Curtis is fully engaged,” Hamilton said. “It’s kind of a breath of fresh air to have a younger guy out on the beat with our scouts. It brings a different vision, which is good. And we’re using more analytics than we did before. But we’ll have to make some decisions. We have four guys away at the world juniors, two Canadians (Andrew Cristall and Caden Price) and two with Czechia (Jakub Stancl and Marek Rocak). All four of them are going to turn pro next year. Everything we do will be to strengthen ourselves for next year. We saw what the Yager deal brought out to the table for everybody else.” Cristall, who was among the Team Canada cuts, played two games upon his return to Kelowna and tallied four points. With 55 points in 23 games, he’s scoring at a pace of 2.39 points per tilt. One has to wonder if a change of address is in his immediate future? Gotta think there’s interest across the league in Price, too?
3 – 2026 Memorial Cup – For many years, bid committees from potential WHL host cities presented their case solely to the WHL Board of Governors. I asked Hamilton why the decision was made by the CHL to begin utilizing an independent selection committee, and also how the committee reported to each group that submitted a bid. “It’s the CHL’s event, it always has been,” Hamilton said. “Back in the day, the money used to stay in the league, but now it’s spread over all 60 (CHL) teams. The CHL sells all the national sponsorships. I think last year the independent group was used, too, for the Saginaw event. It probably makes more sense because more people can bid on it now. You don’t need the biggest venue all the time. It’s designed that you should be able to do it (financially) with ticket sales. If you’re paying for it out of your own operation, you probably shouldn’t bid on it. I think they now do a debrief with everybody about their bid and why they decided the way they did.”
4 – From the Booth – When I watch or listen to a WHL game, I tend to switch the dial a couple of times. I like to hear the play-by-play call from both sides. One veteran I enjoy is Dustin Forbes, who’s been at it for 11 years now as the broadcast voice of the Lethbridge Hurricanes. It’s heady stuff for the Vancouver Island native, who checks in at the ripe old age of 33. I think Forbes, who can be kind of self-deprecating, knows his WHL stuff. For the 2024-2025 season, he’s taken on the team services role, an important and somewhat challenging batch of responsibilities associated with making sure the Hurricanes are looked after while on the road. “I hope that’s not the reason we’ve had some trouble off the road,” Forbes quipped, when I dialed him up for a chat just ahead of the Christmas break. The ‘Canes are 4-9-0-1 when playing away from the VisitLethbridge.com Arena this season, while the team boasts the best home ice record in the league at 13-2-1-0.
5 – The Best Time of the Year – I’m always entirely pleased when Team Canada lines up at the World Junior Championship on Boxing Day with a group that has escaped its pre-tournament games without a serious injury. Those two or three contests are certainly important growth opportunities for the players and coaching staff as a group. It also doesn’t hurt the IIHF and Hockey Canada coffers with the added financial benefits, especially when the games take place in Canadian locales. But it’s the injury bug that scares me. The game is played at such a fast pace these days and so many good young players are either inadvertent knee-on-knee contact or a broken wrist away from a really crummy holiday season. Alas, we can breathe easier this time around, as it appears everybody has survived these pre-tournament games unscathed. In the words of Bruce Buffer, the veteran voice of the octagon, “It’s Time”!
6 – WJC Memory Lane – While watching the WJC has pretty much become a right of passage for young players, make no mistake, the event stirs up memories across a few generations. It’s hard to believe it was 15 years ago the 2010 WJC was held in Saskatoon. The city of Regina was also part of the event, hosting Group B preliminary round games, while Saskatoon hosted Group A and all the playoff round games. I covered the event in Saskatoon, and it was an amazing celebration of hockey. The province absolutely embraced the tournament, much like it did back in 1991 as well. At the 2010 tournament, Willie Desjardins was Team Canada’s head coach, taking a break from his duties with the Medicine Hat Tigers, a team that won 41 games during that 2009-2010 WHL campaign. The host committee utilized what was a spiffy new 50/50 ticket selling program featuring handheld units and a running total amount displayed throughout the building. This has all become the norm today. In Saskatoon, 50/50 sales were off the charts throughout the tournament, so much that one night, the volunteers had to stop selling because the system ran out of numerical combinations!
7 – Show Time – The 2010 tournament was kind of a coming out party for former WHLer Nino Niederreiter, who almost single-handedly carried Switzerland to a playoff win over the heavily favoured Russians. He tallied in the final minute of the quarter-final, then potted the OT winner in Switzerland’s 3-2 victory. He was voted to the tournament all-star team. In the semi-final, Team Canada kept him in check and off the scoresheet in a 6-1 win, but the Swiss star was embroiled in a bit of controversy when he and Nazim Kadri refused to shake hands after the contest. At the time, Nino was a member of the Portland Winterhawks and a couple of weeks after the WJC, Niederreiter stole the show at the CHL Top Prospects Game with a trick shot tally during the event festivities. (It’s available on YouTube) Then on gameday, he scored the opening goal for Team Orr. All told, he scored 36 goals and 24 assists in 65 WHL games during the 2009-2010 season and was named to the western conference second all-star team. Niederreiter has appeared in 921 regular season NHL games. He’s still active as a member of the Winnipeg Jets.
8 – Injury Riddled – Canadian defenceman Travis Hamonic, then a member of the Moose Jaw Warriors, suffered a serious shoulder injury with under a minute to play in the semi-final game after a nasty check from behind by a Swiss opponent. Not only did the shoulder injury keep Hamonic out of the gold medal final he was sidelined for a few weeks of the WHL season. But, shortly after the tournament he was the key player in a major trade deadline deal between his Moose Jaw Warriors and the Brandon Wheat Kings, who were gearing up to host the 2010 Memorial Cup. Kelowna Rockets forward Brandon McMillan, among the best pure skaters in the tournament, was tabbed to play defence in the finale in Hamonic’s place. Hamonic, from St. Malo, Manitoba is still active in the NHL with the Ottawa Senators. There is so much more to Hamonic’s life than just hockey, whose path is truly inspiring. If you can dig up the ESPN E:60 feature, “In the Name of the Father”, it’s well worth a watch.
9 – A Frantic Finale – All four goaltenders played in the final game as the starters, Mike Lee and Jake Allen struggled. Jack Campbell almost completely shut the door for Team USA and Martin Jones finished up for Team Canada. The game was tied after each period. Team USA won gold with a 6-5 OT win in front of 15, 171 spectators, but it took a minor miracle from Jordan Eberle (who else?) who beat Campbell twice in the final three minutes to tie the contest. I sat nine rows above ice level in my working space, right behind the Team USA net when Eberle scored, then in extra time when the team’s switched ends, the action came right toward us as John Carlson ripped home the game-winner past Jones to send the Americans into a frenzy. The speed of the game at the time was jaw-dropping. When I returned to Kelowna in early January and bumped into Hamilton at the Rockets’ office, I mentioned the pace and he absolutely deadpanned me; “Whaddya expect? They’re the best of the best!” Hamilton had a point and an examination of the USA and Canada rosters from that gold medal tilt is mind-blowing. Combined, the players have appeared in well north of 18,000 NHL regular-season games. A total of 16 players from that game are still active in the NHL. For Jones and teammate Brandon Kozun, both members of the Calgary Hitmen at the time, a WHL title and a trip to the Memorial Cup were just a few short months away.
10 – Post Game Hijinx – A few of us who worked the tournament on the media side adjourned to O’Shea’s Pub in downtown Saskatoon, a somewhat frantic search for an establishment open for business late on a Tuesday night. While there, we watched some Team USA players celebrate into the wee hours. There were four, but I can only recall Danny Kristo, Derek Stepan and Jordan Schroeder. Every time the gold medal game highlights were shown on TSN, they just howled and jumped for joy. It was fun to watch! The youngsters generously allowed us to take some pictures wearing their gold medals. I spoke with Tim Erixon and Jakob Markstrom at the pub, too, a couple of Team Sweden stalwarts at the tournament. Indeed, it’s just the best time of the year! The tournament all-star team included Stepan, Eberle, Neiderreiter, Carlson and Alex Pietrangelo, who are all still active in the NHL.
RANDOMS – I don’t mind the Saskatchewan Roughriders dealing with the Calgary Stampeders for quarterback Jake Maier. If the Riders can sign Maier to a contract that is fair for both the player and the organization, it’ll set up the reunification of the quarterback with offensive coordinator, Marc Mueller. This might be the best possible insurance policy available to the Riders, who haven’t developed a QB since Darian Durant emerged as a bonafide CFL starter…Thank goodness for NFL football on Christmas Day! My interest in NBA basketball is minimal at best, so a little action on the gridiron will be a welcomed diversion…When Bernhard Langer and his son Jason won the PNC Championship in a playoff – golf’s silly season, family feel-good thingy – the misery among American golf fans and media was entirely palpable. When crowd favourites Tiger and Charlie Woods were unable to emerge victorious, I felt like I could not only hear, but also feel, the dejection from the crowd and also those in the broadcast booth. Make no mistake, this event has become all about Tiger. The Langer family on the other hand, will simply have to settle for its sixth victory at the event…Go Canada Go!…Happy New Year, everyone!
(Glen Erickson is a hockey writer based in Medicine Hat, AB)
