10 WHL Things From Glen Erickson, Volume XXVIII

The finish line is only a few days away. Plenty of meaningful Western Hockey League games will be played this week. Read on if you dare.

1 – ‘Tips of the Spear – It’s back-to-back Scotty Munro Memorial Trophy seasons for the Everett Silvertips. There was nothing cheap about how the ‘Tips got it done on the weekend. Everett rolled into Penticton Friday and doubled the Vees, 6-3. In the return engagement Saturday at the Angel of the Winds Arena, the Silvertips edged Penticton 4-3 in overtime to clinch first place overall. The Vees have clinched the BC Division title and have earned the number two seed in the western conference. On Sunday in Portland, the Silvertips beat the Winterhawks, 8-5. That’s three wins in three nights. Everett plays in Victoria Tuesday, wrapping up a run of four games in five nights before the final weekend of the WHL schedule. Everett, now 55-7-2-1, compiled a league-best record of 48-12-4-4 last season.

2 – Home Ice Advantage: West – Somebody will be traveling to B.C.’s Northern Capital for the first round of the Western Hockey League playoffs. The Prince George Cougars clinched home ice advantage in at least the first round when it stole one from the visiting Penticton Vees last week. The Cats tallied the equalizer with 33 seconds to play, then 22 seconds into overtime, notched the winner for a 4-3 win. With the victory, Prince George secured a top four finish in the western conference. Despite the loss, Penticton did have reason to celebrate as well. The expansion Vees clinched the B.C. Division title with the OTL point. The Kelowna Rockets swept a home-and-home double dip from the Kamloops Blazers on the weekend will have home ice advantage in round one as well…The real drama will involve Portland, Seattle and Victoria, only two of which will qualify for the post season. After Sunday’s play, the Thunderbirds are in seventh place with a one-point lead on the Royals and Winterhawks. Seattle and Victoria have a game in hand on Portland.

3 – Home Ice Advantage: East – Prince Albert, Medicine Hat and Edmonton have secured home ice advantage in the first round, but there is plenty to determine. First place in the conference is still up for grabs, and the Raiders have a game in hand on the Tigers. Calgary has a stranglehold on the fourth playoff spot, good for home ice in the first round, but Brandon has a mathematical chance to overtake the Hitmen. If I were a betting man, I’d invest in the Oil Kings meeting the Saskatoon Blades in round one, and Brandon facing Calgary. Regina, perhaps uncomfortably in seventh place, has a tough week ahead with Prince Albert twice and then Brandon. Both the Raiders and Wheat Kings can use every point in the standings they can muster. Red Deer plays three games in four nights this week, twice against Medicine Hat. The Tigers will be motivated too, as they can reach the 50-win plateau if they sweep the two contests and could also repeat as eastern conference champs. It looks like Moose Jaw will need some help even if it sweeps its last two games, a weekend doubleheader with Swift Current. Is there a combination of wins and losses that would result in a tiebreaker game this season?

4 – “Twin Telepathy” – It’s looking more and more as though Markus and Liam Ruck will finish 1-2 in WHL scoring. (Thanks to Tigers play-by-play man Will Bryant for the catch phrase.) The Rucks are a couple of first-class kids, and this accomplishment would indeed be a first for a WHL “brother act”. Looking a few months into the future to June in Buffalo, New York, what do you suppose might happen at the 2026 NHL Draft? Will there be any jockeying for position by a specific team or two to try and draft both players? At least a couple teams look to have the draft capital to perhaps move around a bit in the first round. Among prominent WHL alumni, the Sutter twins were drafted back in 1982. Ron Sutter was selected fourth overall by the Philadelphia Flyers and Rich Sutter went to the Pittsburgh Penguins six picks later. At least they landed in the same State! Between the two, they played 2,149 NHL games. Thanks to the trade wire over the years, the Sutter twins played three seasons together in Philadelphia and one in St. Louis.

5 – The 50-Win Plateau – Everett has already passed the 50-win mark this season. It’s 55 and counting. Can Prince Albert and Medicine Hat accomplish the same standard? The Raiders, 49-10-5-1, have three games to play. The Tigers, 48-10-5-3, will have to win its remaining two games against Red Deer to get there. A total of 50 wins is not uncommon in the WHL, but three 50-win teams in the same season? That does not happen frequently at all. In fact, only twice in the past 25 years has the WHL seen three teams reach the 50-win mark. The teams that achieved it all? Well, it’s maybe a little eerie. During the 2012-2013 season Portland (57), Kelowna (52) and Edmonton (51) turned the trick. The next season, it was Kelowna (57), Portland (54) and Edmonton (50). That’s it. Only twice. The most wins by one team in the past 25 years is 59, by the Calgary Hitmen during the 2008-2009 season.

6 – Bill Wilms – A nice send off for all-around good guy, Bill Wilms, who’s packing it in after the current WHL season. His accomplishments on the media side in the WHL have been well-documented and if you haven’t acquainted yourself, give the league’s website a look for a detailed history. The league presented Bill with the Bob Ridley Award for Media Excellence last week. I met Bill during my days covering the Kelowna Rockets. Back then, the Giants radio broadcasts included a one-hour pre-game show, and I sat in at Bill’s invitation for a few 15-minute segments when Vancouver played at Prospera Place. At 83 years of age now, I have to admit I didn’t see Bill as a 75-year-old man during those on-air chats. He had such tremendous energy then and I imagine he does to this day. I remember specifically a couple calls I really enjoyed; his reaction to the Cory Sarich hit on Quinn Hancock in Prince George back in November, 1997 and his reaction to the Michael Stone hit on Mikael Backlund in the Ed Chynoweth Cup clinching game between the Calgary Hitmen and Kelowna Rockets in May, 2009. I also enjoyed talking golf with Bill, who played at a very high level across British Columbia and at a number of national amateur events over the years. Enjoy life, Billy!

7 – Historic – Speaking of veteran media guys, when I’m motivated to tap into WHL history, I can always count on Doyle Potenteau for the straight goods. Potenteau covered the Kelowna Rockets for many years and after a chinwag this weekend, he sent along a few tidbits from his coverage of Kelowna’s bid to host the 2004 Memorial Cup. Vancouver, Calgary, Lethbridge and Kelowna were all in the running and back then, when the decision was made by the WHL board of governors. According to Potenteau’s sources, the decision required three rounds of voting on November 19, 2002. Kelowna won the right to host the tournament, and the Rockets won the championship as the host team. Of note as well is the curious case of the Lethbridge Hurricanes. Missing out on the 2004 tournament marked the organization’s third unsuccessful bid. Since then, Lethbridge has bid three more times…unsuccessfully. The Medicine Hat Tigers participated in the 2004 tournament as the WHL Champions.

8 – The Quotes – From Potenteau’s piece in the Kelowna Daily Courier, November 19, 2002: “Vancouver and Calgary offered more money in their bids, but with our submission, we talked about the Memorial Cup being the only game in town,” said Paul Mitchell, Kelowna’s bid committee chairman. “We’re going to have 29 different events going above and beyond the hockey games. So, fans will have something to do from the time they get up in the morning until midnight. There’s going to be a tent outside Skyreach (Place) that’ll seat about 1,500, there’s going to be wine tastings, comedy nights…there’ll be something going every night. It’s going to be a lot of fun for everyone, and to me, that was our selling point. In Vancouver or Calgary, if the Canucks or Flames make the playoffs, the Memorial Cup will be relegated to the backbench. And from our position, this event is so important that it should not take a backseat to anything. In Kelowna, it’s going to be front and centre with non-stop action.” I think major junior hockey fans can expect much more of the same in 2026!

9 – Rant: Gudas Suspension – I find much of the rhetoric concerning the five-game suspension of former Everett Silvertips rearguard Radko Gudas to be rather entertaining. Gudas, a veteran of 938 NHL games regular season and playoffs combined, and currently a member of the Anaheim Ducks initiated, allegedly, knee-on-knee contact with Auston Matthews last week. Gudas was clearly out of position on the play, and I didn’t like the contact. However, I also think the Player Safety Department probably got it right. I have grown weary of after-the-fact, paralysis by analysis in these situations. Firstly, can we agree referees are on the ice to officiate games played at break-neck speed by athletes constantly looking to gain an advantage, both inside and outside the framework of the rules? It’s always the officials who are criticized for either enforcing or not enforcing the rules, even though it’s the players always pushing the envelope. The officials cannot prevent contact like the Gudas/Matthews collision. Only the players can. Secondly, coaches demand their charges play on the edge and in doing so, players take liberties with each other. This isn’t even arguable. Major penalties and supplemental discipline have been proven time and time again not to be a deterrent. It’s the players who continue to do it to themselves, to their peers. It’s always been this way. It always will be. It’s the players who are supposed to be in control of their actions. But, how’s that going? Then, just to toss in some additional befuddlement, the NHLPA had to represent both Gudas and Matthews – supporting the position of each player – during the supplementary discipline hearing. Make it make sense?

10 – Randoms – Can you name the two WHL teams that are undefeated in regulation time when leading after two periods? When leading after 40 minutes, the Red Deer Rebels are 13-0-1-0 and Medicine Hat is 35-0-1-1….Do you know which WHL teams have won the most games this season when being outshot by its opponent? The Brandon Wheat Kings and Vancouver Giants have won 18 games apiece when outshot by its opponent. That’s tops in the WHL…Spokane has outshot its opponent 47 times this season but has lost 20 of those games…Since the 1996-1997 season there has only been one team complete the regular season with less than 10 regulation losses. That was the Calgary Hitmen (59-9-3-1) during the 2008-2009 season. And remember, that was a 72-game schedule. With three games to play this season, the Everett Silvertips have lost seven games in regulation time…Can we call it? Larry Sacharuk’s record for goals scored by a defenceman (50), set during the 1971-1972 season, is safe? Medicine Hat’s Bryce Pickford has scored a total of 44 times and has two games remaining…Will there even be a 50-goal scorer this season? Seattle’s Cameron Schmidt leads the way with 45 goals and the Thunderbirds have three games to play…There were six 100-point scorers in the league last season. An optimist might predict a total of four at the most when the current campaign concludes this weekend.

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