MORE PADDOCK ON THE PATS

Regina Pats V.P. of Hockey Operations and Head Coach John Paddock appeared on 620 CKRM’s SportsCage on Tuesday to discuss his club’s second round series with the Wheat Kings which opens Friday in Brandon.  Here are some of his comments:

ON HOW THEY BEAT SWIFT CURRENT IN ROUND ONE

PADDOCK:  We played our game.  It’s sort of cliche-ish, but we did.  Our game is speed and pressure from that skating.  It surprised us that we were able to dominate Swift Current and so forth.  In the regular season we hadn’t been able to do that.  We’d been very good at times, and probably deserved a little bit better record in the regular season with them.  But we kept skating, kept skating, and kept skating and put pressure on their team.  They were a little bit slower team and they weren’t able to handle the pressure.

CAN YOU BEAT BRANDON PLAYING AT THAT SAME LEVEL?

PADDOCK:  I think we’ll play at our level of skating and speed.  I think we’re equivalent with Brandon in that aspect of it for sure.  I think they have a deep team throughout their lineup.  They’re slightly older, and are a deep team as far as pure skill.  But the best players don’t always win.  We’re gonna play our game.  We’re gonna have different confrontations than we did against Swift Current because Brandon can also skate but Brandon’s also going to have different confrontations than they did with Edmonton.  So I think it has the possiblity of being a really exciting, entertaining series.

WHY DID YOU SAY THIS IS THE MOST SPECIAL TEAM YOU’VE EVER COACHED?

PADDOCK:  They’ve been so responsive right from the start, all the players that have played here.  I don’t like to drag up the past but I keep saying it because it’s the reason for this; these guys were searching for something so much.  When we talked, they listened from August on.  The veterans that we traded set a great example and that was carried over into our other leadership group that was already here.  To our future leadership group, they just kept following suit.  The other thing that was very noticeable for me was that we play like we practice.  That’s a big part of our success.

CAN THAT CHEMISTRY TRUMP THE WHEAT KINGS?

PADDOCK:  I don’t know that it really does.  You look at Brandon, when you only lose nine times all year, you have a lot of things going for you.  You’re ranked in the Top 10 in Canada all year, but I think that’s why you play the games.  We have some things that we do, and like to do, and we’ll tweak some things as we go along.  And they have some things they’d like to do.  For sure they’re the favourites and we don’t mind that at all.  That’s why you have to play the games and I believe we’ll play very good and see what happens.