NEUGSIE’S AROUND THE SJHL

BY: Jamie Neugebauer
Voice of the ND Hounds

1. Beatdown in NB-Town – You probably have heard by now that last Saturday was a night of some pretty epic beatdowns in the SJHL; but none were more shocking in its intensity, and participants, than Flin Flon’s 10-1 pounding of the nation’s No. 4 team, the Battlefords North Stars, in North Battleford. At time of writing, the Stars are en route to a comfortable response victory in Humboldt on Wednesday night, but I never thought I’d see a team in the Stars’ black and silver get humiliated like that, ever. La Ronge also smashed Nipawin 8-2 at the home of the Hawks that same night; pretty wild stuff. But back to the Battlefords story: I said that Stars fans shouldn’t panic yet, and I still believe that, Klimosko is too good of a coach, and they have too good of a squad; but that’s still a horrible look. Only worth two points though! More on the high-flying Manitobans later, though.

2. Trade Freeze – Yep. No more trades till noon on New Year’s Day. You can bet coaches are still talking, but nothing can be made official till 2020. I think the biggest moves have already been made, though, so I am not sure how wild the Jan. 10 drop-dead trade deadline will be anyway. One never knows though!

3. Rookie of the Year Should be a Rookie… – At time of writing, the leading “rookie” scorer is La Ronge’s Kyle Ford, and likely the leading “rookie” goaltender is fellow Ice Wolf Liam McGarva. I think the league needs to change the rules in regards to what makes a “rookie”, as McGarva had played 70 games as a full junior player in B.C. Jr B the last couple of years, Ford played a full season last year at the same level, and both are 2000 birth years. I don’t mean to take anything away from those two, they are having great years, but they should not be in any way in consideration for rookie of the year. I had a little chat with Flin Flon head coach Mike Reagan about his guy in that regard, Tristan Lemyre, who is having a great year, and is certainly in the running…but my pick is still Humboldt’s centreman Karter McNardland, who, while he has fewer points than Lemyre, plays a more important all-around role on the young Broncos than Lemyre does as a winger on a stacked, veteran Bombers club. I wouldn’t complain either way, though I think they both should be way ahead of Melville’s Nic Porterfield (I’ve pissed off Mils bench boss Kyle Adams already with my column this year, so I’ve got nothing to lose at this point ;))

4. Tip of the Cap to Captain Hammer – ND’s 20-year-old captain Jared Hamm is finally catching his groove the last couple of games after returning from an injury, and with five points over his last two contests has eclipsed the 100-point mark in his SJHL career, sitting at 104 at time of this writing. In terms of stars in this league, Hamm is as low-maintenance as they come; a man of incredible character, leadership, skill, and maturity, and every coach in the league would take this kid. American or Canadian universities, you should be foaming at the mouth for this guy.

5. Good Ol’ Fashioned Tilly in Midale – Speaking of Hammer and ND, what a great job the fine folks of Midale did hosting the Hounds-Estevan Bruins neutral-site game last Monday. It was a classic rough-and-tumble ND-Estevan clash, with all sorts of penalties, ejections, and brew-hahas. The Hounds power play really clicked in this one, scoring three times with the man advantage (and once just after the PP had ended!) in a 6-3 victory. Say what you want, and I love international hockey, but small-ice hockey is still the best if you ask me…and this was very small ice!

6. Flon is Coming! – So, the Flin Flon Bombers…their roster suggests they are very very serious championship contenders. That 10-1 win in Battlefords has to be considered the exclamation point on a run that includes seven wins in their last nine, and one of those losses came against the high-flying La Ronge Ice Wolves in overtime. Another scary point is that Flin Flon has only played one of its last nine at home, which means they have some pretty healthy homestands coming in 2020. Don’t look now, but the Bombers are now only eight points back of the Battlefords North Stars for first in the league. Impressive stuff for Reagan’s bunch, who can score at will it seems against anyone in the SJHL.

7. TCW Bows Early – Canada West got off to a bad start at the World Junior A Challenge last week in B.C., as I wrote in my last column, and despite a heroic attempted rally from down four in a must-win game against the Czechs, they could not recover. I don’t know if a Canada West team at the WJAC has ever failed to make the playoff round, but I can tell you that if you told me this roster, which had all the talent you could ask for, would not make it before the tournament, I would have boldly laughed in your face. Anyways, let’s move on.

8. Broncos Back on Track? – The Humboldt Broncos clearly struggled without their head coach Scott Barney, who was an assistant on that Canada West club, so with him back, it will be interesting to see how quickly they can get back on track. They ran over the Melville Millionaires in Barney’s first game back, with 16-year-old call-up and potential future Moose Jaw Warrior Brett Mirwald in net, and then fell to what must have been an angry, desperate, and energized Battlefords team on Tuesday night. A home-and-home with the Stars to end 2019 is going to be an interesting barometer for where the Broncos are right now.

9. Chantz’s National Competition – If you live close to Yorkton, or live close to where the Terriers are coming to town, then get off your butts, and go watch Chantz Petruic. What he is doing is super special, and at time of writing has his 42^nd goal in a Game 37 four-goal contest vs. Nipawin. He’s electric, and I’ve written about him a lot this year…newsflash, it’s not stopping. Nobody in Canadian Junior A hockey has the same number of goals or points outside of the Northern Ontario league, which, to be fair, isn’t the same level of competition, and as I’ve said before, I’ve never personally seen a more individually dominant player in a Junior A league than Chantz is right now. The last team to hold him without a goal, interestingly enough, was Nipawin back on Dec. 6, so perhaps he really wanted to punish the Hawks on Tuesday night.

10. Blowing My Stack … – Mike Stackhouse, who picks the league’s Players of the Week, has given the Notre Dame Hounds only a single player of the week honour all year, in any category (it was a well-deserved D of the week to Joe Santalucia way back when, by the way). Call me a homer if you want, but surely Riley Kohonick has deserved some sort of award, or Jared Hamm as he catches fire here in mid-December. As I said, I don’t expect Mike reads or cares about anything I do, which I don’t really care about, I just wanted to get it off my chest!