Stackhouse’s 10 Weekend Thoughts

2 – RUSH SCHEDULE – The Bandits are now 9-and-1 and alone in first place while the Rush are 9-and-3 and with six games left in the regular season schedule, the next five will be their toughest patch. Next week, they are at Georgia (7-and-4), then at Halifax (7-and-4), home to Colorado (7-and-5), and will then travel to Colorado after hosting a revamped Calgary Roughnecks (6-and-6) team that just acquired top goaltender Nick Rose from Toronto. Should the Rush go 3-and-2 before playing their final against Ottawa, I think they can consider the next stretch a success.

3 – RUSH ATTENDANCE – The Rush are on a four game attendance increasing streak. There was a season-low 5558 at Sasktel Centre to watch Vegas on January 11th. It went to 5768 against Albany January 25th and then 6003 for Rochester on February 15th. This weekend, there were a season high 7029 on hand to watch the Bandits and they witnessed a very well-played game that while the Bandits deserve all the credit for earning the win, the Rush are clearly back as a force to be reckoned with and I can’t help but wonder if Church had played if he wouldn’t be worth the two goal difference. 

4 – CELEBRINI/BEDARD – Perhaps an unpopular take in these parts, but after watching in-person last weekend I would rather have Macklin Celebrini over Connor Bedard if I was starting an NHL franchise. Celebrini, despite being a year younger and being a rookie while Bedard is in his second year, has been the better player between the two this season. Both have similar supporting casts in that most of the other players on their respective teams are minor leaguers.  In Chicago’s case, they are doing Bedard a tremendous disservice by not even attempting to be better than they are. San Jose, at least, has the makings of something with Will Smith and William Eklund already on the roster and goalie Yaroslav Askarov on the way.  Celebrini impressed me so much that I wonder why he wasn’t on the Four Nations team.

5 – TKACHUK DECISION – Even though it’s been nearly two weeks since the end of the Four Nations Face Off, the decision to dress Matthew Tkachuk over Kyle Connor in the gold medal game for Team USA is looking more and more like a mistake that was so big it may have cost them the game. Tkachuk is out long term with an injury that was sustained prior to that game and he only played about six minutes against the Canadians in that final contest. Connor maybe only had 1 assist in 3 games at the Four Nations, but he’s a big time goal scorer and the Americans couldn’t get a goal when they needed it. Having Connor in the press box and a hobbled Tkachuk on the bench will forever be one of the worst roster decisions of all-time in international hockey competition and I would even say it doesn’t get more selfish by Tkachuk to insist on playing when he, obviously, knew he was staring at a long term absence.

6 – JETS TRADE DEADLINE – The NHL trade deadline is looming on Friday and I can’t help but wonder if the Winnipeg Jets will stand pat or try to tinker with a roster that is atop the NHL standings. While it’s a convenient excuse to say Winnipeg isn’t a desirable destination for NHL players, here’s the reality: if someone wants to win a Stanley Cup, there may be no better team to join than the Jets. The trendy pick for the Jets would be to acquire Ryan O’Reilly from Nashville to upgrade at centre on the second line but it’s believed that while O’Reilly doesn’t have a no trade clause, he may not be all that eager to spend the next year and a bit in Manitoba. A sneaky get would be Ryan Donato from Chicago, who’s enjoying a career year with 43-points in 58-games. However, O’Reilly has a Stanley Cup on his resume and if the Jets were to get him, he’d be the only player with a ring on the roster.

7 – COUGARS MEN’S HOCKEY – The University of Regina is moving on from Todd Johnson as Men’s Hockey Coach. The Cougars finished 5-22-and-1 this season and missed the playoffs for the second year in a row. Johnson had been at the helm for the last twelve years. I won’t even pretend to have an idea as to the direction of this program, but I would suggest that if they, at all, care about winning they will go after someone who has a track record of dominating who stars are recruiting. I’m just going to throw out Ryan Papaioannou, who’s been the Coach/GM of the Brooks Bandits as someone they should get in touch with. While it’s true Brooks doesn’t always play by the rules, you can’t argue with success and he had won six AJHL titles in fourteen years before the Bandits made the move to the BCHL.  

8 – SJHL MILLIONAIRES – A little over a month ago, I watched the Melville Millionaires lose to Flin Flon 3-0 and I felt the Mils would be lucky to win five more games the rest of the way and they were in danger of dropping out of the playoffs. Well, here we are eleven games since then and the Mils have rattled off 11 straight victories to put themselves very much in the conversation again as being a top SJHL team. The big reason for the turnaround has to go to Head Coach Doug Johnson, who has squeezed every ounce and then some from the roster and full marks to the players for giving their all despite limited talent on offense. If you are looking for an MVP during this run, I think you have to point towards goalies Nick Genette and Ben Laurette. Genette, since January 10th, is 8-and-0 with a 1.86-GAA and .938-SPCT. Laurette, since January 23rd, is 6-and-0, 1.81-GAA and .939-SPCT.  Overall, the race between 3rd and 7th is tight with a handful of games remaining:  Weyburn 64, Yorkton 63, Melville 61, Battlefords 59, Humboldt 57.

9 – RATTLERS ROSTER – The Saskatchewan Rattlers are starting to address their 2025 roster and have announced the return of two players from last year. Cody John, who stepped up in a big way and scored an average of nearly 17 points a game after the team’s top players left for other opportunities last season, is back and should be a candidate to play in the starting line-up. It certainly helps that he’s Canadian. Also coming back is Jaden Bediako, a rebound specialist who led the CEBL in offensive boards during the 6 games he dressed in.  Bediako was added to the roster in the second half of last year to help stop the bleeding when other prominent players left town.  In discussions with a person familiar with the Rattlers, it does not sound as though Teddy Allen (2023 CEBL MVP) will return. Allen, who has well-documented baggage, played 8 games for the team after Jalen Harris left the squad. Harris, by all accounts, did love his time in Saskatoon and my understanding is that the door is open on him coming back.  Harris, the most prolific player to play in the CEBL, led the team to a 5-and-2 start but then left for Asia and the team went 1-and-12 the rest of the way.4

10 – ANTHEM/UKRAINE – For those not at the Rush game this weekend, I feel it’s worth letting you know that the American anthem was not only NOT booed, but most of the crowd sang along.  They sang the Canadian anthem louder, of course, but that’s two Rush games in a row where the people in attendance deserve full marks for showing class while there are several other major Canadian cities who are not exhibiting the same behaviour.  And, no I’m not offering up any other worldly takes for you this week other than to say it’s possible for someone to take the position that Trump was very unprofessional in his dressing down of Zelensky this week and what he did in full view of the media was completely uncalled for. It’s also possible to say that what Trump said to him was exactly what needed to be said. It just shouldn’t be done in the open. That’s not diplomacy.

(Mike Stackhouse is a freelance writer/broadcaster)