The warmup for the New Ice Age ends tonight. If an exhibition game between the visiting Prince George Cougars and the Kamloops Blazers goes the way of the Cats, they'll end their pre-season schedule with a record of 4-0-1-0.
Very nice numbers indeed. Even if the Cougars fall to the Blazers, they will have had an excellent set of outings in advance of the Western Hockey League regular season.
The Cats, under new ownership since the end of April, have had such a positive buzz around them since Rick Brodsky gave way to the group headed by local businessman Greg Pocock. And the exhibition victories - including two last weekend at CN Centre against the Edmonton Oil Kings - have only added to the good feeling in Camp Cougar and in the city.
But here comes the warning: pre-season is not the regular season, so existing fans and those who may be returning to the rink after a long absence would be wise to keep their hopes and expectations in check.
First off, exhibition games are largely a battle of prospects so they give us more of a glimpse of the future than the present. In that regard, the Cougars look great. Individuals like 15-year-old forward Justin Almeida (who will play for the Cariboo Cougars major midget team this season) and 16-year-old defenceman Josh Anderson (still with the WHL club after a round of cuts on Monday) will be key components in the coming years. That's probably also true of 15-year-old blueliner Max Martin and 15-year-old forward Ethan O'Rourke, the Cougars' second and third picks in the 2014 bantam draft. (Almeida, who had an eye-popping 80 goals and 147 points in 70 games with the North Shore Winter Club last season, was their first pick.)
The other reason why Cougar watchers shouldn't be counting on a 40-win season just yet is the fact that the 2014-15 Cats will be missing a ton of offence from last year. Gone for sure is Todd Fiddler, who fired 50 goals and added 48 assists in his final season as a junior. And, most likely gone are 20-year-olds Troy Bourke (Colorado Avalanche prospect, 29 goals and 85 points) and Zach Pochiro (St. Louis Blues prospect, 27 goals and 66 points), who will likely end up in the American Hockey League with the Lake Erie Monsters and Kalamazoo Wings respectively.
Those three players - Fiddler, Bourke and Pochiro - were the Cougars' top three scorers last season and that leads to some huge question marks in the forward lines.
If, in fact, neither Bourke nor Pochiro return to Prince George, who will do the scoring?
Seventeen-year-old Jansen Harkins (second in the WHL pre-season with four goals and nine points in three games) ends up with a lot of weight on his shoulders and so does 19-year-old forward Chase Witala, who is an offensive dynamo but will be trying to rebound from an injury-plagued 2013-14 season that saw him play just 43 games. Harkins and Witala will need to get significant help from 17-year-old Brad Morrison, who had 12 goals and 21 points in 55 games as a rookie last season, and from 20-year-olds Jari Erricson (back after a season lost to a concussion) and Chance Braid. The latter player, Braid, has been superb during exhibition action but it must be noted that he's never really been known for his offensive contributions. In three WHL seasons with the Prince Albert Raiders - who dealt him to the Cougars in June as part of a deal that saw Jordan Tkatch go the other way - he notched only 17 goals and 57 points in 201 games.
On defence and in goal, the Cats should be fine. Veteran Marc McNulty, a 19-year-old prospect of the Detroit Red Wings, will anchor a blueline group that includes fellow vets Sam Ruopp, Joe Carvalho, Raymond Grewal and mammoth Slovakian Martin Bobos, who will use his six-foot-six, 240-pound frame to keep the front of the net clear of opposing forwards. Between the pipes, 18-year-old Ty Edmonds - who ranged from dependable to brilliant as a first-year Cougar last season - will get the bulk of the work and, at this point, will be backed up by 17-year-old Matt Kustra or 16-year-old Tavin Grant.
At this stage in their development though, the Cougars are not going to be a WHL powerhouse. Realistically, just making the playoffs - somewhere they haven't done since their first-round elimination by the Kelowna Rockets in 2010-11 - would be an accomplishment.
So yes, we have a New Ice Age here in Prince George. However, folks who are thinking that 'new' will translate into a pile of extra wins in this first season would be better off to remember an old word that has been uttered around CN Centre for at least a decade now. That word, which long-time Cougars fans may not want to hear, is patience.
Go out, support the Cats, and be happy that the local WHL team is now truly local. But remember: this club - with new general manager Todd Harkins, a revamped scouting staff and a commitment to doing things the right way - is very much a work in progress.
