The Prince George Cougars’ path to the WHL playoffs goes right through Victoria.
Over the span of the next three weekends, the Cougars will play the Victoria Royals six times, including a doubleheader at CN Centre tonight and Saturday that marks the end of the Cats’ eight-game homestand.
The teams will also meet March 18, 19, 25 and 26 in Victoria and on April 9 in Prince George and the Cougars are hoping to continue their unparalleled success against the Royals. Dating back to October, they’ve won all seven games this season against Victoria.
The Cougars are desperate for a win, especially on home ice, where they’ve lost nine straight games, which has dropped them well within striking range for the Royals.
Now eighth in the Western Conference standings, the Cougars (19-31-2-1) are just three points ahead of the ninth-place Royals (16-33-5-1) in the race for the final playoff position.
The Cougars last celebrated a win Feb. 23 in Kelowna, where they beat the Rockets 5-2. Since then, they’ve been outscored 25-13 in their last six games, all of them losses at CN Centre. They’ve lost 15 of their last 17 games overall.
“We’ve been working on scoring goals and getting our intensity levels way up, mostly that,” said defenceman Jonas Brøndberg, one of the three Cougars’ 29-year-olds. “It’s more about confidence. We’re just trying to build confidence in practice and hopefully we can translate it to the games.”
“It’s a little bit hard, but the coaches are good at getting our focus on the next game so we don’t dwell in the past. You just have to move on and look forward to the next game. We’re all excited for this weekend.”
For the first time this season the Royals will have right winger Tarun Fizer in the lineup against the Cougars. Despite injuries that have limited the talented 19-year-old to just 25 games, Fizer has 12 goals and 37 points and ranks fourth in team scoring.
“They’re going to be tough, for sure,” said Brøndberg. “They have their best player back and he brings a lot of strength to the team and also pushes some guys down the lineup to get more depth and they have skilled team, good transitions and a lot of good top-end guys.”
The six-foot-four, 195-pound Brøndberg joined the Cougars Dec. 27 in the Taylor Gauthier trade from the Portland Winterhawks that also gave the Cougars third-round draft pick in 2023 and two conditional fifth-round picks.
He has four assists in 20 games with the Cougars, after picking up five assists in 20 games as a Winterhawk. Now in his third Western Hockey League season, Brøndberg’s hard-nosed approach, solid defensive skills, and poise with the puck have helped to shore up the Cats’ blueline, which was lacking in experience with only Ethan Samson the only defenceman with a full WHL season under his belt.
The addition of Gauthier has turned the Winterhawks into one of the top teams in the league. Brøndberg admits it was a shock when he learned about the trade to the Cougars, a team struggling to make the playoffs for the first time since 2017.
“To be honest, it was a little tough, hard to swallow, but after coming here and meeting all the staff and the guys they’re amazing, they’re really welcoming me here and I like the challenge,” said Brøndberg. “It’s an experience for me, coming to a new place, getting to know new guys, so I’m really happy to be here.
“I’m getting a bit more ice time here, which is nice. We’re very young, but it’s a good group and they’ll learn from this. This is a super-skilled group and a lot of young guys have a bright future and I would say, go watch the Cougars because there’s some good things coming.”
The native of Aalborg, Denmark was a second-round pick of the Winterhawks (100th overall) in the 2019 CHL import draft. He played for Denmark in the 2020 world junior championship and represented his country several times at the U-18 level, winning two bronze medals. He left his hometown of Aalborg, Denmark in 2017 and played two seasons in Sweden with the Vaxjo Lakers junior team.
Hockey in Denmark got a shot in the arm when the national team made the cut to play in the Olympic tournament for the first time ever. In its first game, Denmark shocked the hockey world with a 2-1 win over the Czech Republic. The team went 3-1 and got to the quarterfinals, giving the Russian Olympic Committee a tough game before losing the playoff 3-1.
“I’m super-proud to be Danish,” said Brøndberg. “Them going there, getting to the quarterfinal and meeting Russia and playing like they did, it’s amazing. They did a real big thing for the whole nation.
“My dad told me there’s more refs in Montreal than there are hockey players in Denmark, so that puts a bit of perspective on it,” he said. “There’s about 5,000 players and my dad’s one of them. He’s 55 and I think he’s been playing for 41 years.”
Brøndberg was three or four when he started playing minor hockey in Aalborg, a city of about 200,000.
“My dad started me out and it was fun,” he said. “My best friends, to this day, I played with back then, you just got friends for life and it was very fun. I loved it and still do.”
