No one would blame Jansen Harkins if he slept through school next week.
The Prince George Cougars second overall 2012 Western Hockey League bantam pick racked up more than 3,000 kilometres travelling between Vancouver and Prince George in the past week and by Sunday night will have played four games in two cities with two teams.
"It's a pretty long week but I'm up for the challenge," said Harkins. "It's just an awesome experience. It was really exciting when I got the call to come up here for a bit and play with [the Cougars] for a couple games."
The 15-year-old played in Tuesday at CN Centre as the Cougars fell 2-0 to the Swift Current Broncos and played his third game with the WHL club, second in his hometown, Friday against the Vancouver Giants. Harkins will then travel back with the Cougars to Prince George where he'll join his B.C. Major Midget League team, the Vancouver Northwest Giants, for a pair of games against the Cariboo Cougars this weekend.
Against the Broncos, Harkins was a bright spot for the Cougars, playing on the top line with Troy Bourke and Daulton Siwak before switching to the second line with Zach Pochiro and Jari Erricson for the final 40 minutes. The latter trio created the best offensive chances the team had all night.
"I think we had good chemistry," said Harkins. "I was just trying to play my type of game and be a little confident with the puck, make some good passes and set some guys up. I got the puck on their tape there a couple of times in front of the net and maybe a couple of those should've been goals but we'll try to do well on Friday and put a couple of those in the back on the net."
Erricson said it was a treat playing on a line with Harkins.
"He brought a lot of energy to the team," said the 18-year-old. "It was fun playing with him. I'm looking forward to having him on the team next year. He's a good guy to be around and he's one of those guys everyone wants on their team."
Tuesday, Harkins and Brad Morrison were teammates with the Cougars but this weekend they'll put their friendship on ice for a few hours as their MML clubs, the Giants and Cariboo Cougars face off today, 1 p.m. at CN Centre and Sunday, 9:15 a.m. at the Coliseum.
Harkins said he and Morrison, the Cats seventh overall 2012 bantam pick, have known each other for a while so it's fun to go from teammates to rivals.
"We're just trying to stay focused when we play with P.G. because we're getting called up so we're just trying to stay on task and worry about the games coming up but we joke around with it," said Harkins. "Off the ice we're good friends so we like to get a little trash talk going but it's always friendly."
In three games with the WHL Cougars, Morrison has a goal and two assists while Harkins is still looking for his first WHL point - he had an assist credited to him and then taken away on his first shift Nov. 11 - but in the MML it's Harkins who has bragging rights. Harkins has contributed six goals and 32 points in 19 games for the NW Giants while Morrison has 11 goals and 28 points in 20 games for Cariboo.
The NW Giants (19-1-2) have also owned the Cougars (17-5-0) in major midget action having won six straight games in head-to-head battle since October 2011. The Cougars dropped two games to the NW Giants last December on home ice and then were swept in the MML final by the Vancouver team. At October's showcase event, the Giants won 4-3 and 6-5.
"Those are always good games, hopefully we can come up with the sweep again like we did at the beginning of the year," said Harkins.
