The Prince George Spruce Kings are hitting the ground running this weekend.
Thirty-four players are in the invited list for training camp at Rolling Mix Concrete Arena as the Kings prepare for their 50th season as a junior hockey team and 26th year as part of the B.C. Hockey League.
The team will be on the ice for practice tonight and for hockey-starved fans anxious to see their Spruce Kings scrimmage again after a more than year of pandemic exile, they will get their wish this weekend with two intrasquad games on the schedule – Saturday at 6 p.m. and Sunday at noon.
Strange as it seems, the Spruce Kings are the three-time defending Fred Page Cup champions. Because of the pandemic, which canceled the 2020 playoffs after one round and isolated teams last season into small pods to reduce the risk of infections, no other team has won the BCHL crown since the Spruce Kings claimed their first-ever BCHL championship in 2019.
The Kings have 17 holdovers from the team that won the three-team Chilliwack pod championship in May. They capped off a 14-5-0-1 record and won the title with a plus-37 goal differential over their opponents, the Merritt Centennials and Chilliwack Chiefs.
Graduation cost the Kings their three top point-getters from last season – winger Christian Buono, defenceman Mason Waite and winger Andrew Seaman - and defenceman Tanner Main and forward Hunor Torzsok have also moved on. But with five returning 20-year-olds - forwards Corey Cunningham, Rowan Miller, Kolton Cousins, defenceman Josh Wright and goalie Aaron Trotter - and five 2001-born returnees - forwards Nick Rheaume, John Herrington, Simon Labelle, defenceman Colton Cameron and goalie Jordan Fairlie - the Kings are a veteran-rich crew prepared to pick up where they left off.
“In that 20-game pod season we were able to have last season we did well and it would have been nice to watch that group if we had had a normal season last year and what they could have accomplished, but we were fortunate and were able to roll 17 of those guys over into this year’s team,” said Kings general manager Mike Hawes.
Hawes and head coach Alex Evin have teamed up as recruiters to fill in the holes, signing QMJHL veteran D Dylan Schives, 20; LW Nicholas Athanasakos, 18; RW Jimmy Doyle, 19; and LW Evan Fedele (Burnaby Winter Club).
Through trades they picked up three BCHL vets – defenceman Brodie Gagno (Chilliwack Chiefs); forward Austin Fraser (Coquitlam Express) and defenceman Ian Kern (Surrey Eagles). Gagno has two seasons under his belt with the Chiefs as a stay-at-home type of defender and he’s already locked up a deal to join Quinnipiac University and his brother Ty, an 18-year-old rookie forward, also came to Prince George. Fraser had four goals and six assists in 20 games last season in the Coquitlam pod.
Schives played two full seasons with the Quebec Remparts and was traded eight games into last season to the Baie-Comeau Drakkar.
“Dylan played a lot of major junior and he’s come in here and a very well-mannered young man and he’s happy to be here and knows the value of playing in our league,” said Hawes. “We expect big things from him.”
Doyle, a 19-year-old native of Plainfield, Ill., is the lone American on the team. He collected 23 points last season in 64 games in the North American League combined with the Minnesota Magicians and Bismarck Bobcats. He’s committed next season to St. Lawrence University, Waite’s NCAA college team this year.
Other newcomers to watch include Fedele, a 17-year-old left winger who had 28 points in 33 games two seasons ago with the Burnaby Winter Club Elite 15s, and Athanasakos, a native of Unionville, Ont., who amassed 23 points in 29 games for Ridley College prep school in St. Catharines.
Cunningham, a Merrimack recruit and a major offensive contributor to the Kings’ 2019 championship squad, is looking for a bounce-back season playing for his hometown Kings after struggling to find his scoring touch in the Chilliwack pod.
The Kings also have high expectations for college-bound forwards Labelle (Colgate University), Herrington (Lake Superior State) and Rheaume (UMass-Lowell). Rheaume had six goals and 14 points in 20 games and has carved his niche as a power forward with soft hands. Hawes said Labelle could be the team’s most gifted offensive player and he showed flashes of that brilliance in the pod, especially in the second 10-game segment, after arriving from Quebec. Herrington, a former Cariboo Cougar from Hudson’s Hope, will be one of the go-to centremen this year and will surely improve on his 14-point season total before he heads off to Lake Superior State.
The goaltending appears set with Fairlie and Trotter sharing the load. Both were virtually unknown before the start of the pod season and both performed exceptionally well, allowing the Kings to trade 19-year-old netminder Kobe Grant to Swan Valley of the MJHL.
Also returning from last season are defencemen Ben LeFranc, Amran Bhabra, and Connor Elliott, all 18-year-olds; LW Kilian McGregor-Bennett, 18; and RW Linden Makow, 17.
This year, the Spruce Kings return to the Interior Division, after nine years in the Coastal Division. With the addition of the Cranbrook Bucks in 2020 as an expansion team, the league replaced its three-division format with a two-conference system with nine teams in each, which will finally be unveiled this season.
“We’re going to have a really strong team and I expect us to do well in our new division in the Interior,” said Hawes. “It’s our 50th anniversary season and we’re back in the Interior where we built up rivalries with the Pentictons and Vernons over the years, so to be back in that division is exciting. It’s arguably the best division in junior A hockey in Canada, for sure.”
Each team will play a 54-game schedule in 2021-22, plus two additional games in the BCHL Showcase event in Chilliwack, Oct. 20-24. The Kings open the season on the road n Merritt, Oct. 8 and then host the Cents in their home-opener at Rolling Mix on Oct. 15.
Forward Decker Mujcin and goalie Tysen Smith, both of the Cariboo Cougars, are among 10 younger prospects invited to the Kings’ camp this weekend.
The Kings’ exhibition season starts next Friday in Merritt, with games Tuesday, Sept. 28 in West Kelowna and Wednesday, Sept. 29 in Penticton. Merritt will face the Spruce Kings in afternoon game in Prince George on Sunday, Oct. 3 to wrap up the preseason.
The current health orders from the provincial health office limit teams crowds to half-capacity and all spectators must show proof they have been vaccinated.
Lukáš Lomicky is back for his second season as the Kings’ associate coach. The staff also includes assistant coach Jason Garneau, skills/development coach Nick Drazenovic, goalie coach Chris Hurry, and assistant GM/director of player personnel Craig Carter. Mitchell Karapita is the team trainer.
