It’s been a long eight months for Connor Bowie.
Eight months without playing a hockey game? That’s unheard of for player talented enough to crack the roster of the Prince George Cougars. But in pandemic times, change is just around the corner and the lockdown on organized sports activities has already delayed the start of junior hockey’s new season by 2 ½ months.
Bowie’s drought comes to an end tonight. But instead of skating for the Cougars at CN Centre, the 19-year-old centre will be in the Spruce Kings’ lineup when they take on the Merritt Centennials in an exhibition game tonight (7 p.m.) at Rolling Mix Concrete Arena.
Bowie and Cougars defenceman Aiden Reeves joined the Kings from the Cougars two weeks ago in a special arrangement which allows WHL teams to loan their players to junior A teams until Dec. 20. They’ve both been enjoying the up-tempo practices Kings head coach Alex Evin has been running to get his team ready for a B.C. Hockey League season that starts Dec. 4.
Until the Kings invited them, Bowie and Reeves and a couple other Cougars were limited to small group training sessions on the ice with Cougars director of player development Steve O’Rourke. But they couldn’t replicate game-like intensity until they started scrimmaging with the Spruce Kings.
“We were skating three times a week, working out five times a week, it wasn’t much, but then the rule came out that we could play here and we obviously jumped on that right away,” said the 19-year-old Bowie, who will centre a line with BCHL veterans Christian Buono and Austin Spiridakis in Saturday’s game (7 p.m. start).
“There’s nothing like actually practicing or playing and what comes with that. Just being in a team environment and competing with these guys has just been way better for us overall. If you look at the AJHL or SJHL, a lot of WHL players are taking the opportunity to play there and it’s a good thing. It’s the best training you’re really going to get right now and it could really help you going into the season.”
In his second full WHL season, Bowie produced 12 goals and 11 assists for 23 points in 62 games with the Cougars. His adept face-off skills, strong skating and playmaking abilities and defensive awareness earned him a ton of icetime with the Mark Lamb-coached Cougars.
“I just want to build on that this season,” said the six-foot-two, 210-pound Bowie. “It was a good summer of working on my face-offs and dipping pucks. Going into the (WHL) season, I want to be a guy the Cougars can rely to stop pucks going into our net and putting some on the board as well.”
Reeves is no stranger to the Spruce Kings. He played seven games last season for the Kings after getting calling up from the major midget Cariboo Cougars. He finished the season with the Cougars and played 12 WHL games, drawing one assist. In 20 games with the midget Cats he scored three goals and had 12 assists.
“Lots of it for me is confidence and last year, being scratched a lot, it’s tough to the rink and be confident every day and I’m just getting more comfortable with that, just being better on the ice,” said the 18-year-old Prince George native. “Alex is giving me lots of opportunity maybe I wouldn’t have got last year, it‘s just new situation being put into.
“It’s definitely cool to come back to an organization that I played for before, I know all the systems and Alex runs a shop where everything’s systematic, so it’s nice to be comfortable here. Even the practices have been totally better than anything we’ve been doing before, just being able to battle against guys. Everything has been good so far.”
Having played in the WHL and BCHL last season, Reeves said there are distinct differences.
“The BCHL is a lot tougher to play in, physically-wise,” he said. “It’s just so much battling, everyone is dumping and chasing and everyone’s rubbing everybody out. You don’t have the puck for as long. The Dub is more skilled, less systematic. Guys have more skill so they’re able to carry (the puck) for longer.”
Reeves has added some 14 pounds muscle to his six-foot-two frame and now weighs 187 pounds. He’s noticed he’s faster on his blades and is skating with more confidence. That added bulk wasn’t much help to him Thursday in practice when he got jammed against the unyielding Rolling Mix boards. The collision left him with a minor shoulder injury that will sideline him on Saturday and he will be among the 50 or so observers watching from the stands.
Bowie, a native of Fort St. John, played lots of minor hockey games at Rolling Mix and its unforgiving boards and glass and he likes the rink, which is 10 feet shorter than NHL dimensions.
“I played here when I was a kid all the time and I like the ice, you can fly out there,” said Bowie. “If you’re hitting guys it’s good but if you’re getting hit it’s not great. If you’re hitting anybody it’s going to hurt and it changes the game a bit.”
The Kings will scratch D Ben LeFranc (injured), F Kilian McGregor-Bennett (injured), F Carter Cochrane (inured), G Carter Woodside (injured) and F Kolton Cousins (healthy).
Coming off a lower-body injury, Spiridakis and is expected to play his first game in a Spruce Kings jersey since being acquired in an off-season trade from the Port Alberni Bulldogs. The 18-year-old from St. Albert, Alta., collected seven goals and 19 points in his second BCHL season and has signed a college commitment with Quinnipiac University for 2021.
“We like the way he skates, he’s got some grit in his game and a good shot,” said Evin. “We’re excited to have him.”
Merritt has added 20-year-old Kamloops Blazers forward Brodi Stuart, a three-year WHL veteran who finished with 39 points last season. Around the league, the Spokane Chiefs have loaned 18-year-old Spokane Chiefs forward Jack Finlay to the West Kelowna Warriors. Stuart scored 19 goals and 57 points in 61 games for the Chiefs last year. The Nanaimo Clippers bolstered their lineup with the addition defenceman Gianni Fairbrother, a Montreal Canadians third-round pick in 2019, who put up 25 points in 37 games in 2019-20 with the Everett Silvertips.
BCHL teams will play a 32-game schedule within their cohort groups. The Spruce Kings are grouped with Merritt, Trail Smoke Eaters and the expansion Cranbrook Bucks. Prince George travels south next weekend for exhibition games in Cranbrook, Nov. 13-14, and in Trail, Nov. 15. The regular season starts Dec. 4 with Kings hosting Merritt. With so few games to prepare for, Evin says he’s enjoying the luxury of ample practice time in what will amount to a two-month training camp.
“We started with fundamental skills the first couple weeks and slowly introduced some team systems and we’re still going back to the structured side of it and now we’re starting to get into a little more special teams and a little more detail,” said Evin.
“We have lots of time, we still have another month until the regular season. I think it’s a good thing. It’ll probably make our team play cleaner to start the year. You need a good foundation to be successful. Our practices have gotten a lot better.”
The Kings lost 2-1 to Merritt at home, Oct. 25, the last time both teams were in preseason action.
The league announced Thursday the Wenatchee Wild won’t be included in the regular season due to the fact the Canada-U.S. border remains closed. The Wild be playing intrasquad games until the border does reopen. Only then would the team be eligible to play regular season and playoff games.
Saturday’s Kings-Cents game is closed to the public due to COVID-19 restrictions and it will be webcast on the rebranded BCHL TV through a new website -www.bchltv.ca. The platform is still affiliated with Hockey TV, which will make all exhibition, regular season and playoff games available to fans.
