Haas' Hub
Week 8 of the BCHL season is now in the books and the biggest news was on the trade front with a couple of key moves along with the possibility of more deals to come.
The Burnaby Express were involved in a five player deal and Head Coach Dave McLellan discussed the trading of Stephen Ceccanese with Grant Granger of the Burnaby NewsLeader, “That was an indication to us that was going to be too high a price to pay to have someone with no sense of defensive responsibility at all,” he also mentioned that the Express are still interested in acquiring another defenseman, “The next few games will determine who we give up to do that. There's going to be some pressure on our players to bring up their game and compete every night. If you're not going to compete you may be the guy leaving.” The full article is here.
Trade winds might also be blowing on Vancouver Island as the Victoria Grizzlies are winless in their last six games going 0-5-0-1 after a nine game winning streak and a 12-2-0-0 start to the season. Grizzlies' General Manager Jackson Penney wasn't happy with the latest road trip as he told Cleve Dheensaw of the Victoria Times Colonist, “Everybody wants to be on this team for the RBC Cup [national Junior 'A' championship tournament, which the Grizzlies are hosting and have a bye into in May], but you're not going to be if you're not going to work hard for the full 60 minutes.” The rest of the article can be read here.
The Penticton Vees were involved in a multi-team deal and Head Coach and General Manager Fred Harbinson talked about moving David Andreassen to David Crompton of the Penticton Herald, “We were trying to encourage David to get into better shape and I'm not sure he was prepared to put in the time to get where we needed him to be. He was petering out in the latter half of games so we couldn't use him as much. We offer a lot to our players in Penticton, but with that comes higher expectations.” The rest of the article is here.
Meanwhile, the Merritt Centennials acquired Alex Goodship and Brad Bourke from the Vees and Assistant Coach Bill Birks is pleased with the two players as he told the Merritt Herald, “We got a guy coming in [Goodship] who will be our leading scorer and another [Bourke] who will be our best defenseman,” says Birks. “We got a guy who'll go into our top line and another who'll be our go-to defenseman.” The rest of the article can be read here.
Several teams in the league are also riding lengthy winning streaks.
Darcy Oakes and Kyle Bodie continue to lead the Powell River Kings as they are on seven game point streaks good for 19 and 14 points respectively. The Kings have won all of those games plus one for eight straight victories. Defenseman Mat Bodie has the most points of any player in the league without a goal. Bodie so far has 19 assists while the next closest players without any goals have only nine points. Vees' Head Coach Fred Harbinson had kind words for the Kings as he told Emanuel Sequeira of the Penticton Western News, “That's probably the best hockey club we've played, definitely this year and one of the best I've seen in a couple of years,” The rest of the article can be read here.
The Salmon Arm Silverbacks' Conor Morrison is on a nine game point streak for a total of 16 points while Keenan Desmet is on a seven game point streak good for nine points. The Silverbacks have won eight games in a row and are 11-0-0-1 in their last 12 games. Quote of the week goes to Silverbacks' forward Justin Cseter who scored his first goal of the season in overtime on Saturday night and described it to Ted Clarke of the Prince George Citizen, “Ever since I was a little kid I've had a problem with claustrophobia,” said Cseter, a native of Menomonie, Wisc. “At the end there I was fighting for air at the end of a shift and everyone was around me and I couldn't get any air in my lungs and the next thing I know, the puke was coming out.” The rest of the article is here.
The Nanaimo Clippers have won six straight contests with Russell Goodman and Eric Filiou on five game point streaks, good for ten and eight points respectively.
Finally the Prince George Spruce Kings' Sam Muchalla is on a five game point streak for a total of eight points while Trevor Hertz and Mitchell Smith of the Quesnel Millionaires are also on five game point streaks good for nine and six points respectively.
Patrick Haas, the voice of the Salmon Arm Silverbacks, takes a weekly look at the top news from around the BC Hockey League. Each week, Patrick will review the headlines that have fans of the league's 16 teams buzzing.
