Another season of Bomber hockey officially kicks off Friday night at the Whitney Forum. Here's what you need to know about this year's team.
The Bombers will open their season taking on the division rival Nipawin Hawks Friday night, then hitting the road Saturday for a grudge match with Melfort.
This year’s team will try to get the franchise’s monkey off its back - to win the team’s first championship since 1993, 32 years ago by the time the finals get underway. The goal for players and staff members alike is simple - to bring the title back to Flin Flon and to restore glory to the Bomber name.
It may be hockey convention that, after going all-in in the way the Bombers did last season, teams usually take a year or two to rebuild. The Bombers don’t tend to do that. They'll ice what is, on paper, one of the SJHL's most potent rosters.
In total, 29 players - two goalies, nine defenders and 18 forwards - will start the season with the Bombers. Not all will last the year. While some of the remaining players are already nursing injuries, Bomber head coach and general manager Mike Reagan said training camp and preseason lived up to his expectations and the players that remain are there for a reason.
"I was pretty happy. I think it was real competitive and I think through exhibition, we learned a lot about each player and were able to make some pretty informed decisions," he said.
"There were some guys who elevated their play and some guys who maybe didn't show enough of what we needed out of them, but I think we're still in the process of finalizing the team. Some injuries have gotten in the way - it's forced us to delay a few decisions that we have to make, but at the same time, you expect that at this time of year."
The offensive jewel in the crown is forward Carter Anderson, the league's top returning goalscorer and point-getter. Since joining the club last fall, Anderson scored at nearly a goal-per-game pace, finding the twine 36 times in 40 games and racking up 62 points. If he’d played a full season and kept his pace, Anderson would have not only beat Reid MacLeod’s modern team record for goals in a season at 47 - he'd have cracked 50, something no Bomber has done since hometown boy Reid Simpson in 1985.
The Bombers have welcomed in three new faces following preseason. Defenceman Emerson Clark, a Saskatoon-born prospect of the Brandon Wheat Kings, came up from Brandon camp and will start the season in maroon and white. Another young player, Parksville, B.C.’s Ben Groome, comes to Flin Flon after a detour through the BCHL.
Another top player came into Flin Flon shortly before the season began - forward Ryder Ringor, a Winnipeg product who played last season in the AJHL and BCHL for Sherwood Park. The 20-year-old Ringor thrived in the AJ, putting up 31 points in 45 games with the Crusaders. Ringor had trouble adapting to the BCHL once the team jumped ship midseason, but found his stride in the playoffs, putting up six points in nine games. Ringor was released by the Crusaders shortly before the season began, allowing Flin Flon to snap up his rights.
Ringor is familiar with some of his new teammates, as well as a few ex-Bombers. As a graduate of Winnipeg's Rink Hockey Academy, he played with both Anderson and with former Bomber Riley Niven, going through the same program that Flin Flonners Justin and Joey Lies played in. Ringor also played on teams with new teammate Keefe Gruener growing up.
"He's going to be a really good player for us," said Reagan.
"Adding another dynamic player to your lineup is important."
Ringor will start the year on a line with Anderson and returning forward Koen Senft.
Anthony Piccininno has shown promise as an all-purpose forward and set-up man. The Toronto native joined the Bombers in camp last year and put up 39 points in his first SJHL season. In a preseason game lined up with Anderson, Piccininno had five assists - his combination of speed, touch and grit will be hard for opponents to beat. Piccininno's start to the season will be delayed - an injury sustained in preseason play will keep him out of at least the first weekend of the season.
Four defencemen from last year’s team are back, including Cole Tanchuk. No other active Bomber - or indeed, any other active SJHL player - has played more games than he has. Tanchuk will, barring injuries or suspension, crack 200 regular season games played this season. Experienced forward Kylynn Olafson, a Swiss Army knife forward who’s been used all over the lineup the past three years, also has a chance of breaking that mark. Both Olafson and Tanchuk have been on the ice for the last three finals - and each time, their season has ended shaking the league champion’s hands.
Keefe Gruener's performance in the playoffs last season showed he could be an impact player in Flin Flon. His prowess in the faceoff dot and 200-foot game - a 187-foot game in the Forum's smaller-than-regulation confines - will be important.
Defencemen Luke Lepper and Pierce Yakimchuk have shown considerable growth since joining the team last fall, with both playing big roles down the stretch and during playoffs. Lepper’s speed and playmaking ability and Yakimchuk’s combo of size, strength and positional savvy will make both formidable.
In goal stands Kenny Marquart, the heir apparent to Laser-Hume. His backup for the past two seasons, Marquart had better numbers through last season than the starter did, though he did so by often playing middling teams. The netminder, who has another full season of junior eligibility left after this year, will have full grasp of the Bomber crease this season and is expected to be fully up to the task.
Joining the group of experienced Bombers are a handful of top-calibre new recruits, including 15 rookie players. The team so far is young, with one slot for a 20-year-old player not yet filled. Reagan said patience will be key with the new crew and plans to fill that final slot eventually.
"I think the biggest thing as coaches is that, Caigs (assistant coach Cole McCaig) and I, we're going to have to be patient with this group. It's going to take time to get them up to speed and accustomed to the league," he said.
"We like the talent - we like the calibre of our players. It's just a matter of them getting caught up to speed."
Those include the giant Justin Duval, all 6-foot-6 of him, coming to the Bombers from Quebec and sports both wheels and a set of hands most fans wouldn’t expect to see from a player his size. Duval is one of the players who will start the season late due to injury, but the team expects him back soon.
Three Flin Flon-born players made the team out of camp - veteran forward Joey Lies returns and is joined by the dynamic duo of Ryder Mucha and Wyatt Stinton, two players who grew up playing with and against each other. Good friends as kids, born one day apart from each other, Mucha and Stinton went different routes for player development due to their addresses - Stinton, who's from Channing, went through Manitoba, while Mucha, whose family is in Creighton, went through Saskatchewan, even though their homes are a 10-minute drive apart. Both are still U18 eligible, but both players broke camp - among the youngest Bombers to do so this year.
"To have three locals on the team is pretty impressive nowadays. I think people should be excited about that - these are fresh faces who hopefully are going to be Bombers for the next three or four years. I think that can be exciting," said Reagan.
Leo Seitz, the team's youngest player and a former Bomber first-round pick, has one of the most accurate shots around - if he has the puck, he can pick a corner from almost anywhere in the offensive zone. He will start the season with Alberta product Evin Bossel and Stinton - Stinton and Seitz played together at Rink Academy last year.
Austin Montgomery-Parsons, a 20-year-old recruit from B.C., comes to Flin Flon after a season in an Ontario league - his jack-of-all-trades style could make him a fan favourite with time. Rhett Ewen, the cousin of former Bomber Joey Kocur, joined the club in an offseason trade - he’s 6-foot-2, 187 pounds and likes to throw that weight around, crashing and banging and getting into the dirty areas of the rink.
The shadow of last season weighs heavy on this year's Bombers. Last season was, in the eyes of many Bomber fans, “the year” - the stars had aligned, with a strong group of veteran players and prospects alike, including hometown captain Justin Lies, back for his only season as a Bomber before aging out of junior. Acquisitions were made to bolster that group, including picking up Anderson and defenceman Adam McNutt.
The Bombers didn't lose once in regulation in the first six weeks of the season, the hottest junior A start in the team's nearly hundred-year history. The team slowed down in the stretch run, but still swept the first two rounds of the playoffs before a finals date against rivals Melfort, who had come into the series after a seven-game war between them and Humboldt, missing several key players.
The Mustangs flipped the script, dominating Flin Flon in Game 1 at the Whitney Forum and barely letting up for the rest of the series. Melfort went up 3-0 in the series and while the Bombers scraped out a pair of wins to push the series to six, the Mustangs won their first title since 2016 on home ice - that one too coming against the Bombers.
The team has gotten so close to glory, agonizingly so - the squad has made the league finals in 2016, 2017, 2022, 2023 and earlier this year. In the past seven years where the SJHL has had a final - discounting the COVID-19-dashed 2020 and 2021 editions - the Bombers have been in five of them. They have lost all five, racking up a combined record of 7-20 in those finals games in the meantime.
That is the past, though - the future begins this weekend. Reagan said that fans shouldn't expect the same start as last year, but he said the team should still be a success this season.
"If people think we're going to explode out of the gates... I hope people aren't panicking after our first loss and being like, 'Oh boy, this team's not like last year.' It's different. We had an older group last year with a lot of experience. We're still looking to get there, but it might take a bit longer than last year," he said.
"We're going to be the way we've been in the past - we work extremely hard and we're going to play Bomber hockey. I'm a big believer that the team style doesn't change for the player, the player has to change their style to play the Bomber way. Getting back there? That's going to take time, but we'll get there."
