A pair of Flin Flon blueliners and a familiar face for Bomber fans will be playing together next season in B.C. college hockey.
The Vancouver Island Univ. Mariners (VIU) seem to have an eye open for Flin Flon talent. The team announced last month that it will be bringing in Jordan Pfoh, a 20-year-old Flin Flon-born player who spent parts of two seasons with the Bombers, for next season. Pfoh will join both a fellow Flin Flonner and a former Bomber with his new college team. The VIU squad already features defenceman Aaron Beauchamp, born and raised in Flin Flon, and two-year Bomber forward Caleb Franklin.
A Hapnot Collegiate graduate, Pfoh plays both forward and defence, learning how to play both positions during a three-season run with the Thompson-based Norman Northstars U18 AAA program. Despite starting as a defenceman, Pfoh later converted to forward, becoming the team’s captain and leading point scorer in his final year. After leaving the Northstars, Pfoh committed to join the Bombers in 2020-21, but COVID-19 put the kibosh on that - Pfoh played in one of the Bombers’ two total games before the season was stalled, suspended and eventually cancelled.
Pfoh played 32 games for the Bombers in 2021-22 before being traded in his last year of junior hockey to the Dryden Ice Dogs. There, reunited with former minor hockey teammate Derek Koivisto, Pfoh flourished, scoring 35 points in 49 games and adding 13 playoff points in 12 games.
"I am super grateful to have the chance to continue my hockey career at VIU and chase a championship with this group,” Pfoh is quoted as saying in a VIU announcement.
VIU plays in the B.C. Intercollegiate Hockey League (BCIHL), a five-team loop of B.C.-based college and university teams. Based in Nanaimo, the Mariners finished second in the league last year with a 13-6-0-1 record, behind only the 19-1-0-0 Simon Fraser Red Leafs, who beat the Mariners in the league final last March.
Beauchamp, who turned 27 in April, will start his fifth season of college hockey. The defenceman’s journey through the sport included three seasons with the Norman Northstars before playing for six different junior A teams in three seasons, ending his junior career with a season with the MJHL’s Waywayseecappo Wolverines.
After playing a season of senior hockey, Beauchamp headed west to join the Portage College Voyageurs, an Alberta Colleges Athletic Conference (ACAC) team based in Lac la Biche, Alta. Beauchamp played for the team from 2018-20 until COVID-19 caused what would have been his junior year with Portage to be cancelled. Beauchamp then played one more year with Portage in 2021-22 before joining VIU last year.
In 73 games of college hockey during that time, Beauchamp has scored three goals and has 16 points.
One of the team’s key forwards is Franklin, who came to Flin Flon in 2018 following a trade moving him from his home province. Over the next two seasons, Franklin became a Swiss-army-knife forward for the Bombers, playing 112 games between regular season and playoffs in maroon and white. Franklin tallied 63 points, including 21 goals, over that time. Known for his penalty-killing acumen and high compete level, Franklin would fit whatever spot in the lineup that needed filling, playing his final junior A game as a defenceman after the Bombers had several players out with injuries. Franklin’s junior A career ended when COVID-19 shut down the SJHL playoffs in 2020. After a pandemic year off from the game, Franklin joined VIU in 2021-22, since playing 37 games as a Mariner and scoring nine goals and 21 points in that time.
