With the SJHL season almost over and our playoff preview section coming out next week, I’d like to take a second to look over this year’s SJHL season. I don’t typically veer into sports in these columns often, but this season needs a closer look.
First off, hand the league MVP and player of the year trophies to Yorkton’s Chantz Petruic. The kid has had the hot hand all year, and even if his discipline apparently needs work – he got a six game suspension for jumping off the bench to join a fight, which in hindsight is a complete bonehead move – his offensive talent has been beyond both reproach and approach.
For a while before he jumped the bench, Petruic literally had tallied more points than the entire Weyburn Red Wings team had goals scored. Yes, Weyburn’s offence has been hot garbage, but still – Petruic produced more offence by himself than an entire team. Give him the crown.
Speaking of players with disciplinary issues, this season has been marked by a small number of dramatic, idiotic moments leading to long suspensions. A Yorkton Terriers player crashed into Melville’s Berk Berkeliev full force when he went out to play the puck and was eventually suspended indefinitely and booted from the Terriers.
While that was certainly the SJHL’s low point of the season, it did create one of the league’s high points. Once Berkeliev recovered from the hit, he played like a man possessed. Despite playing on what is now the SJHL’s worst team in the standings (by a lot, too), Berkeliev now has the league’s best save percentage. He’s currently a nominee for the SJHL’s goalie of the year award and while co-nominees Riley Kohonick and Liam McGarva are both great netminders in their own rights, the award is Berkeliev’s this year. Give him the crown, too.
The Sherwood division is still the SJHL’s version of Thunderdome, except this year, four teams entered… and four teams left. All four are in the playoffs – and not only that, but all four are in the top half of the league table. Every Sherwood team is a legitimate threat to do damage in this year’s playoffs.
Closer to home, the Bombers have proved, once again, to be a force. I’ll admit, last summer, I didn’t know how this season would shake out. If you look at the Bombers’ top 10 scorers this year, only three of them – the electric Donavan Houle-Villeneuve, the sturdy Mason Martin and the deeply undervalued Billy Klymchuk – played here last year. Martin and Klymchuk weren’t exactly known for their offence last year. When we spoke with Martin before the season started, right after he received the team’s C, he called himself a shutdown defenceman. Man, he has a damn fine shot for a shutdown D.
The forward corps had question marks – who was going to be on the first line? Who were these mysterious Haygarth twins? The D had questions – only four returnees there. The goaltending had questions after the deal that sent Gabriel Waked out of town – could Jacob Delorme become the starter the team needed?
Don’t count out Mike Reagan’s ability to build a team. Before the season started, he pulled two former major junior players from well out of province into the fold within days of each other. Cole Rafuse and Alec Malo came to Flin Flon for almost nothing – Rafuse literally for nothing, Malo for a player development fee.
Tristan Lemyre, the presumptive SJHL rookie of the year, was an off-season signee, an undersized Quebec midget player. He has been arguably the league’s best forward since New Year’s and has locked down what stands right now as the SJHL’s top scholarship offer.
The defence was bolstered by a pair of marquee trade targets, Troy Quinn and Dane Hirst. Rookies like Adam Victorino and Cole Vardy made progress on the back end, while the tandem of Jacob Delorme and Cal Schell in net has cemented themselves in nicely. Forwards Hayden Clayton and Zach Bannister have played quality minutes, while Reid Robertson and Caleb Franklin chase down pucks like hungry dogs going after raw steak.
For Bomber fans, savour this club while you can. Yes, we see frequent and radical roster changes year to year in junior hockey and we’ve seen Bomber teams with big turnover at the top come back and contend year after year, but the future is always unknown.
I’ve watched the Bombers since I was a little tyke. I remember seeing a lot in the old barn – line brawls with flailing punches while “Yakkety Sax” played on the PA system, the RBC Cup and how it made the town buzz for weeks, the lean years after the RBC Cup run where the team literally gave an award to the player with the worst plus-minus, the league final runs that ended in heartbreak.
I can’t remember a Bomber offence ever being this hot when it’s at its peak.
I also can’t remember seeing the Bombers win anything. The team’s last title came a few years before I was born and I’m now 25 with a degree, bills and car payments. Considering the current uncertainty around the very fate of the town (and possibly, someday, the Bombers themselves) Flin Flon doesn’t just want a championship team – we need it.
I don’t know what the future holds for anything, especially the Bombers, but this team looks special. We may never see something like it again, so let’s be pleased it’s here now and enjoy it while it lasts.
The playoffs start in less than two weeks. There’s only one home game left this season. If you’re a Flin Flon hockey fan and you’re not making your way to the Forum, you’re missing out.
