The Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League (SJHL) prides itself on parity and the teams in the Finning Division should be a shining example of that in 2016-17.
“Our division is going to be tough,” said Geoff Grimwood, head coach of the Kindersley Klippers. “Humboldt and Notre Dame are going to be really improved and Battlefords, I think until somebody proves differently, is going to be the favourite here in our division.”
Grimwood said the Klippers will have 12 returning players this season including five defenceman, but the club is going in a new direction between the pipes picking up Alberta Junior Hockey League veteran Gunnar Neilson from the Bonnyville Pontiacs and Saskatchewan Midget AAA Hockey League (SMHL) netminder Justen Close. The team will also have to make do without their top three scorers from last season due to graduation.
“We’re going to look at Carson Pickett and Josh Bly as guys who we think are going to be our productive offensive guys,” said Grimwood. “We’ve got a pretty competitive forward group and a couple veteran guys down the middle, so hopefully that’s a strength for us.”
The Klippers main rival is the Battlefords North Stars, which was the class of the division last season posting a 43-11-2-2 record. The North Stars are faced with the task of duplicating that success in 2016-17 without leading scorer Igor Leonenko and with a change behind the bench as former Fort McMurray Keyano College coach Nate Bedford has stepped in to fill the shoes of Kevin Hasselberg.
Bedford will have the opportunity to coach outstanding SJHL sophomore forward Layne Young who notched 75 points in his rookie campaign last season and puck moving defencemen Connor Sych and Kendall Fransoo, which should make the move to Saskatchewan junior A hockey a little less difficult.
The Notre Dame Hounds will also undergo a few changes in 2016-17 with top scorer Ian Williams and starting goalie Alexi Thibaudeau graduating, but the club is looking to make up for those losses with young talent including Adam Dawe, who scored 30 goals and 54 points for the midget AAA Hounds last season, and SMHL prospect Colby Brandt who notched 44 points in 43 games in 2015-16 with the Tisdale Trojans. Veteran forward Ben Duperreault, who split last season between the Hounds and the Western Hockey League’s Lethbridge Hurricanes, will also be back to help the Wilcox-based club.
Darcy Haugan, head coach of the Humboldt Broncos, said they have returned a majority of the young talent the team employed last season in a rebuild year while also complimenting that youth with a few 20-year-old veterans in the off-season. He said they have picked up veteran goaltender Garrett Mason, who has 57 games of Alberta Junior Hockey League experience under his belt, to be their last line of defence as well as experienced junior A forward Dante Raposo and defenseman Parker Wakaruk to help move the team forward.
“We want to get to the playoffs,” said Haugan, whose team missed the post-season last year posting a 17-36-4-1 record. “We’re hoping that we can take the next step as a hockey team and continue to grow and mature as a group and learn how to win. How fast we can do that will determine the success that we’re going to have. Just because we have a lot of guys returning doesn’t mean we’re going to be a good hockey team, so there is a lot of work to be done.”
