It has come down to the last week of preparation for the Savage Cup and, with a few last-minute changes, Powell River Regals appear to have a very competitive team ready to take the ice against Fort St. John.
Powell River put names on all 36 cards available to them but after the camp held at Burnaby Winter Club last weekend just 26 players have indicated their intentions to be in town for the five-day series.
Coach Rick Hopper ran the mini-camp. “I thought it went well,” he said. “We basically had two practices and an intersquad game with the 30 or so who were there.”
Hopper and many of the players were getting together for the first time but for a few it was a chance to get reacquainted.
“I hadn’t seen Elias Godoy since he was a junior hockey player,” Hopper said, “and he looked real good. Bobby Russell skated with us on Sunday and he looked great and goalies David Brumby and Justin Mulholland both looked sharp. I think we’re going to be okay in net.”
Hopper said Brumby has other commitments and might not be there for the full five games, but he has no doubt Mulholland is up to the challenge, having played Junior B, BC Junior A, some Western Hockey League and some Canadian university-level hockey.
“Both are in really good shape and that’s always encouraging when you see guys’ fitness levels up there.”
The defensive corp is solid with Dale Lupul, Doug Wilson, Chad Euverman, Jason Lynch, Tyler Gow, Lucas Fransen and Derek Lewis committed to the series.
“It would have been nice to have everyone at my disposal but unfortunately I didn’t have them all,” Hopper said. “We had enough guys though to get an inkling of some line combinations and defensive pairings and I think we were starting to get an idea of what we can expect.”
He had Richard Molenaar skating with Chris Taar and Ricky McLaren, and Godoy and Russell hopefully with Milan Gajic.
Another line combination was John Coyle, Scott Kirton and possibly Derek Paget with Troy Dalton centring Joe Caldarone, Andy Welsh or possibly John Murgatroyd.
“It looks like we’re going to have as good a lineup as we took up to Fort St. John,” said Hopper, “but we’ll have to wait until March 22 to know what we have for sure.”
That brings up a hot topic of discussion in Allan Cup circles which is the shroud of silence from the Regals camp.
“We could release the names of the people we protected but who wants to check all of those when we don’t even know who is actually going to play?” he said. “Those areas that have senior hockey and a league, well good for them, but we’re not able to do that and most people don’t really care anyways, even those who attend the games in Powell River.”
With the event drawing closer Hopper knows there will be a steep learning curve for the new recruits.
“It’ll be fun though,” he said. “I have no idea what Fort is going to show up with. We’ll be all over the map,” referring to the first 20 minutes of play, “but as long as we’re not buried up to our necks in pucks we may just start coming on.”
The five-game series starts at 8:30 pm on Thursday, March 22 at Hap Parker Arena. The time has been pushed back to accommodate Powell River Kings playing game five against Coquitlam Express at 6 pm.
Updates will be available online. All Savage Cup games will be broadcast live on Fort St. John's Moose FM, which can also be found online.
