By Michael Yahn /
The Chilliwack Bruins rollercoaster season has continued into December. The Bruins have fought all season to get past the .500 mark – not unlike many teams in the league, but what makes Chilliwack different is their ability over the past month-and-a-half to do away with some of the best teams in the WHL.
This new-found dominance was apparent again with recent 3-0 and 4-0 wins over the division-rival Kamloops Blazers and the always-tough first place Vancouver Giants. It was the Bruins’ second straight win against the Giants who had dominated the Bruins since their inception into the league. Like the rest of the season so far however, these stellar home-ice performances were book-ended with two disappointing results – a 7-2 drubbing at the hands of the Kootenay Ice at the Prospera Centre and a 6-3 loss to the Calgary Hitmen again in front of the home crowd.
“I see us as an inconsistent team where we win one game and then lose the next,” said assistant coach Peter Hay of the team’s hit or miss results. “This is partly that our top players are still young and we are coming from a losing culture last year so we have to continue to build from within a winning culture and environment that will help us put a string of wins together. This is a team commitment right from off-ice training, food choices, on-ice skills development, and mental game preparation. As a group, we all have to buy in to what Marc Habscheid is teaching and be willing to change for the team rather than individual achievement.”
What has been evident in the wins has been the talent of goaltender Lucas Gore. This made it an easier decision for Bruins brass to hand him the number one spot and trade their other nineteen-year old backstopper Mark Friesen to the Swift Current Broncos for a third round pick in next Spring’s draft. With the move, the team brought up Braden Gamble to back-up Gore.
“The motivation was that we had two 19-year-olds and we felt we had one of our better players on the bench each night as a backup; and as an organization, we felt that it would help us to have another top player through the third round pick we received than have a good player sit out,” explained Hay. “Mark was a class act and a great goalie. We wish him the best in Swift. Braden Gamble is a list player of ours who was doing well for the Drumheller Dragons in the Alberta Junior A League. He is 18-years-old.”
The team, which sits in second place and widening the gap in pursuit of the first-place Giants, has the look of a contender now with strong goaltending, a tough and rugged blueline, and a scoring touch that had been missing last year and at the start of this season.
A bit of a setback will be the departure of third-year defenceman David Robinson who decided to end his WHL career early citing a “lack of passion for the game.” His talents will be sorely missed by the team for the rest of the season. |