Blazers trim roster to 27

By GREGG DRINNAN
Daily News Sports Editor
The Kamloops Blazers re-assigned two players over the weekend, getting their roster down to 27.
Defenceman Jordan Thomson, 15, was returned to the midget AAA Southwest Cougars, who play out of Souris, Man., while forward Dallas Calvin, who turns 17 on Sept. 27, will join the BCHL’s Trail Smoke Eaters.
Thomson, who is too young to play in the WHL on a full-time basis, was the fourth overall selection in the WHL’s 2011 bantam draft.
Thomson picked up an assist in the Blazers’ 4-2 exhibition victory over the visiting Victoria Royals on Friday night.
“He’s an exciting player,” Blazers head coach Guy Charron said, “as is young (Joe) Hicketts. I was impressed with both those kids.”
Hicketts, who is from Kamloops, was selected by Victoria with the 12th pick of the 2011 draft. He played for the Royals on Friday and then was left at home. He will play for a midget team at the Okanagan Hockey Academy in Penticton.
The 6-foot-4, 200-pound Calvin is a list player who has signed with the Blazers. He played last season with the junior B Beaver Valley Nitehawks of the Kootenay International league.
Charron said he met with the Trail native on Monday and “he would rather go back and play junior” with the Smoke Eaters.
“Calvin played junior B last season,” Charron said, “and saw the difference in the level of play here. It was quite an eye-opener in Vancouver on Saturday and he might have been surprised.”
The Blazers gave up five power-play goals in that one, resulting in a 6-3 loss in a game played at the Ladner Leisure Centre.
The Giants, who had lost 4-3 in OT to the Rockets in Kelowna on Friday, scored two PP goals before the game was nine minutes old and never looked back.
Linemates Brendan Gallagher and Marek Tvrdon each scored twice for Vancouver, with Jordan Martinook and Cain Franson adding one each.
Tvrdon was playing in his first game since suffering a shoulder injury in October.
Defenceman Austin Madaisky, with two, and winger Chase Souto scored for the Blazers. Madaisky scored on a 5-on-3 power play and also while shorthanded.
The Giants finished 5-for-11 with the man advantage; the Blazes were 2-for-5.
Vancouver goaltender Brendan Jensen went the distance, making 31 saves. The Blazers started with Cole Cheveldave, who stopped 12 of 15 shots, and finished with Taran Kozun, who gave up three goals on 24 shots.
Sophomore centre Logan McVeigh of the Blazers was held out of practice Monday after showing concussion symptoms. He was injured Saturday. McVeigh now will have to be symptom-free for a week before he can resume practising.
JUST NOTES: F Matt Needham (elbow) took part in a full practice for the first time on Monday. He suffered an elbow injury in an ATV accident prior to the start of training camp. . . . The Blazers are carrying three goaltenders, nine defencemen and 15 forwards. . . . With school starting today, the Blazers will get back to their normal schedule with practices starting at 2 p.m. . . . They next play Friday against the Rockets. Game time, at Interior Savings Centre, is 7 p.m. . . . The Brandon Wheat Kings have lost veteran D Brodie Melnychuk, 20, with a broken wrist suffered during training camp on the weekend. He is listed as being out indefinitely.

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Blazers trim roster to 29

Following their intrasquad game on Tuesday night, the Kamloops Blazers trimmed 17 players from their roster.
D MacKenzie Ferner (Vernon, B.C.), F Mitch Friesen (Surrey, B.C.), F Brayden Gelsinger (Regina), F Eric Krienke (Calgary), G Braden Krogfoss (Cloverdale, B.C.), G Scott Lapp (Surrey, B.C.), F Matt McLeod (Saskatoon), F Kyler Nachtigall (Calgary), F Tre Potskin (Prince George) and F Evan Tordiff (Fort Smith, N.W.T.) are expected to play for midget AAA teams this season.
D Tyson Harvey (Nanaimo, B.C.) and F Diego Cuglietta (Kamloops) will play for the junior B Kamloops Storm of the Kootenay International junior league, with F Jared Marchi (Kimberley, B.C.) joining his hometown Dynamiters, who play in the KIJHL.
D Braden Pears (Duncan, B.C.), D Ryan Rehill (Edmonton), F Cam Rowat (Souris, Man.) and G Troy Trombley (Sherwood Park, Alta.) will be joining junior A teams.
With those players having been assigned, the Blazers’ roster is down to 29 players — 16 forwards, 10 defencemen and three goaltenders.
It is fair to say that there haven’t been any surprises in the Blazers’ camp, which wrapped up with the intrasquad game.
The three goaltenders still standing are Cam Lanigan, 19, who has played in 90 regular-season WHL games with the Edmonton Oil Kings and the Blazers but who has a lot to prove after a horrible finish to last season; G Cole Cheveldave, the AJHL’s rookie of the year with the Drumheller Dragons last season; and, Taran Kozun, who starred with the midget AAA Prince Albert Mintos. Cheveldave is 18; Kozun is 17.
The Blazers will open the exhibition season on Friday against the visiting Victoria Royals. The six exhibition games will determine the pecking order for the goaltenders come the regular-season opener on Sept. 24 when the Prince George Cougars come calling.
One of the remaining 10 defencemen, Jordan Thomson, is the only 15-year-old still on the roster. The fourth overall pick in the 2011 bantam draft, he will be heading home to Wawanesa, Man., sometime during the long weekend.
The Blazers are carrying six veteran defencemen, with three rookies looking for spots — Tyler Bell of Regina and Landon Cross of Regina both are 17, while Josh Connolly of Prince George is 16. Connolly is the younger brother of Prince George Cougars star Brett Connolly.
The Blazers will have two defencemen — Josh Caron (Minnesota) and Austin Madaisky (Columbus) — going to pro camp, so they may carry Bell, Cross and Connolly for a while.
Of the 16 remaining forwards, 10 are veterans, while Matt Needham (13 games) and Aspen Sterzer (10) got a taste of the WHL with the Blazers last season.
Swiss F Tim Bozon, Dallas Calvin of Trail, B.C., Devin Oakes of Prince Rupert, B.C., and Cole Ully of Calgary are the other newcomers still on the roster.
Needham (elbow) and veteran F Jordan DePape (hip flexor) didn’t play in the intrasquad game, while veteran F J.C. Lipon left in the third period with an injury to his left leg.

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Asuchak having fun despite turbulence

Spencer Asuchak feels that his hockey skills are catching up
to his size, and that is helping his confidence.
(Photo courtesy Prince George Cougars)

By GREGG DRINNAN
Daily News Sports Editor
Despite the fact that this has been something of a turbulent season, Spencer Asuchak, a forward with the WHL’s Prince George Cougars, is in no hurry for it to end.
“I’m having the time of my life,” Asuchak, a 19-year-old forward from Kamloops, said Wednesday. “It’s the most fun I’ve probably ever had playing hockey.”
Since mid-January, Asuchak has served 11 games in suspensions — eight after testing positive for methylhexanamine, a stimulant he acknowledged having taken inadvertently in an energy drink, and three after he was hit with a charging major on Feb. 22.
“It was pretty rough at first, but I had a lot of support from everybody,” Asuchak said of being the first WHL player to be suspended for a positive test.
He still hears about it from the odd opposing player, but said he “never heard anything from the stands.”
Opposing players, he said, “beaked” at him a bit “but nothing too bad.”
Shortly after returning from that suspension, Asuchak ran into goaltender Mac Carruth of the Portland Winterhawks.
“Yeah, I ran into him,” the 6-foot-4, 215-pound Asuchak admitted. “We were racing for the puck. He came out to play it and I was racing down on the forecheck.”
Combine the two suspensions with an early-season concussion and Asuchak’s season has been one of stops and starts.
“He’s had a different season,” Cougars head coach Dean Clark said. “Every time he seems to get going . . . there was the concussion and then he’s going good and he got supsended.
“He’s going good right now but it seems that every time he’s going good he gets hit with something. Hopefully, he doesn’t get hit with anything now.”
Asuchak and the Cougars have two games left in the regular season — they will play the Blazers at Interior Savings Centre on Friday, with a rematch scheduled for Saturday in Prince George.
The Cougars, who won only 12 games last season, go into the weekend at 31-35-4. After being near the top of the B.C. Division, the Cougars fell on hard times. Before venturing south last weekend, they had one win to show for their previous 10 games, and that included seven straight losses at home.
“We had a couple of meetings and got back to being a team and playing together,” Asuchak said. “We put everything else behind us and got back to being positive.”
The results were an 8-0 victory over the Giants in Vancouver on Friday and a 5-1 victory over the Seattle Thunderbirds in Kent, Wash., on Saturday. The Cougars then dropped a 6-3 decision to the Tri-City Americans in Kent, Wash., on Sunday, but are hopeful that they are back on the right track.
Which brings us to this weekend.
“I’m pretty excited,” said Asuchak, who has career highs in goals (17), assists (12) and points (29), all in 57 games. “It’s going to be a battle.”
Now it’s down to the last two games of the season, with the Cougars holding down the last playoff spot, three points ahead of the Blazers and Seattle Thunderbirds.
What that means is that the Blazers have to win in regulation time on Friday night in order for Saturday’s game to mean anything.
“That’s crazy,” Asuchak said.
Asuchak, who was born in Fort St. John, played midget B and major midget in Kamloops. He attended Vancouver’s training camp at 16, then was listed by the Americans and twice attended their camp before signing and staying for 2008-09. Early last season, he was traded to the Cougars who were rebuilding and loved his size.
Asuchak has always been big and is a fitness buff. He is 19, but he’s a late birthday (Nov. 22), and feels that only now is his co-ordination catching up with his size.
“He’s a 6-foot-4 kid who can skate really well,” Clark said. “He has to work on other parts of his game but in straight-ahead speed he’s really, really good.”
“It’s just confidence,” Asuchak said. “I kind of grew into my body a little bit more. My skating got way better and I got a lot faster and stronger. My skill is catching up a bit so I can bury every once in a while.”
Which is what he did Saturday against the Thunderbirds, his 17th goal breaking a 1-1 tie at 11:02 of the third period.
“That was big,” Asuchak said, and you could almost see his smile all the way from Prince George.
JUST NOTES: The Blazers have signed F Dallas Calvin, 16, to a WHL contract. Calvin was placed on their protected list in September. Calvin, who is from Trail, had 40 points in 40 regular-season games with the junior B Beaver Valley Nitehawks. He added 17 points in 12 playoff games. The 6-foot-3, 205-pounder is practising with the Blazers this week. . . . As they have done prior to the final home game in each of the last two seasons, the Blazers will hand out their individual awards prior to Friday's game. . . . G Kurtis Mucha, who finished up his WHL career with the Blazers a year ago, will lead the U of Alberta Golden Bears into the CIS championship tournament at the U of New Brunswick next weekend. He goes in having put up four shutouts in his last eight appearances, two of them in the playoffs. Alberta swept Manitoba and Calgary in the playoffs, with Mucha recording a 0.50 GAA and a .980 save percentage.

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