Lipon brothers meet up during Blazers scrimmage

Forward Mitch Lipon of the Kamloops Blazers applies some freezing gel
to his upper front teeth after having them chipped when he was checked
by his brother, JC, during an earlier scrimmage on Sunday.
(HUGO YUEN / Kamloops Daily News)

By GREGG DRINNAN
Daily News Sports Editor
JC Lipon was chuckling.
His younger brother, Mitch, was grimacing.
Their mother, Shelley, was, well, she was being a mother.
During a Sunday morning scrimmage at the Kamloops Blazers’ training camp at Interior Savings Centre, JC caught Mitch with a shoulder check in open ice.
“He got me with a shoulder and my teeth went into my visor,” offered Mitch, 17, showing the damage to his two upper front teeth, both of which were chipped, then adding that he was going to have to call home.
“I hit him in middle ice,” said JC, 20, with a laugh, while nodding in the direction of Mitch.
“I suppose (JC) is just trying to toughen up his little brother,” Shelley wrote in a text from Regina. “I have just come to the conclusion that it’s part of hockey.
“But it is tough on a mom!”
While JC has spent four seasons with the Blazers, Mitch, who played last season with the midget AAA Regina Pat Canadians, is hoping for a spot here this season. He put up 51 points, 20 of them goals, in 44 games with Regina last season, and also got a late-season taste of life with the Blazers, getting limited playing time and going pointless in three regular-season and five playoff games.
Having been here last spring has made this camp a bit easier for him.
“It’s a lot easier to come in here knowing all the guys, having been here before and knowing how things work,” Mitch said. “You’re still a rookie but you know what to do and are expected to know what to do.”
Mitch also has gotten more help than a shoulder to the face from his older brother.
“He helps me out a lot,” Mitch said. “He gives me that extra push. He’s in my face quite a bit but it’s all good.
“He said I have the skill, I just have to put in the work ethic to get where I want to be and get a spot on the team. I want to make the team and find a spot where I can contribute.”
JC, meanwhile, is hoping to play this season for the St. John’s IceCaps, the Newfoundland-based AHL affiliate of the NHL’s Winnipeg Jets. They selected Lipon in the third round of the 2013 NHL draft.
That put a cap on a season during which Lipon really came of age, at one point leading the WHL in scoring and then earning a spot on the Canadian team that played at the world junior championship in Ufa, Russia.
“Obviously a lot of good things happened last winter,” Lipon said. “I made some big strides. But it’s like you’re in the doghouse again . . . you get drafted and start from the bottom again. It’s another challenge in life and I’m looking forward to it.”
Shortly after the draft, Lipon attended a Jets’ prospects camp that, he said, only served to help his confidence.
Asked how he stacked up there, he replied: “Good, really good.”
He admitted to having been intimidated a bit in fitness testing “with the college guys.”
“But,” he added, “then you get on the ice and you know why you’re there. I did really well in all the practices and in the game, too. I’m pretty happy with the way things are.”
Lipon, who has yet to sign an NHL contract, will head for Winnipeg on Sept. 4 and then play for the Jets team at the Young Stars tournament in Penticton, Sept. 5-9.
“Obviously, I want to make the big team,” he said. But, being realistic, “definitely St. John’s is where I want to be.”
And if he ends up back in Kamloops?
“It is what it is,” he said. “There’s good coaching staff here. We’re young but just from being here it’s an awesome coaching staff. They’ve kind of developed that over the last few seasons and it’s a good organization to be in.”
Of course, if Lipon should wind up back here, he could get to play with Mitch, something he said is “pretty exciting.”
“He worked really hard this summer,” Mitch said. “I told him, ‘it’s your position to lose and he’s got to work hard.’ ”
Yes, even if it means taking a shoulder to the mouth from big brother.
So . . . when is payback?
“I don’t know,” Mitch said. “I guess we’ll see.”
JUST NOTES: Of the 57 players left in the Blazers’ camp, 32 were born in 1997 or ’98. The 14 players born in 1998 aren’t eligible for WHL rosters this season. . . . Veteran F Chase Souto, who turns 19 on Oct. 8, is the lone American in camp. . . . Sophomore D Jordan Thomson remains day-to-day with a cut to one foot. Thomson, who was injured while vacationing with his family, skated Sunday. . . . F Tim Bozon, 19, will leave Sept. 4 for Montreal and the Canadiens’ training camp, while F Colin Smith, 20, leaves Friday to join the Colorado Avalanche. Both have signed NHL deals. . . . G Bailey De Palma, the son of Blazers goaltending coach Dan De Palma, stopped 23 of 24 shots during his stint and was the second star last night as the host Prince George Spruce Kings dropped a 5-2 decision to the visiting Merritt Centennials in a BCHL exhibition game.

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Blazers ready for Royal visit

By GREGG DRINNAN
Daily News Sports Editor
There weren’t a lot of surprises during the Kamloops Blazers’ training camp that wrapped up with Tuesday night’s intrasquad game.
Shortly after the game ended, the WHL team’s braintrust trimmed the roster to 31 players, including two forwards — Jayden Halbgewachs and Nick Chyzowski — who are too young to play this season. They are likely to be re-assigned after playing in tonight’s exhibition game against the visiting Victoria Royals.
Game time at Interior Savings Centre is 7 o’clock.
The latest round of cuts left the Blazers with two goaltenders, 10 defencemen and 17 forwards, not including the two aforementioned 15-year-olds.
The goaltending situation isn’t at all surprising as head coach Guy Charron and associate coach Dave Hunchak, with input from goaltending coach Dan De Palma, have chosen to go with sophomore Cole Cheveldave and freshman Taran Kozun, an 18-year-old from Nipawin, Sask., who actually started last season in a Blazers uniform.
On defence, the 10 skaters include six veterans and four newcomers, all of whom were mentioned by Hunchak last week as being capable of competing for roster spots. It is likely that Jordan Thomson, the fourth overall pick in the 2011 bantam draft, Josh Connolly, whose high-risk, high-reward game was in evidence on Tuesday, and stay-at-home guys Ryan Rehill and Connor Clouston will have some say before the regular season opens.
Up front, the Blazers are going to take long looks at Mitch Friesen, a 16-year-old left winger from Surrey who, at 6-foot-3 and 171 pounds, brings some much-needed size to the lineup. The same holds for 6-foot-2, 189-pound Aaron Macklin, a 17-year-old left winger out of High River, Alta., and right-winger Devin Oakes, who is 6-foot-1 and 207 pounds. Oakes, from Prince Rupert, is recovering from off-season surgery and has yet to see action.
———
During Tuesday night’s intrasquad game, veteran left-winger Brendan Ranford had the opportunity to play a few shifts with Halbgewachs, the Blazers’ first pick in the 2012 bantam draft.
Ranford, who was a first-round pick in 2007, was impressed.
“We’re six years apart,” he said. “He’s almost the exact same player I was. Maybe he’s a little more finesse. He’s a helluva hockey player.
“That goal he scored shorthanded was . . . patience. The pass he gave to me was pretty exceptional. Not a lot of guys in the WHL can make that pass let alone a kid who just came up.”
Halbgewachs and Ranford combined on two goals, the former scoring a nifty goal when he waited for goaltender Cole Kehler to go down and then put it upstairs, the latter scoring, also shorthanded, after getting a big league pass from the kid.
Halbgewachs may end up facing his older brother, Brandon, in tonight’s game. Brandon, 18, is in camp with the Royals.
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The game will be a homecoming of sorts for Victoria defenceman Joe Hicketts, 16, who is from Kamloops. He was the 12th overall selection in the 2011 bantam draft and spent last season at the Okanagan Hockey Academy in Penticton.
Hicketts signed with the Royals a year ago and, in fact, played an exhibition game against the Blazers at the McArthur Island Sport and Event Centre.
However, he knew then that a WHL rule prohibiting 15-year-old players would keep him off the Royals’ roster. That isn’t the case this time.
“I’m ready,” the 5-foot-8, 180-pound Hicketts told Mario Annicchiarico of the Victoria Times Colonist late last week. “I’m just going to let the expectations slide and just perform my best, that’s my mindset coming in. I’m just going to let my on-ice performance do the talking.
“I’m really looking forward to it. I’ve been working hard for the last year and a half for this. I got drafted and this is the year I want to do something.”
Grant Armstrong, the Royals’ director of player personnel, said Hickett has a bright future with the club.
“He’s going to be, at some point, a huge contributor to the group in terms of being the leader and the kind of guy that runs your power play and does good things from the offensive-side of defence,” Armstrong said.
“He does a good job of positioning himself to eliminate that big guy from getting to the net. He’s going to be a good one — a real good junior hockey player, who when he leaves Victoria at age 21, he’s going to have a nice junior hockey career behind him.”
JUST NOTES: The Blazers and Royals also will play Friday night, this time in Maple Ridge. . . . The Blazers’ next home game is Wednesday, 7 p.m., against the Vancouver Giants. . . . Ranford arrived at training camp at 181 pounds. He said his weight hasn’t been in that vicinity since he arrived at camp as a 16-year-old weighing 182. “I’m a lot faster and I’m a lot quicker,” said Ranford, who is working with a nutritionist.
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Blazers add Hunchak as they round out coaching staff

By GREGG DRINNAN
Daily News Sports Editor
On the day when the Kamloops Blazers announced that Dave Hunchak had been added to their coaching staff, he was hard at work.
Hunchak, a WHL head coach for the last four seasons, has joined the Blazers as their associate coach. He will work alongside head coach Guy Charron, who came on board as head coach in November 2009.
The Blazers also added two former players to the coaching staff, with Ed Patterson signing on as an assistant coach and Mike Needham filling the newly created position of skills coach.
On Thursday, Hunchak, the head coach of the Moose Jaw Warriors for the last four seasons, was busy at a project in a building in that city.
“I’ve got drills and stuff going on everywhere here,” said Hunchak, who is in his second summer of working as an electrician. “I took on a job doing an expansion at a building here in Moose Jaw.
“At the end of the hockey season, you’re mentally fried. This is the second summer I’ve done this and it is a total mental refresher.”
Hunchak especially needed a breather after the Warriors chose not to renew his contract following a 40-26-6 season that ended with a six-game first-round loss to the eventual-champion Kootenay Ice.
“I’m not bitter towards the situation, more frustrated,” he explained, “because we were building something and building something real good. I fully expect that team to be an upper-echelon team in the Eastern Conference. The goal would have been 45-plus wins.
“The other thing that’s frustrating is that the two teams that won the WHL championship the last two years (the Calgary Hitmen, in 2010), we’ve been the team that gave those teams the most grief. You ask yourself what happens if you did finish the deal? The bottom line is we didn’t and the result . . .”
The result, of course, is that Hunchak now is with the Blazers.
In talking with the Blazers, Hunchak said he “immediately felt very comfortable with Guy and I believe the combination is going to work out real well.”
“There’s a passion there that’s undeniable and you can see that in Guy,” he added. “There are a lot of good feelings about where the team is going.”
As for being an associate coach after four seasons as the head guy, Hunchak said he isn’t at all into titles.
As he put it, “When it comes to titles, you’re a coach and you coach.”
He did admit, though, that he and his family are looking forward to our mild winters. In fact, climate was an important part of the decision to sign with the Blazers.
He and wife Kim have two children — Alyssa, 12, and Brendan, 8 — and Alyssa has juvenile arthritis.
“That was an important part of our decision,” Hunchak said. “We have to be conscious of that . . . you have to take all factors into consideration.”
Hunchak went 129-124-35 as head coach in Moose Jaw. Before joining the Warriors, Hunchak was an assistant coach for three seasons with the Swift Current Broncos. He also was head coach of the SJHL’s Kindersley Klippers for three seasons, winning two league titles. He was the SJHL’s coach of the year in 2001-02.
Chad Lang, then the Warriors’ general manager, described Hunchak as “one of the most passionate guys in the hockey world,” when he hired him in June 2007.
“He’s got that fire in him, and he’s a great teacher,” said Lang, who now is the GM of the Regina Pats.
Hunchak also worked as the video coach with Canada as it won the 2006 World Junior Championship.
Patterson, a former head coach of the junior B Kamloops Storm, played in the WHL with the Seattle Thunderbirds, Swift Current and the Blazers. He was a member of the Kamloops club that won the 1992 Memorial Cup.
As well as working with the Blazers, Patterson is the head coach of the Kamloops Minor Hockey Association’s peewee Tier 1 team.
Needham played three seasons with the Blazers (1987-90), finishing up by recording 125 points, including 59 goals, in 60 games in 1989-90. He also played for Canada at the 1990 World Junior Championship; Charron was the head coach of the Canadian team. Needham, whose son Matt was the Blazers’ first pick in the 2010 bantam draft, also is the head coach of the bantam AAA team at the Okanagan Hockey Academy in Penticton.
The Blazers also announced that Dan De Palma will return as goaltending coach. He also is head coach of the KMHA’s bantam Tier 1 team, the Jardine’s Blazers.
Contract details, including lengths, weren’t released by the Blazers, who finished 29-37-6 last season and missed the playoffs for only the second time in the franchise’s 30-year history in Kamloops.
All of this firms up a coaching staff that lost its two assistants when the club chose not to renew the contracts of Scott Ferguson and Geoff Smith.
Charron has one year left on his contract.

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