Smith ready for WHL debut with Blazers

By GREGG DRINNAN
Daily News Sports Editor
Barry Smith, the new head coach of the WHL’s Kamloops Blazers, is wound up on the best of days.
Today, however, is super-hyper Friday.
Smith will make his WHL coaching debut tonight as the Blazers and Vancouver Giants open the exhibition season in Ladner. The teams complete the two-game series at Interior Savings Centre on Saturday at 7 p.m.
Smith is even more excited than usual for two reasons: 1. He is eagerly awaiting the opportunity to run his own bench; and, 2. He will be able to look over to the Giants’ bench and see Don Hay, the Kamloops native and former Blazers coach who is entering his fifth season in Vancouver.
“We’re friends,” Smith said Thursday. “I’ve known Don and we talked about his job. I know he put in a word for me about getting here as well. We always communicated when we were in Vancouver on different ideas and philosophies.
“He’s a great coach. You measure yourself against guys who are successful in this league so that’s a measuring stick. Even though it’s exhibition season, I’m competitive. I want to win and it would be nice to beat Don.”
Smith will be joined behind the Blazers’ bench by assistants Scott Ferguson and Geoff Smith, a pair of former Blazers players and ex-NHL defencemen, both of whom also will be making their WHL debuts.
“I’m really looking forward to it. I’m excited,” said Barry Smith, who spent the last five years as an assistant coach with the NHL’s Vancouver Canucks. “I have run some benches in the National League but it’s not the same as when you’re the guy.
“By the time the exhibition season is over I’ll feel comfortable, knowing guys and not having to look at the card to see what that guy’s name is.”
The Blazers have been in camp since Friday, although most, if not all, of the players have been skating here since well before that. It is time, then, to play some games. And, as Smith said, “You always think you look good until you play another team, too, so that’s exciting for me . . . to see how we stack up.”
Smith said he is quite pleased with the way training camp went, with the exception of conditioning. It isn’t that players showed up out of shape, it’s just that “their idea of good shape” and Smith’s idea are slightly different.
“The guys are working hard and doing the things that I ask,” Smith said. “The guys all worked hard this summer but they just have to get there a little bit more. That is the only thing I would like to see really improved.”
Like most coaches taking over a team, he also talks about changing the culture, something he knows won’t happen overnight.
“I told them that five days in camp, skating hard and working hard, doesn’t change the culture,” he said.
He knows, too, that culture change takes place more between the ears than on the ice.
“Exactly,” Smith said. “That’s exactly it.”
Not including the injured Mark Hall, Smith has 31 players on his roster; he will take 20 of them to Ladner.
“There is no rhyme nor reason to that,” Smith said, “but I will be playing some of the young guys early.”
Smith plans to have sophomore James Priestner go the distance in goal tonight, with freshman Jon Groenheyde on the bench. On Saturday, Groenheyde will start with veteran Justin Leclerc backing up. Before the exhbition season ends, each goaltender is scheduled to play two games.
“They’re going to play full games,” Smith said. “This half game . . . it’s not always fair . . . I like whole games. I want to see how guys handle adversity, how they handle the pressure of a tough game.”
Smith also will get a look at Slovakians Dalibor Bortnak and Michal Siska. If Bortnak, a centre/left winger, shows good conditioning tonight — he played for Slovakia at the under-18 Ivan Hlinka Memorial tournament earlier this month — he’ll play again Saturday.
“I would like to play him back-to-back and get him going as soon as possible,” said Smith, who referred to the freshman imports as “two outstanding players.”
Siska, a defenceman, is “a smart player, not overly flashy, with good hands,” Smith said. “He’s real light on his feet . . . a good skater, good lateral movement, good agility. He steps up and plays the body. He’s not afraid to play and compete.”
As for Bortnak, Smith said, he’s a “wide-track skater, big and strong. He gets the puck and likes to hang on to it down low. He’s going to create a lot for his linemates.”
JUST NOTES: RW Jimmy Bubnick (shoulder) won’t play this weekend. . . . Hall, who was thought to have sprained his right knee in a precamp workout, had an MRI on Thursday. General manager Craig Bonner said the results should be in today but that the injury “looks worse than we originally thought.” . . . Bonner will watch tonight’s game in Ladner then spend Saturday at the Everett Silvertips’ tournament before heading to Edmonton to watch the Oil Kings’ tournament Sunday. . . . C Grayson Downing, the Blazers’ fourth-round pick in the 2007 bantam draft, ended up going home to Abbotsford with a broken wrist. He was injured in a Saturday morning scrimmage. Downing, 16, is expected to play for the BCHL’s Westside Warriors. . . . The Blazers have released RW Matt Riley, 17. He was a fourth-round selection in the 2006 bantam draft. A native of Coquitlam, Riley is expected to join the BCHL’s Alberni Valley Bulldogs.
gdrinnan@kamloopsnews.ca