Chyzowski a chip off the old block?

Nick Chyzowski (16) of the Kamloops Blazers gives Vancouver
Giants forward Ales Kilnar a shove.
(Murray Mitchell / Kamloops Daily News)

By GREGG DRINNAN
Daily News Sports Editor
It had been more than 20 years since someone wearing a Kamloops Blazers jersey sporting No. 16 with Chyzowski on the namebar had dangled in front of the home fans.
But such was the case Wednesday night when Nick Chyzowski, the 15-year-old son of former Blazers forward Dave Chyzowski, made his WHL debut as the locals scored a 7-4 exhibition victory over the Vancouver Giants.
Mom (Cindy) and Dad watched from an Interior Savings Centre suite as Nick picked up an

Cindy and Dave Chyzowski watch as son Nick makes his
WHL debut with the Kamloops Blazers.
(Murray Mitchell / The Daily News)

assist to help the Blazers run their preseason record to 3-0.
The teams will meet again Friday, this time in Ladner.
Dave Chyzowski played two full seasons (1987-89) with the Blazers and four games in 1989-90, all of them in Memorial Arena. Now the team’s director of sales and marketing, he laughed when asked if he had a case of butterflies.
“Yeah, lots,” he admitted, adding that he was more nervous on Tuesday night than he was during the game. “He’s 15 and this is a huge step. He just turned 15 in June and he’s out there against 18-, 19- and 20-year-olds.
“I know how hard it is to play at this level and he’s going to find out.”
So . . . did Dad have any words of advice before the game.
“In the truck coming here,” Dave said, with a chuckle, “he said, ‘Dad, don’t give me any advice. Just let me go play.’ ”
Which is pretty much what the kid did in a game that turned chippy in the second period. There were many cheapshots and few bon mots.
Playing left wing on a line with Aspen Sterzer and Rob Trzonkowski, Chyzowski looked nervous on his first shift 3:31 into the opening period. After that one, though, he appeared to be quite comfortable.
“I was a little bit nervous at first . . . on edge a bit,” Chyzowski said. “But as soon as I settled in it was not bad. It was good. There was a good pace to it, so that’s a good indicator of what to expect.”
Chyzowski even got on the scoresheet when he drew the second assist on Trzonkowski’s goal at 11:57 of the second period that gave the Blazers a 3-0 lead.
“That was pretty cool,” Chyzowski said of hearing his name on the public address system. “It was good to get my first point.”
Later, he was serving a high-sticking penalty when the Giants cut the Kamloops lead to 4-3 in the third period.
Chyzowski, who was a second-round selection in the 2012 bantam draft, will spend this season with the major midget Thompson Blazers. But you can bet he’ll be back with the big club in the not-too-distant future.
“Being up with this team gets addicting,” he said. “I just want to keep coming up here and doing my best. I’ll work hard with my major midget team and get the chance to play here again.”
Meanwhile, Dad was admitting to having a serious case of flashbacks.
“Even though I never played in this rink,” he said, “it’s nice to look back. When you get out into the working world, you forget about a lot of it. This has brought back a lot of memories.”
It also brought a message from another former Blazers forward.
Rob Brown, the franchise’s career scoring leader, sent Dave a text, reading: “I heard the kid is in. Wish him luck for me.”
Dylan Willick and Brendan Ranford each scored twice and added two assists. Willick was outstanding in all zones and finished plus-5. Ranford was plus-3. Cole Ully and Jordan DePape, the latter into an empty net, added a goal each for Kamloops.
The Blazers took advantate of a Vancouver team that wasn’t at all good defensively. Kamloops scored three times on breakaways and had enough odd-man breaks to do it for a month of regular-season games.
Alex Kilnar, Cain Franson, Taylor Makin and Marek Tvrdon replied for the Giants, who are 1-1.
JUST NOTES: After the game, the Blazers assigned Chyzowski to the Thompson Blazers, while sending D Connor Clouston to the midget AAA Medicine Hat Tigers and F Jesse Shynkaruk to the midget AAA Saskatoon Contacts. . . . Clouston, the son of Medicine Hat GM/head coach Shaun Clouston, was a third-round pick in the 2011 bantam draft. . . . Shynkaruk was taken in the seventh round of the 2011 draft. . . . The Blazers now are carrying 27 players, including D Austin Madaisky, 20, who has signed with the NHL’s Columbus Blue Jackets, and F Devin Oakes, who has yet to receive medical clearance after a pair of off-season shoulder surgeries. . . . Kamloops F Chase Souto left the game at 1:43 of the second period after taking an Anthony Ast elbow/shoulder to the head. Ast received a major and game misconduct. After the game, Kamloops head coach Guy Charron said Souto was OK and that he had been held out for precautionary reasons. . . . Kamloops G Taran Kozun stopped 23 shots and looked sharp, especially with his legs. . . . The Giants started Tyler Fuhr, who is not related to Grant Fuhr, in goal, with Jackson Whistle coming on at 10:59 of the second. Fuhr stopped 15 of 17 shots, with Whistle blocking 12 of 16. . . . Tvrdon played his first game since returning to the Giants over the weekend. His departure from Slovakia had been delayed by visa problems. Tvrdon, who had 74 points last season, is the Giants’ top returning scorer. . . . The Blazers next play at home on Sept. 14 when they close out their exhibition season against the Prince George Cougars. . . . Kamloops opens the regular season at home on Sept. 21 against the Kelowna Rockets.


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Who's that new defenceman with Blazers?

By GREGG DRINNAN
Daily News Sports Editor
The Kamloops Blazers had a new player on the ice for Thursday’s practice at Memorial Arena.
Chad Brownlee (pictured below), who opened for country star Dierks Bentley at Interior Savings Centre last night, skated with the WHL’s top team.
“Yeah,” Blazers head coach Guy Charron said of Brownlee, “he’s good. I told him if he was of age I think we’d sign him.”
Brownlee, 27, is a native of Kelowna. He played for the Minnesota State Mavericks and was good enough to be selected by the Vancouver Canucks in the sixth round of the NHL’s 2003 draft.
However, his hockey career was curtailed by shoulder problems.
“It was good,” Charron said. “He took part in everything.”
Asked if Brownlee is better than Dave Chyzowski, the Blazers’ director of sales and marketing who was the No. 2 pick in the NHL’s 1989 draft, Charron chuckled.
“Let me put it this way,” he said, laughing. “Brownlee is a defenceman and Chyzer is a forward.”
After the practice ended, Brownlee tweeted: “Thanks to the Blazers for having me out today for practice. Bunch of beauties! See you all at the show!”

Blazers mourn loss of den mother

Doris Rubel (left), Dean Clark, Bob Brown, Tom Renney, Ken Hitchcock,
Don Hay and Mark Ferner, who was representing his late father Ed,
watch as the Blazer Legends banner is raised to the rafters on Feb. 19, 2005.
(Photo by Matt Silver/Kamloops Daily News)

By GREGG DRINNAN
Daily News Sports Editor

The Kamloops Blazers will play with heavy hearts this weekend.
Doris Rubel, the organization’s den mother seemingly forever, died early Thursday with daughter Kerry at her side. Doris was 75.
Rubel was the WHL team’s long-time billet co-ordinator. She had been involved in the billeting of hockey players here since the 1960s and had worked with the Craft Kings, Braves, Rockets, Chiefs, Jr. Oilers and Blazers.
A funeral service will be held Wednesday, 1 p.m., at the Calvary Temple.
The Blazers will honour Rubel’s memory with a moment of silence prior to tonight’s game at Interior Savings Centre.
The Blazers are at home to the Vancouver Giants tonight and the Victoria Royals on Sunday. Coincidentally, both coaches, Don Hay of the Giants and Marc Habscheid of the Blazers, have ties to Kamloops and the Blazers and were well-acquainted with Rubel.
Wheelchair-bound for the last few years and in failing health recently, Rubel wasn’t able to attend the Blazers’ regular season-opening game on Saturday. But she simply refused to abdicate what she felt were her responsibilities to the hockey club.
“She has been (working), right until early (Thursday) morning,” said Dave Chyzowski, the Blazers’ director of sales and marketing. “Kerry has been helping. Doris refused to give up . . . she still wanted to do stuff.”
Chyzowski, an Edmonton native, played three seasons (1987-90) with the Blazers and lived with Rubel during part of that time.
“I remember living at her house like it was yesterday. If you know her from the outside,” he said, “you see how much she cares. If you live with her, you see how much she loves these kids. Now that I’m a parent, I would love to have my kid be in her hands.
“She instilled discipline. She didn’t take any (crap). She used to charge us 25 cents if we said a bad word. She had a jar in her house and if you said a bad word, you owed her money. She would say, ‘You don’t talk like that around here.’
“Nowadays, with the kids we have, she’d be a multi-millionaire.”
Forwards Brendan Ranford and Ryan Hanes are the longest-serving Blazers presently on the team’s roster.
“She welcomed me to the city when I was 16-years-old . . . she was a great person,” said Ranford, 19, who is from Edmonton. “She was always humble and very nice to every player. This is a tough loss for the organization.
“You could go to her for anything. She was really open for whoever needed help with billets. She was a great person.”
Hanes, who is from Kamloops so lives at home, never had to deal with Rubel in terms of billeting.
“I didn’t see her very often,” he said, “but the guys appreciated the help because she was always there for them. If there was anything they needed billet-wise, she was always there. She was one of the nicest ladies . . .”
Rubel often took in players when situations arose with other billets or if a change was requested.
“She would say, ‘He can come and live with me and I’ll take care of him,’ ” Chyzowski said. “She cared more about kids who came and played for this team. She fed everybody. I don’t think she made under a million sandwiches for this hockey team.
“She was unbelievable and she never wanted anything in return. People don’t realize how special she and Kerry have been. They gave and gave everything.
“Both their lives have been dedicated to all our alumni, the coaches and the hockey team.”
Rubel was honoured as a Blazers Legend in 2005 and was inducted in the Kamloops Sports Hall of Fame in 2010. In 2004, she was named the first recipient of the WHL’s Distinguished Service Award.
“I haven’t called my mom,” Chyzowski said. “She is going to be in tears. She will be devastated.
“It’s a shitty day but it’s a day to celebrate what she has done for us.”
Chyzowski then dug a quarter out of a pocket and went looking for the jar.

gdrinnan@kamloopsnews.ca
gdrinnan.blogspot.com
twitter.com/gdrinnan

Former Blazers react, via Twitter, to the death of Doris Rubel:
Jeff Bosch:
“RIP Dorris Rubel, you did so much for the blazers organization. you will be missed. Thank you for everything last year.”
———
Corey Hirsch:
“Doris could always make me smile or laugh when I needed it. The Lord got a kind soul today. I will miss you Doris.”
———
Brad Lukowich:
“Prayers for the Rubel and Kamloops Blazers family. Doris thank you for keeping us all in line and being the mom who was there when ours couldn’t.”
———
Brandon Underwood:
“Very saddened to hear of the passing of Doris Rubel, treated me so well all 3 years I was in Kamloops. May she rest in peace.”
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