Kozun to open camp as Blazers' starter

By GREGG DRINNAN
Daily News Sports Editor
The vacation is over.
Two weeks from today, Dave Hunchak begins his tenure as head coach of the Kamloops Blazers as players begin registering for training camp.
And about all that’s left to do in preparation is to introduce a new assistant coach.
“There will be an announcement in the very near future,” Hunchak said on Wednesday. “Once we figured out who we wanted, there were some logistics that we had to work through. I think we’ve worked through them and there should be an announcement shortly.”
Hunchak, who had been the Blazers’ associate coach, was named head coach on May 15. He takes over from Guy Charron, who remains with the club as an advisor to hockey operations.
Hunchak isn’t a freshman head coach in the WHL. He had been in that position for four seasons with the Moose Jaw Warriors before joining the Blazers.
With two weeks to go before camp opens, Hunchak confirmed that Taran Kozun, 19, is the team’s No. 1 goaltender.
That has been the case since the Blazers dealt Cole Cheveldave, the starter for the last two seasons, to the Prince Albert Raiders on July 10.
Kozun, from Nipawn, Sask., has gotten into just 22 WHL games over the last two seasons, 20 of them last season when he went 11-4-3, 2.36, .914.
“Certainly, to start things off, it’s Taran’s position and he needs to become a starting goaltender,” Hunchak said. “I’ve talked to Taran several times since the trade happened. He’s aware of where things are at.”
Hunchak said that all involved are going to have to find out whether the 6-foot-0, 170-pound Kozun is capable of shouldering the load.
“Let’s be honest,” Hunchak stated. “Taran hasn’t been a starter since midget AAA and that’s three years ago. Can he handle the mental stresses of doing it every day?”
Hunchak also promised that “Taran is going to be pushed.”
The coach then rattled off the names of Liam McLeod, a 17-year-old from Kamloops; Cole Kehler, who won’t turn 16 until Dec. 17; Cameron Pateman, 17, of Regina; and Ryan Ternes, a 16-year-old from Calgary.
McLeod was a ninth-round pick in the 2011 bantam draft who got into 14 games last season with the BCHL’s Prince George Spruce Kings. Kehler, from Altona, Man., was taken in the sixth round of the 2012 draft. Pateman and Ternes are list players.
According to Hunchak, Ternes “had a really good second-half last season in Calgary” where he played for a minor midget AAA team.
“The battle for the backup job is going to be really interesting,” Hunchak said. “We’ve got some quality young guys coming in.”
In listening to Hunchak it sounds as though the backup will see some quality playing time, too. Only once, when he was running the Warriors in 2010-11, has Hunchak ridden one horse. Thomas Heemskerk, a 20-year-old, went 36-21-6 in 65 games that season.
“It was based on him being that solid that season,” Hunchak said. “But if you’re going to keep a young goaltender, he has to play. Him just sitting there doesn’t make any sense.”
Once the coaching staff settles on its goaltenders, Hunchak said, the split will be dictated by “how they’re playing.”
Other than that one season, he said, “I’ve never been one to say, ‘OK, you’re the guy. Run with it.’ ”
It seems that the organization might be looking at Kehler, who played high school hockey last season, as the goaltender of the future.
“A guy like Kehler, who is a top-notch goaltender,” Hunchak said, “if we are only going to be able to get him into ‘x’ amount of games . . . it doesn’t make any sense for us to keep him.
“But, again, if he stands on his head and beats the others out, then we’ve got a decision to make.”

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Blazers trade Cheveldave

By MARK HUNTER
Daily News Sports Reporter
One of Cole Cheveldave’s lasting memories of Kamloops will be the near-daily trek to the Interior Savings Centre.
“I’ll always remember driving to the rink over the Red Bridge,” Cheveldave said Wednesday from his home in Calgary.
Cheveldave, the Kamloops Blazers’ starting goaltender the past two seasons, was traded to the Prince Albert Raiders yesterday. The Blazers also sent a 2015 fourth-round WHL bantam draft pick to the Raiders in exchange for 15-year-old forward Jake Kryski and a 2014 seventh-round selection.
Few players have been as valuable to their teams as Cheveldave has been to the Blazers over the past two seasons. He has been one of the big reasons for the team’s big turnaround, taking them from an also-ran to a front-runner.
But, with Taran Kozun heading into his 19-year-old season and Cheveldave now 20, the Blazers decided to make a move.
“There was some talk (about a trade) at the end of the season, so it’s not as big a shock,” Cheveldave said. “But it’s still pretty surprising. I would have liked to have been a Blazer for my last season.”
Kozun, a native of Nipawin, Sask., who played midget in Prince Albert, started two games with the Blazers early in 2011-12 before being sent to the SJHL’s Nipawin Hawks. Last season, he played in 20 games, going 11-4-3, 2.36, .914.
Beyond Kozun, the Blazers’ goaltending picture is a little murky. There are some prospects — Cameron Pateman of Regina and Kamloops’ Liam McLeod are going into their 17-year-old seasons, while Ryan Ternes of Cochrane, Alta., and Cole Kehler of Altona, Man., are both 16 years old — but none of those goaltenders has played a WHL game.
Where Cheveldave ended up, however, is a team on the rise. Prince Albert went 37-28-7 last season, good for fifth in the Eastern Conference, but lost starting goaltender Luke Siemens, who has used up his junior eligibility.
“I’m pretty excited about where I’m going,” Cheveldave said. “They’re an older team and it should be a good year.”
The Raiders, who have a new head coach in Cory Clouston, are feeling the same way as Cheveldave.
“If you don’t think you have an opportunity to contend or be very, very competitive, you’re not going to do this deal,” Raiders general manager Bruno Campese told Perry Bergson of the Prince Albert Daily Herald. “We feel that we have an opportunity to be very competitive this year.”
Although the Blazers gave up a lot, they got a top prospect in Kryski, whom the Raiders took with the 13th selection in May’s bantam draft. Kryski played last season with the Burnaby Winter Club, picking up 118 points, including 59 goals, in 58 games. The 6-foot-0, 170-pounder also was plus-96.
“It’s going to be expensive any way you look at it, whether it’s draft picks or a player or whatever,” Campese told Bergson. “We liked Jake as a player, we drafted him high.”
Cheveldave came to the Blazers in 2011 after winning the Alberta Junior Hockey League rookie-of-the-year award with the Drumheller Dragons in 2010-11. Kamloops had listed Cheveldave earlier that season.
When he came to camp in 2011, he was expected to fight for the starting role — in reality, there wasn’t much of a fight, as Cheveldave became Kamloops’ everyday goalie less than a month into the season. He went 34-11-5 in 2011-12 and led the Blazers to their first division title in a decade. Kamloops also won a playoff series for the first time this millennium. Cheveldave was injured early in a second-round series and wasn’t able to finish the playoffs.
The Blazers surpassed that last season, making it to the Western Conference final before falling to the Portland Winterhawks, who went on to win the WHL title.
And while Cheveldave won’t get to drive the Red Bridge any more — he now will get the chance to cross the North Saskatchewan River on the Diefenbaker Bridge, named after former Prime Minister John Diefenbaker — Cheveldave will still have his memories.
“Even though I wasn’t on the ice for it, that comeback in the 2011-12 playoffs against Portland . . .” Cheveldave said. “Down 3-0 and to come all the way back, it was great.
“And then this year’s playoff run. That was definitely a high of my time there.
“So many memories . . .”
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Perry Bergson of the Prince Albert Daily Herald has more on this trade right here.

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