After a solid season and making it to the second round of the Pacific Junior Hockey League’s Stonehouse Cup playoffs, the White Rock Whalers are now looking to next year, after losing Game 4 Feb. 26 to the league-leading Richmond Sockeyes.
Head coach Brien Gemmell said he’s proud of the season the Pod had, especially considering they started the regular hockey season with only six returning players and a brand-new coaching staff – Gemmell and his two assistant coaches, brothers Adam and Royce Rossignol, who were hired in the off-season last year.
“We did really well – we had a 58-point, 27 win season,” Gemmell said, adding it was a year where they had to replace 21 players.
“To come out of the season in the toughest conference in the league… well above 500, and we held down third place for a good chunk of the year – it was just a tremendous effort by our guys.”
He pointed out how the Whalers, while they played tight against an almost-undefeated Richmond team during the regular season, were able to take four wins from the Delta Icehawks, three from the North Vancouver Wolf Pack, and another three from Vancouver’s Grandview Steelers, whom they faced in a best-of-three Round 1 in playoffs.
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“You look at our conference and five of the top eight teams in the league are from our conference,” said Gemmell.
He said he’s proud of all the players and coaching staff, and everyone’s commitment to the season, and said the team’s triple-overtime win over the Steelers that advanced them to the second round of playoffs was definitely a highlight.
“It was just an awesome moment! No player, no person on our team will forget that – there couldn’t have been a better finish with Travis Smythe scoring the winner,” he said, and gave kudos to the quality of the players on the team.
“We know what good hockey players they are, but they’re even greater people – that’s what we were looking for. You can talk about being a good athlete and a good hockey player, but we really wanted great people… I have a saying: ‘Person greater than athlete’, and we went with that motto,” Gemmell said.
“We built this team and we believe we’ve got that – we’ve got the right guys playing for us and wanting to win for this organization.”
Going into Round 2 vs. the Sockeyes, the team was plagued by several injuries to key players.
“It’s tough when you’re missing your top two scorers your top three defensemen. We’re not making excuses – it’s the next man up always… we’ve got to compete and our guys went out and competed,” he said, adding the Pod’s power play operated at 20 per cent in the playoffs and their penalty kill was excellent as well.
“We put six goals up on Richmond there in that third game… only one other team did that – Port Moody in the last game of the (regular) season – only two teams did that this year. We were one of those teams and in the playoffs. It shows you the depth of our roster, the depth of our team and the compete level in our team.”
He thanked the team’s coaches for all the dedication and hard work they’ve put in this year, and bid a fond farewell to the 20-year-old players who ‘age out’ of the league this year: Nathan Bran (F), Terence Learmouth (D), Keegan Maddocks (G), Mark Paton (G) and Dylan Travis (D).
“These five guys are great individuals, great leaders and great hockey players who helped our 19, 18, 17-year-olds throughout the year – they’ll be successful in life because of who they are as people,” said Gemmell.
“We look forward to getting the process started next year and recruiting and building on our success.”