The North Van Wolf Pack are back on the ice this week for the start of the PJHL regular season, and the junior B squad will be looking to get back to their winning ways.
The Wolf Pack had a remarkable run of steady improvement starting the moment they moved from Squamish to North Vancouver before the 2011-12 season. They finished in fourth place in their division in their first year on the North Shore, then third place, then second, then first, winning the league title in the fourth year, the 2014-15 season. Their fifth year, 2015-16, brought another PJHL regular season title and first-place finish in the division. Last year, however, was the first step back in the standings, as the Pack placed fourth and bowed out in the opening round of the playoffs.
North Van will look to resume their charge to the top of the heap when they open their 2017-18 season on the road in Richmond on Thursday before holding their home opener Saturday starting at 7 p.m. against Ridge Meadows at Harry Jerome Recreation Centre.
“The boys are getting wound up and ready to go,” said head coach Bayne Koen. “We’re excited to see where we are and get underway.”
The club took a proactive approach this offseason, said Koen, working hard to get the Pack headed back in the right direction.
“We went out and we recruited pretty hard this year and we’re getting the right character in the dressing room, guys that have been around winning cultures in the past,” he said. “Our speed, our work ethic, our size are going to be a little bit different than what people are used to seeing out of our club the last couple of years.
“I think we’re going to be a hard-working team. We’re bigger than we have been the last couple of years, which I think we needed to address. We’ve got some really good speed up front, we’ve got some guys on the backend that can move the puck and join the rush.”
North Vancouver’s Caleb Holonko tops the list of returning forwards, coming back to the team after finishing third in points for the Wolf Pack last season with 21 goals and 15 assists in 40 games. North Vancouver’s Justin Lee, West Van’s Aidan Sutherland and Surrey’s Kaz Minemoto are other returning forwards expected to play lead roles.
Geoffrey So, Marcus Kwan, Kyle Hoover, Joshua Tak and North Vancouver’s Aaron McWilliams all are returning to provide a veteran presence on defence, with goalie Alex Forster back in the mix as well.
The team is also welcoming a trio of rookie forwards from North Vancouver in Joshua Peakman, Daniel Krivchun and Justin Wheatley.
Last year’s dip in the standings was inevitable given the ups and downs of junior B hockey, where the goal is to win games but also to develop players so that they can eventually move up to higher levels such as junior A, the Western Hockey League or university programs, said Koen.
“We had two really good years, and then last year was a little bit lean,” he said. “We were young, just like we’re going to be again this year. I think sometimes you just have those years, unfortunately. It’s junior hockey – I always say if it happens in the NHL, it’s going to happen here. I think that we’ve addressed the proper way to go about it, done a lot of research about these kids before we bring them in. I was out scouting quite a bit at midget tournaments, watching major midget stuff and trying to recruit heavily.
“Sometimes you win by getting the players, and sometimes they decide to go back to major midget or other clubs or they go back to junior A. You can only put forward what you know you’re doing in your program, try to advertise what we do and how we go about doing things and get people excited about it.”
The team will be looking for their veterans to lead the way at the start of the season, but everyone will need to get up to speed quickly, said Koen.
“We have to be prepared, and that’s on and off the ice, mentally and physically,” he said.
“We have to be a hard-working team. We can’t take a night off, and that’s from the coaching staff all the way down to the players. I think the guys that were here last year are excited to come back.”
The Wolf Pack played four exhibition games over the past two weeks, winning two and losing two. Koen wasn’t about to make any predictions about where they’ll end up this season but did say he’s expecting them to be competitive every night.
“I think we’re in a good spot, but I’m not going to jinks anything,” he said with a laugh. “We want to be a competitive team on the ice, we just have to understand that there’s a process in how we go about our business. It’s work ethic and being accountable to each other in the dressing room. Hopefully the players buy into the systems that we put forth to have them be successful individually and team-wise. We just have to focus on us, we can’t worry about everybody else.”
For full schedules and results visit pjhl.net.
