BRONCOS RIDING TURNAROUND
Humboldt has winning feeling back
What a difference 365 days make.
At this time last year, the Humboldt Broncos were adjusting from a late-summer coaching departure and pains of rebuilding. They struggled out of the gate and finished the season with a 17-36-4-1 record that put them 11th overall in the 12-team Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League.
So far this season, Humboldt sits atop the SJHL standings with a 5-1-0-0 record.
Darcy Haugan, now settled in while into his second season as head coach of the Broncos, isn’t about to start skating victory laps, however.
“We know it’s definitely a marathon and not a sprint,” Haugan was saying after a 5-4 overtime shootout win here over the Estevan Bruins.
“It’s a long season ( but) we’ll definitely take this start. Our guys came back with a real hunger and it’s paid off here in September.”
Last season was tough, Haugan admits. It tested his patience. Yet the coaching staff felt it was the best thing for the hockey club to take some lumps last season and trade all its 20-yearolds.
“With Ryan Smith leaving to Swift Current and Dean (Brockman) leaving for the Saskatoon Blades (one year earlier), the ripple effect was pretty huge,” Haugan says. “We really felt we wanted to identify the guys we wanted to move forward with and we felt we did that. All those guys are with us this year and we’ve added some guys from trades and whatnot to round out that roster.
“We feel we’ve got a pretty competitive hockey team right now.”
Humboldt is led by Connor Swystun and Trevor Posch, who have been joined by fellow 1996s Luke Kempf, Parker Wakaruk and goalie Garrett Mason.
After a couple of trying years, Swystun is enjoying the winning ways.
“It’s a great feeling,” says Swystun, a 5-foot-10, 182-pound D-man from Saskatoon who was all bandaged up, and on his way for stitches, after blocking a shot with his jaw and popping out his shoulder one day earlier. “Everyone wants to be in first place. We can’t get too ahead of ourselves and need to keep working hard. It’s not going to come easily. It’s only going to get harder down the stretch.”
The Broncos also have 16 1997born players still around, but they lost their top scorer, Logan Schatz, to injury Sunday. He’s out indefinitely.
“We’ve got a lot of work to do,” said Haugan, “but the big thing with our guys is the attitude is right, the work ethic is right and the hunger is there, so we think it’s a good recipe. We’ll see how far it gets us.”
REIGNING CHAMPS REELING
It’s been a tough go for the reigning SJHL champion Melfort Mustangs, who played their fourth game in less than five days, a 5-2 loss Tuesday morning to Estevan.
After winning their first two of the season, the Mustangs have dropped three in a row. Their road trip took them to Weyburn on Friday, Notre Dame on Saturday, back and forth to Melfort and Warman on Sunday to play Battlefords and again back and forth Tuesday to play Estevan.
“Well, it’s just the luck of the draw with this showcase,” shrugged head coach and GM Trevor Blevins, whose beat-up team looked sluggish Sunday in a 4-0 loss to the Battlefords. “It’s just the way it worked out — it was three games in three days. We’ve got to battle through it.”
The Mustangs have been playing with the SJHL’s top D-man, Eric Sinclair, as they try to complete a deal that brought D-men Kirk Bear and Carter Hansen to Melfort last season.
“I can’t really comment,” said Blevins. “We’re still with the league, working out things.”
SCOUTING SHOWCASE
The SJHL Showcase, which wraps up Wednesday afternoon, is the most heavily scouted week for the league, attracting numerous NCAA, NHL, WHL and Canadian college scouts.
This week is no exception as the NHL is being represented here by the Buffalo Sabres, Edmonton Oilers, Los Angeles Kings, St. Louis Blues, Vancouver Canucks, Toronto Maple Leafs, Washington Capitals, Winnipeg Jets and, yes, the new NHL team in Las Vegas.
Among the NCAA schools who have stepped in to watch are Alaska-Anchorage, Arizona, Bemidji State, Cornell, Holy Cross, RIT (Rochester Institute of Technology), U-Mass-Lowell, Wisconsin-Superior, Hobart, Trine, St. Mary’s, Norwich and Williston State.