TOUGH YEAR FOR KINGS
After winning their first league title last year and coming within a game of a national championship, the Prince George Spruce Kings were swept by the Trail Smoke Eaters in the first round of the B.C. Hockey League playoffs held las week.
Here’s what happened and what’s next for the Kings:
OFFSEASON
- General manager Mike Hawes was left with 17 positions to fill from the team that went to the Canadian junior A championship.
- Alex Evin was promoted as a first-year BCHL head coach to replace Adam Maglio, who jumped to the WHL’s Spokane Chiefs in the off-season. Just a month into the season, Evin’s associate, Jesse Leung, left the team for personal reasons and was replaced by Colin Minardi.
REGULAR SEASON
- The Kings went 18-32-3-5-0 overall which dropped the Kings to a 15thplace finish in the league and that pitted them in a crossover playoff against the highly-touted Smoke Eaters.
- They won a league-low seven games at home, going 7-15-3-4-0, their worst home record in 15 seasons. Twelve of those 22 defeats were by onegoal margins and six were two-goal losses.
- The Kings lacked forward depth and consequently scored a league-low 150 goals, averaging 2.58 per game in the season.
- Injuries devastated the blueline and top-line winger Chong Min Lee had his season cut short by the need for shoulder surgery just 24 games into a 58-game schedule.
- 12 different players came and went. - Home crowds averaged 976, eighthbest in the 17 – team league and just slightly below the 983 crowd-count average last season.
NEXT SEASON
- Evin will be back for the second year of
a two-year contract.
- Fifteen players are eligible to return. - The Kings will lose seven players off the roster, including overagers Nolan Welsh, Jarin Sutton, Jett Alexander, and Preston Brodziak, and college recruits Lee, Nick Bochen and Nick Poisson.
- Sixteen-year-old centre Fin Williams is a BCHL star in the making and his feisty nature and considerable playmaking skills will serve the Kings well for at least the next two seasons until he’s ready for the NCAA at Michigan. - Fan favourite Corey Cunningham thrived in his second full season playing the wing for his hometown team and led the Kings with 26 goals, finishing second to Poisson with 44 points. - Goalie Carter Woodside joined the Kings in November from the KIJHL and developed under Evin’s tutelage into a solid netminder capable of winning games his teammates did not deserve. - Mason Waite joined the Kings from the North American league and his toughness, skating ability and smart decision-making provided a bastion of stability to the injury-plagued defence corps.
KEY QUOTES: Hawes
“It certainly didn’t play out the way we intended. We were a younger, inexperienced group and there were some growing pains.”
Welsh
“We showed we can be a good team, especially for the guys coming back. This is a big step for them to get their first experience in the playoffs and I thought a lot of them did well and it’s just going to build for next year.”
Evin
“I’m proud of our guys, the way they handled themselves as people and citizens in the community. It’s a good locker-room in there.”