Giants wrap up hub season on high note
Season-ending victory over Victoria marks final WHL outing for trio of team leaders BCHL players stay COVID-free through five-week pod season
The Vancouver Giants' campaign, and the 61 days in a hotel that went with it, are over.
The Giants wrapped up their Western Hockey League B.C. Division hub season on Tuesday with a 6-1 win over the Victoria Royals at the Sandman Centre in Kamloops. They checked out of their rooms at the Sandman Signature Hotel across the street from the rink on Wednesday. They had been there since March 13.
Vancouver wound up with a record of 12-10-0-0 on the season.
“Being able to play this year has meant the world to all of us, and personally for me, I can't put into words how thankful I am,” Vancouver defenceman and team captain Alex Kannok Leipert said via text message on Wednesday. “This organization has gone above and beyond for us and we thank all the owners for that.”
The Prince George Cougars (9-92-1) were playing the Kamloops Blazers (17-4-0-0) at the Sandman Centre, and the Royals (3-16-1-1) were facing the Kelowna Rockets (9-5-1-0) at Prospera Place in Kelowna on Wednesday night to wrap up the B.C. hub and the fourth and final WHL division.
The U.S., Central and East divisions all finished earlier.
B.C.'s five teams played out of empty rinks in Kelowna and Kamloops. Vancouver and Prince George stayed at the hotel in Kamloops. The Royals stayed at the Coast Capri in Kelowna. The Blazers and the Rockets stayed with their billet families.
The teams paid for additional COVID-19 testing and the league announced Saturday there had been 14 positive results among the 9,735 tests administered from Feb. 12 through May 7.
B.C.'s WHL teams have combined with the 17 B.C. Hockey League clubs to ask the provincial government for $9.5 million in financial assistance. There's been no word yet on whether they will receive money.
Tuesday's game marked the end of the WHL careers of the Vancouver 20-year-old trio of Kannok Leipert, Tristen Nielsen and Eric Florchuk. Kannok Leipert was a Vancouver bantam draft. Forwards Nielsen and
The B.C. Hockey League completed its five-week pod season without a single positive COVID-19 test among its players.
According to league executive director Steven Cocker, the 16 participating teams had their players and team staff tested on five separate occasions over the course of the 20-game schedule. He said it totalled over 2,000 tests and the team owners paid the costs for the exams.
One team staff member tested positive, Cocker said.
Players from 12 of the teams continued to live with their billet families throughout the pod season, which started April 2 and wrapped-up on May 11. The Powell River Kings, Cranbrook Bucks, Trail Smoke Eaters and the Prince George Spruce Kings stayed in hotels during that period.
“We are very proud of our athletes,
Florchuk both came to the Giants via trades. Kannok Leipert (219), Nielsen (241) and Florchuk (270) played a combined 730 WHL regular season games.
“That's why we were able to play such a strong game and a physical game and didn't quit — we knew we coaches, support staff and medical personnel for their diligence in following the safety protocols. Completing 160 games without an athlete testing positive is no small feat,” Cocker said in an email.
The Penticton Vees (18-1-0-1), which hosted a pod with the Smoke Eaters and the Bucks, and the Surrey Eagles (17-2-1-0), who played Powell River and the Coquitlam Express in a pod in Burnaby, posted the league's best records.
Surrey winger Christian Fitzgerald led the pod season in scoring, putting up 33 points, including 13 goals, in 19 games. Fitzgerald, an 18-yearold from Coquitlam who is in his second season with the Eagles, is committed to Minnesota State University.
Victoria Grizzlies forward Ellis Rickwood (30 points) and Surrey centre Holden Katzalay (30 points) were playing for those three guys and wanted to give them the best memories,” Giants goalie Trent Miner said during Tuesday's postgame show on Sportsnet 650.
The contest could mark the end of Miner's WHL career, as well. He's eligible to spend his 20-year-old season playing minor pro instead of coming back to the Giants for a fifth year.
Miner was a 2019 seventh-round draft pick by the Colorado Avalanche and put up strong numbers in six games with the Colorado Eagles of the AHL before reporting to the Giants in Kamloops.
Kannok Leipert, Nielsen and Miner were all part of the Vancouver team that went to the WHL championship series in 2019. Florchuk was added last season just before the Jan. 10 trade deadline.
The WHL shut down its 2019-20 campaign last spring with six regular-season games left on the slate for Vancouver. B.C. health officials gave the five B.C. teams the go-ahead to play an abbreviated season March 1.
The B.C. plan had called for each team to play a 24-game season but the WHL shut down all activities for the Rockets on March 31 for two weeks after four players and two staffers tested positive for COVID-19.
During the hub season, a Giants player recorded a positive test but he hadn't joined the team cohort so the Vancouver season wasn't impacted.
The league hasn't named any of the players or team staff who tested positive. were next in the scoring race. Salmon Silverbacks forward Simon Tassy set the pace with 18 goals, along with nine assists.
Vees netminder Kaeden Lane topped the win column (15), goalsagainst average (1.13), save percentage (0.951) and shutouts (five).
The league was slated to include 18 teams this season. The Wenatchee Wild opted out of this season early due to COVID-19 restrictions in Washington state and issues with border travel, and the Langley Rivermen opted out just before the pod season.
The league played an extended exhibition schedule from Sept. 25 to Nov. 19. Restrictions to curtail COVID-19, which included forbidding game play between teams, left the BCHL in practice-only mode after that until the pod season began.