Clippers, Grizzlies search for consistency
What you see in the B.C. Hockey League standings at 7-7-1 is exactly what you get on the ice with the Nanaimo Clippers.
“Our record reflects our season so far. Good and bad. A little bit of both,” said head coach Mike Vandekamp, whose charges face the visiting Victoria Grizzlies tonight at Frank Crane Arena.
“We continue to struggle to find some consistency, but all the games have been close.”
Vandekamp, in his seventh season of guiding the Clippers and 23rd season of coaching junior hockey, said it’s harder to build a program these days than it used to be.
“The kids move up the ladder quicker and they don’t stick around as long. So there is a lot of turnover and a lot of new faces each year.”
But that is the nature of the beast known as Junior A hockey with players juggling team goals with their individual NCAA collegiate, and maybe eventual pro, ambitions.
The Clippers have four NCAA-committed players so far this season. Jack MacNab is headed to Notre Dame, Ben Pirko to Union, Jamie Collins to Clarkson and Brad Belisle to Bemidji State.
“Kids move on to the NCAA. We are a development league. But winning is always the goal,” added Vandekamp.
“We have been striving for consistency, and are keeping our head above water, to be in the best position to be peaking for the playoffs.”
The past five games have been typical of Nanaimo’s season. They lost all three games of an Interior road trip that Vandekamp described as “tough” but followed up with a home sweep of Prince George and Coquitlam last weekend at Frank Crane.
Providing steadiness on defence has been 20-year-old Jordan Wharrie, whose welltravelled WHL career included a stop in Victoria with the Royals.
The Grizzlies (9-6-1), meanwhile, have four NCAA-bound players on the 2017-18 roster to date. Jamie Rome (Western Michigan) and Drayson Pears (Alaska-Anchorage) join the highly touted Canada U-17 pair of Alex Newhook (Boston College) and Jacson Alexander (Denver).
The Grizzlies also are striving to find that elusive quality in sports known as consistency. They too lost all three games of a recent Interior road trip, part of a four-game losing streak, before rebounding to capture five of a possible six points over the last three games including a victory in Port Alberni on Sunday.
Grizzlies blue-liner Alexander said Victoria was having trouble going the distance during its bad patch and has recently “played the full 60 minutes . . . and not 45 or 50 minutes like we did during our recent four straight losses . . . we are coming along.”