Vees celebrate with community
Meanwhile, coach Harbinson has already started working on next year
Twelve hours after his club was honoured at a community celebration for its second consecutive B.C. Hockey League playoff title, Penticton Vees coach Fred Harbinson went right back to work Tuesday morning.
“I’m finishing up some stuff from this year and just kind of finishing pieces on next year as well. And we’ve got league meetings I'm leaving for tomorrow in Victoria so I’m getting prepared for that too,” he said in a phone interview.
Harbinson, who was among the guests of honour at Monday night’s party at the South Okanagan Events Centre, has a tough act to follow next season.
After compiling a 50-3-0-1 regular season record this past campaign, the Vees went 16-1 in the playoffs and clinched the Fred Page Cup with a four-game sweep of the Alberni Valley Bulldogs.
It marked the first time the Vees won back-to-back titles since 1985-86 and Harbinson’s sixth cup as a coach — the most in BCHL history.
“People always say, ‘Does winning get old?’ No, it never gets old. You never know — this could be the last one, right?” said Harbinson, also the club’s general manager and president.
He acknowledged, though, that there was extra pressure on the squad after a record-setting regular season that also saw Vees claim the top three spots in the BCHL scoring race and return 13 players from last year’s championship squad.
But the club rose to the occasion and Harbinson believes this edition of the Vees has etched itself into history as the best one yet — including the 2011-12 squad that won 42 consecutive games and a national title.
“I think the way to put it would be the 2011-12 team had so many players play in the American Hockey League or the NHL, and this (2022-23) team might have more (future pro) players than that make careers in hockey,” said Harbinson.
“This might have been the best team all the way through depth-wise, from line one to line four, and our defence was deep too.”
That depth has attracted the attention of NHL scouts, with as many as six current and future Vees expected to hear their names called next month at the 2023 entry draft in Nashville.
The list includes forwards Bradly Nadeau, who was named league MVP and won the regular season scoring race with 113 points, and Aydar Suniev, who finished third with 90 points, and defenceman Ryan Hopkins, whose 49 points were third-best among all BCHL blue-liners.
The other three potential NHL draft picks played high school hockey this season and will be in Penticton for training camp this summer.
And when the 2023-24 edition of the Vees finally hits the ice, it will be in the newly independent BCHL, which announced May 1 it’s splitting from Hockey Canada.
“Our program is not about one person or one player. There's a culture that's been built here by everybody that's going to attract the next group of players, the next group of assistant coaches and support staff,” said Harbinson.
“We're not going to be like this year's team. But do I think we’ll have a chance to compete and be one of the teams fighting at the end of the year? Yeah. I think we're going to have a lot of young, talented players that are going to be hungry to try to keep this thing moving.”